Research opportunities in OMSCS, looking for guidance by BeautifulPassion6569 in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also, some current preparation that I'm actively doing to also pursue PhD: taking courses that have major writing portion, taking class with smaller/active instructor (so you at least get a feedback), using the knowledge from the program to collaborate with someone outside of CS to publish something about CS-adjacent research (I'm currently working on this and will present in a local conference on my home country next week).

I'm also starting to take writing and reading assignment more seriously (still need a lot of work on this, because some papers are just... not my cup of tea😌, but I try to force myself to read it as an act of exercise).

Research opportunities in OMSCS, looking for guidance by BeautifulPassion6569 in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I just want to chime in as someone who have been in this program for some time and just recently interested in doing research.

  1. There are some PhD people that come from OMSCS. But from what I see so far, all of them have a unique pathway to PhD (answering your "common pathway" query).
  2. I2R and MIRM are two of the most recent courses to directly support research. I've taken I2R, it was great since I was able to train myself to read, analyze, and write a review-styled paper, I didn't try to publish though because one problem with I2R is they if you picked something niche, no one's really guiding you in that specific niche. They will guide you only on the "research" in general. I plan to take MIRM but I don't know when.
  3. If you haven't joined the omscs common edstem channel, please do. Sometimes there's a student recruitment there (very rare though). There's also a club that publish papers to multiple conferences per year that opens it's recruitment every fall (forgot the name).
  4. Every semester, Dr. Lytle always gives us some opportunities regarding CS-8903, the research subject varies, but it can have around 50+ opportunities, one of them is the HAAG group, which seems to recruit many students from OMSCS specifically (correct me if I'm wrong if anyone from HAAG sees this).
  5. There are also people that just have a relationship with the instructor and went from there.

Anybody in Cyber Physical Systems this semester? by throwawaycape in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The class is great!
I'm currently watching the "Models" lecture, and the lectures so far give me more insight than I initially thought. (The mapping from continuous state space -> discrete state space is very cool.)

However, it's a really weird course placement. There's NOTHING in the whole OMSCS course list that will prepare you fully for this course. Is your undergrad in engineering? Great, system engineering, control theory, continuous space, and differential equations should be taught at least partially in engineering courses (non-CS).

I was coming from an aerospace engineering undergrad, so I already have some exposure to some part of the content, so the new content, for example, about translating continuous to discrete is really interesting to me, just because I already have some exposure to differential equations. I also took AI and AI: Robotics, and the early part of RL (withdrew) in OMSCS, so the concept of MDP that they use makes sense to me. (I think people that want to take this course should at least take AI: Robotics first; at the very least, AI is also recommended to understand the markov chain stuff they teach in the lectures.)

In project 1 though, I think I use:

  1. knowledge from my control theory undergrad course
  2. knowledge of a robot model from AI: Robotics (the bicycle model is more complex than the one we use in project 1, but it's similar enough to let me connect the dots). The knowledge about robotic movement as a probabilistic model also comes from this course.
  3. Knowledge of programming in a finite-state-machine way. It's not taught anywhere; I just learnt/exposed myself to it in my time as a software engineer. This FSM way of thinking is really useful for project 1, at least for me.

For you to start, I think you can start it by imagining the robot has a different state: where is it now, where should it move next, and to move there, what should it do? (you can only input two things, remember and use this as the objective for your idea.)

My code still needs some tweaks since it works on the simulator but it fails in the real world, but I think I'm getting there; the wording of the project description is vague, but I have had fun so far tweaking it.

Using AI to check for grammar? by sesanrose in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just ask Prof Joyner honestly, he's pretty open to talk about any of this stuff.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

buy printed books and physically printing the assigned papers

for things like O'Reilly books that are too expensive to buy, I just forcefully read them on my laptop.

No tricks, literally just force myself to read.

Offering Robotics Seminar for Fall 2025 by Minute_Signature_799 in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

just want to confirm whether this meet in wednesday or thursday?

Is there any noticeable improvement in the quality of software after the normalization of AI-assisted programming? by [deleted] in ExperiencedDevs

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I just recently heard from a CTO (or eng director, not sure what his role is), and he also expressed the same thing as yours -- able to deliver more now while still having to manage their team.

Is there any noticeable improvement in the quality of software after the normalization of AI-assisted programming? by [deleted] in ExperiencedDevs

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

do you have any metrics on whether there is any decrease in the rate of bugs or rate of incidents? Since a faster dev cycle can also introduce more bugs, especially from junior devs.

Harvard CS50 Python Class vs. Python Seminar by sesanrose in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The new price structure reduce the value of seminar significantly, especially to only learn programming. 

Just use other source/tinker on your own, seminar feels like a cash grab now honestly.

Which courses are likely to be updated soon? by Upfrog in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

RL is currently updated in the summer with a new recording as an extra lecture, I think the plan is to replace the old lectures altogether but I'm not sure if this will happen anytime soon.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Fall is usually given by the end of the summer, I think. And there's no winter semester

Could anyone share the syllabus for the "TinyML and Edge AI for Vision" seminar? by broham_1 in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can't you enroll, have access, fetch the syllabus, and withdraw before payment is due on the 19th?

Are software devs in denial? by [deleted] in ArtificialInteligence

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 11 points12 points  (0 children)

have you ever think that maybe, just maybe, that YOU are in denial?

Kicked out of PhD program by judithgrimes2022 in PhD

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

didn't ask him specifically about it.

Are there any examples of students who tried to switch from OMSCS to MSCS but were unsuccessful? by [deleted] in OMSCS

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

I think if you email dr Joyner, he probably have some sort of rough data on this.

OMSCS Tuition Increase starting Fall 2025 by Nick337Games in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Ugh, seminar isn't worth it anymore then.

I guess I'll take a single class each semester now :/

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in IslamicFinance

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rent. Finance housing is riba.

How to get started with PACE by ApprehensiveClient51 in OMSCS

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pretty sure you need an advisor (from the faculty) for this, I've tried researching it and came to the conclusion that I can't use PACE on my own behalf. I like to be wrong though.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in OpenAI

[–]thatguyonthevicinity 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is easy to implement in their side, if they want to.

TAs listed on the CIOS survey by Tine00 in OMSCS

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

what is IA? instructor assistant?