How to choose final project
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This document provides guidance on choosing and conducting a final year undergraduate research project. It discusses: - The benefits of doing a project, such as learning real-world skills and becoming an expert in a subject. - Factors to consider when choosing a project topic, such as your interests, the industry, and career goals. It's important to pick a topic that is interesting, meaningful, and feasible within the time frame. - How to identify a project mentor and get the most out of the advising relationship through regular communication and preparation. - Best practices for conducting the project such as having goals, writing early, and presenting results to gain feedback and visibility. - The iterative research process
How to choose final project
- 1. HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR M. RAJA REDDY, Ph.D. rrmitta@gmail.com
- 2. MRR 2 OUTLINE • Why do your project in final year B. Tech? • Your project topic and career choice • Criteria to choose and the goals • How to choose your project mentor • How to do and the process of doing project
- 3. MRR 3 WHY DO YOUR PROJECT IN FINAL YEAR OF B.TECH? Learn a set of work skills that you can't get from curricula classes • Significant writing task • Independent unstructured work task • Do something real •Learning, writing and presentation skills • Team work with leadership Become a true expert in something • Master a specific subject completely • Extend the body of knowledge about that subject A key concern with doing a project: • Learn the key skills to handle project with a team • Plan the project - to bring value addition for the future job you do? • Understand the industry and select the best fit-in project to meet your future career goals.
- 4. MRR 4 YOUR PROJECT TOPIC AND YOUR FUTURE CAREER • Choosing a PROJECT topic o Of interest to you, your advisor and the Industry/research community o A “real problem” and not a “toy problem” o Right problem size? •Read literature and understand central ideas in your field! •Write down your ideas: pros and cons •Talk to people (anyone who would listen) and Get advice from experts •Can you do it? Any technical problem? Theme will slowly emerge! •Write down a couple of ideas and try to sell them to your mentor •Think day and night (if you can dream about it, it will certainly happen one day!) Get haunted by the idea! •Improvise your ideas! And Communicate your excitement in the proposal!
- 5. DEFINING THE PROJECT MRR 5 A good project description: • will be understandable for a non-expert • will clearly describe what the student will do, and how the project fits into the bigger picture • will include number of hours per week, any course prerequisites or required experience, project duration, and oversight Consider the level of independence the project requires and design selection process accordingly. Identify other resource materials that an interested student may use to prepare for the project, such as a website or an article. Discuss student’s interests and background Be sure student is familiar with current research related to their idea (Suggest reading if necessary) Develop research question/hypothesis/specific focus and outline approach Have student write a project description
- 6. 6 CRITERIA FOR PROJECT TOPICS • Extendability after completion • Time to complete • “Hotness” • Advisor’s enthusiasm • Closeness to advisor’s research • Depth of existing research • Uniqueness • Tractability • “Once you have identified some topics you are interested in, you can research them rapidly by spending a few hours on the telephone calling up experts in the field and pumping them for information.” – Proceed with caution!! – Don’t do this without your advisor’s blessing – E-mail is better than telephone – Be specific MRR
- 7. MRR 7 PROJECT EXPERIENCE AND YOUR GOALS •As a part of the Project activity o Make sure your writing improves o Make sure you learn how to schedule and pace o Make sure you get experience at independent/unstructured problem solving o Publish, become known. o Become an expert in something you own
- 8. MRR 8 GETTING THE MOST OF WHAT YOU READ • Organization (digital bibliography with pointers to papers) • Efficiency (Read what you need to) • Take notes on every paper • Problem, approach and related approaches • Summarize what you have read on each topic • Read UG/PG/project and PhD Theses
- 9. 9 WHAT IS RESEARCH PROJECT?? • Asking “why” and “how” • Creating innovative solutions to novel problems • Also: o Understanding previous work o Testing hypotheses o Analyzing data o Publishing results • Not: o Applying existing techniques to a new problem o Developing a one-shot solution to a problem MRR
- 10. 10 A GOOD TOPIC • ...is unsolved • ...is important • ...is interesting to you • ...is interesting to your advisor • ...is interesting to the research community • ...has useful applications • ...applies to more than one problem MRR
- 11. 11 SCOPE • Too broad is bad • Too narrow is bad • Too constrained is bad • Too unconstrained is bad • “Telescoping” is best MRR
- 12. 12 GETTING JUMPSTARTED • Read! • Write o Annotated bibliographies o Literature surveys (including open challenges) • Replicate previous work o Re-implement o Re-derive o Re-experiment • Start varying parameters, assumptions, environments MRR
- 13. 13 READ, READ, READ! • You have to read a lot of research papers to become an expert • You have to become an expert before you can produce high- quality results • You have to produce high-quality results before you can complete your project. • you have to read a lot of research papers (and other people’s theses/dissertations) MRR
- 14. PLANNING FOR MENTOR DESIGNED PROJECTS • Projects should have a reasonable scope • Projects should be feasible • Projects should generate data that the student can present • Projects should not simply include cookbook experiments • Projects should have built-in difficulties that will be faced after the student has developed some confidence • Projects should be multifaceted MRR 14
