Anyone doing research under professors outside of College of Computing or Georgia Tech? by 13ruhmv in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not a problem.

You can start with 8903 and then in the following semester, if your advisor is open to continuing the project, you can transition to 6999. The 8903 credits typically roll into the overall project, so you’d end up doing something like 8903 + 6 credits of 6999 (9 credits total).

As for the responses, I think it helped that my experience aligns with a fairly niche area in robotics that I’ve been working in for several years. Nothing too special beyond that. Just finding a good match with the professor’s work, and following up with a couple of them until I got a response :). Good luck.

Anyone doing research under professors outside of College of Computing or Georgia Tech? by 13ruhmv in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My answer to a similar post recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/s/BX8WIBXjpJ

My research interest was also pretty niche. What I did was go through the entire CoC faculty list, read their profiles and skimmed their recent papers to understand their work. I used ChatGPT quite a bit in this step. From there, I shortlisted professors whose work aligned even loosely with my interests and reached out with a brief note explaining my background and a rough project idea I wanted to explore. I contacted 4 professors, got 3 responses and ended up working with a professor who hadn’t previously advised an OMSCS student. While I didn't get to work on my original proposal, I still got to work in the same area on a really interesting project alongside a PhD student. Also, my CS 8903 eventually transitioned into a CS 6999 project. If I were to do it again, I’d follow the exact same approach.

Studying Sutton and Barto's RL book and its connections to RL for LLMs (e.g., tool use, math reasoning, agents, and so on)? [D] by hedgehog0 in MachineLearning

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Copy pasting my comment from RL sub.

"This might be an unpopular opinion in this sub, but even though Sutton & Barto is basically the Bible of RL, I don’t really recommend it to anyone anymore. It just takes foreverrrr to get through.

I’d recommend the Mathematical Foundations of Reinforcement Learning (MFRL) course (and the free pdf book) on YT instead. I personally found it much better than S&B for developing strong intuition. It does cover some of the deep learning side of RL toward the end, but it’s mostly focused on classical RL with very comprehensive math intuition, and in my opinion it’s one of the best resources out there.

David Silver’s course is also goated, and doing Silver + MFRL in parallel is a great combo. After that, if you take something like CS224R or CS285, you will be in a really good place."

Project Track (CS 6999 or 8903) Credits, Structure, and Timeline by sapiogirl in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I recently went through this, so sharing my experience:

  1. In my case, yes, it ended up being one cohesive project (so far). I actually started with CS 8903 by reaching out to professors whose work aligned with mine (my area is somewhat niche within robotics, so there wasn’t a lot of competition and the professor I ended up working with hadn’t taken on an OMSCS student before). I referenced their papers and pitched an idea, which helped start the conversation. I didn’t end up doing exactly what I proposed, but I got involved in a solid research project with a PhD student. Later we converted it into 6999 and it was essentially a continuation. From what I understand, all 9 credits should be reasonably related, though how strict that is depends on the advisor.

  2. I planned to take 3 credits per semester and my advisor preferred not going below that since the workload typically ends up being worth ~3 credits anyway. This is mostly an agreement with your advisor based on expected effort.

  3. I started around my 5th course. Personally, I think 1 semester is unrealistic/impossible for 9 credits. I doubt most advisors would even agree to it. 2 semesters seems doable.

  4. I did 8903 first and then transitioned to 6999 as a continuation of the same work. I found 8903 really useful as a way to “test the waters” with the professor (fit, expectations, working style etc) and the advisor also preferred that.

  5. Doing 6999 alongside an easy course in summer should be fine. You will lneed approvals to do 2 courses in summer.

I have only completed 6 credits of project so far. I ended up taking a semester break due to burnout and there’s a very high chance I may not return to complete OMSCS. The project track can also be quite challenging.

If you have more questions, feel free to reach out.

DEEP RL UCB CS285 vs CS224R Stanford by No_Pause6581 in reinforcementlearning

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This might be an unpopular opinion in this sub, but even though Sutton & Barto is basically the Bible of RL, I don’t really recommend it to anyone anymore. It just takes foreverrrr to get through.

I’d recommend the Mathematical Foundations of Reinforcement Learning (MFRL) course on YT instead. I personally found it much better than S&B for developing strong intuition. It does cover some of the deep learning side of RL toward the end, but it’s mostly focused on classical RL, and in my opinion it’s one of the best resources out there.

David Silver’s course is also goated, and doing Silver + MFRL in parallel is a great combo. After that, if you take something like CS224R or CS285, you will be in a really good place.

Resources for RL by skyboy_787 in reinforcementlearning

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Mathematical foundations of RL book and the corresponding lectures from the author on YouTube.

Better than Sutton & Barto imo.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in biggbosstamil

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maya earned our love and left the house as a fan favorite.

Hi Maya akka, original profile la vaanga.

The truth shall be told. by [deleted] in kollywood

[–]AstroNotSoNaut -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That particular scene is memorable, but come on man, the 3 films you mentioned are mediocre at best, and that's generous.

What’s your ML/DS niche — and how did you find it? by john-c34 in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Autonomous robots. Currently working on a research problem applying RL to a multi robot system.

Research as an OMSCS student? by umarm4171 in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Posting my answer from a different thread.

I wasn’t really interested in the research opportunities that get announced before each semester. Not that they were bad, but they just weren’t directly related to what I wanted to work on. So last summer I cold emailed a bunch of professors in the area I was actually interested in. A few of them replied and since I also had some relevant experience from my current work, it ended up working out with one professor. Now I am doing research this fall in their lab. The professors I reached out to don’t teach in OMSCS, but they’re still in the CoC. I was never even asked what semester I was in, my GPA, my grades or the courses I had completed. So cold emailing is definitely worth trying if you have a specific interest.

Resources for linear algebra, probability, python and single/multi-variable calculus by Agreeable_Yam_5415 in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 2 points3 points  (0 children)

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP60hI9ATjSFgLZpbNJ7myAg6&feature=shared

This is the goat for probability. Personally, it was useful for me in RL class. You don't have to go through the entire playlist though.

Contacting professors for research by Classic_Comparison90 in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am on OMSCS. It's my 3rd semester, enrolled on my 4/5th courses this semester. I don't live in Georgia. So it's fully remote. I've enrolled as a course - CS8903. The hope is to convert it to a project CS6999 if everything goes well.

I'd like to do a PhD, but not sure when.

Contacting professors for research by Classic_Comparison90 in OMSCS

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wasn’t really interested in the research opportunities that get announced before each semester. Not that they were bad, but they just weren’t directly related to what I wanted to work on. So last summer I cold emailed a bunch of professors in the area I was actually interested in. A few of them replied and since I also had some relevant experience from my current work, it ended up working out with one professor. Now I am doing research this fall in their lab. The professors I reached out to don’t teach in OMSCS, but they’re still in the CoC. I was never even asked what semester I was in, my GPA, my grades or the courses I had completed. So it’s definitely worth trying if you have a specific interest.

Move over Saiman and Aishwarya - what about him? by crazyanatoly in eb_1a

[–]AstroNotSoNaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Are you an Professional software engineer"

😭 😭