In CPS 300 we will discuss how to get started in research.  This is a
pressing issue for you, as now is the time to start talking to faculty
members about your research interests if you have not done so
already. It is a pressing issue for the faculty too: in our faculty
meeting today, a discussion on standards for the graduate program
devolved into hand-wringing over how to draw students into the culture
of independent research earlier, before we have numbed your minds with
assigned homework, TA duties, lectures, etc.  Come to think of it,
most of you were looking pretty numb in our last class.  I think we
have reached a stage in the semester where it is going to take more
than pizza and Grand Challenges to generate some excitement.

I'm not sure how to break through that, but at least we can talk about
how to get started in what you are really here for.  This will
probably be the last general discussion like this, since I hope to
fill the rest of our sessions with other faculty talking about
specific research areas.

I've assembled some links to some Web notes that are useful and
interesting on this topic:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~chase/cps300/research-advice.html

Please take a few minutes to click through the first four.  They are
all fun and worth the time.  It will be a good break from 220/230/270.

And now, for the first and only time, I will assign some real work.  I
would like you all to write one page on what kind of research you want
to do.  You can talk about areas, problems, or methodologies.  You can
talk about research that is already in progress here that you might
like to be involved in.  You can talk about Grand Challenges or your
views on significant contributions in the past and opportunities to
build on them.  The point is to think about what YOU want to do an
what you want to be, and write it down.  One page, in pdf form,
generated from a latex source.  Please put pdf on the Web and e-mail
me a URL with the subject line "CPS 300 research statement".  Note
that I am not asking you to expose it to anyone else at this stage if
you don't want to: you don't have to link it onto your web page, and
you can remove it from the Web later (or revise it).  It is due by the
end of the day on November 17, two weeks from today.