- 15. MRR 15 PICKING AN ADVISOR (MENTOR) • Pick an advisor on one criteria, such as support, research area, or personality • How to be successful: Pick the best compromise (for YOU!) of the following indicators. o Research area o Support opportunity o Physical environment for getting work done o Intellectual environment for getting work done o Peer support system (group) o Personality: Interaction at a personal level o Personality: Management style (hands on vs. hands off) o Level of attention o Track record on timely graduation o Professional advancement
- 16. MRR 16 WORKING WITH AN ADVISOR •The most important thing is frequent interaction o Meet often and document your progress (in writing) o Have short and long-term milestones •What an advisor can do for you?! o Mentor, including advice and direction on your work o Source of technical assistance o Get the best out of you o Helps you find resources o Gives you credit for the work you do/defends your work o Acts as a shield between you and the department! o Career advice
- 17. MRR 17 GETTING THE MOST OF YOUR ADVISOR • Meet regularly • Prepare for your meetings • Email the advisor a summary of every meeting • Show your advisor the results of your work ASAP • Communicate clearly • Take the initiative
- 18. 18 EXPECTATIONS • You can reasonably expect your advisor to: – Be available on a somewhat regular schedule – Suggest courses and schedules – Help you to select and solve project topics – Suggest committee members – Provide feedback on written work and work in progress – Suggest possible solutions to research problems – Encourage you to publish – Write letters of reference • Your advisor may also: – Provide career advice – Help you find a job, if the faculty having contacts MRR
- 19. 19 NOT-SO-GREAT EXPECTATIONS • Your advisor should not expect you to: o Perform excessive administrative tasks or paperwork o Contribute to research without authorship o Consistently work unreasonably long hours o Have no life outside of the lab • You should not expect your advisor to: o Constantly remind you what you need to be doing o Solve every problem you encounter o Be familiar with every aspect of your research problem o Provide unlimited resources (time, equipment...) MRR
- 20. 20 WRITE EARLY! • Write an annotated bibliography • Write a proposal outline • Write a literature survey • Write an outline of a conference paper • Write an outline of the dissertation • Show your writing to your advisor, other graduate students, colleagues, ... discuss MRR
- 21. 21 ARTICULATING YOUR TOPIC • What is the question to be answered? • What is an approach you might try to get started? • What is the claim you’d like to make? • What is the evidence you could gather? MRR
- 22. 22 THE RESEARCH PROCESS • Research is not linear • Balance your time among o reading o writing o thinking o doing • and between o narrow focus o broad focus MRR
- 23. 23 PROJECT ADVICE • Work on important problems • Commit yourself emotionally to your work • Work hard • Tolerate uncertainty • Generalize • Don’t make excuses • Sell yourself and your work • Don’t fight the system • Be collegial • Look for the positive • Know your strengths and weaknesses MRR
- 24. 24 PROJECT ADVICE • Start with problems, not with solutions o Ideally, focus on a general problem or class of applications • Question assumptions o ...of your work and previous work • Break your research into manageable pieces • Know how you will evaluate your method o Understand the standard methodologies for your field o Identify evaluation metrics o Develop baseline methods and benchmark problems • Have long-term and short-term goals • Sell yourself and your work MRR
- 25. 25 GOOD PROJECT PRACTICES • Be a good colleague o Help your advisor, other students, other faculty, colleagues o Collaborate! • Use other activities to benefit your project • Announce your accomplishments • Seek out supportive environments MRR
- 26. THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN! • Where do we get our ideas from? o Advisor/ Committee members/ colleagues o Reading literature/publications o Library/internet o Conferences/seminars o Draw inspiration from anywhere you can o What is a great idea? 26MRR Stealing from one source is plagiarism, while stealing from many is research: Jacob Kraicer, U Toronto
- 27. PROJECT - PROCESS • Segment the project into size of team • Identify of each member role and what they have to do? • Team lead should give handpull for the average students. • Mentor should work with the team and learn while doing • Mentor should create the environment with expression of freedom for the students • Spare the time to review and advise the team what they have to do and how to do • Encourage them to work and enjoy in discussing and learning and gaining the knowledge • Make all the students to speak their topic and mentor them how to speak MRR 27
- 28. PROJECT RESULTS AND REPORT • Present the results to the project review board • Take the constructive criticism and improve the project outcome. • Plan a time line for the project and try to meet the schedules • Seek the support of other faculty or friends in completing the project • Write the project report parallel with the activity doing • Quality is more important, not quantity. • Use simple language to write the report • Seek the expert advise in editing the report. MRR 28
- 29. PROJECT REPORT – VALUE ADDITION FOR CAREER • All team members should have clear clarity on the project, its application. • Identify the employers for possible career option. • Practice how to speak the project in professional way • Differentiate in project presentation with a language (technical) to peak to the employer • Connect with Alumni and your seniors for possible reference in the core engineering job • Prepare a paper and present in conference/seminar to get the visibility in the industry or possible employers • Participate in competitions of design Idea/technical projects etc. MRR 29
- 30. WISH YOU ALL THE BEST MRR 30