How to Maximize Your Masters Experience
Disclaimer: Drawing from my experience during my thesis-based masters. May not apply to everyone’s interests and goals for masters/life.
I thought I might reflect back on what has been a crazy two years and give some advice to those out there wondering if they should do a masters. Although the funding for a graduate student does not pay as well as industry positions, I am glad I made the decision to pursue a masters as this experience has allowed me to dig into my interests and gain an insight into the increasing overlap between industry and academia in the field of artificial intelligence, specifically computer vision.
Content
- Life of a graduate student
- Internships
- Conferences and Journals
- Key take-aways
Life of a graduate student
Apart from having an advisor and funding, I found that there was significantly less time spent on coursework compared to during undergraduate. With the copious amount of extra time, I had to manage efficiently to get the most out of my two years.
Advisor
How you get along with your advisor is just as important as finding an advisor with similar research interests. My professor was more than just an advisor that helped guide me through the research process and paper editing. He was also someone I could go to for advice and talk about random stuff that is currently happening around the world. He liked to call himself our “research dad” and made sure his students were not only on track to graduate, but also what we plan to do after our degree. By having an advisor you get along with, you can maximize your research experience.
Lab
Being a graduate student most of the times means that you are a part of the lab your professor is running. Other graduate students in the lab are a great way to collaborate on projects unrelated to your thesis, as well as to get mentorship. These are also the people who make conference more enjoyable as most of the times we rent out large Airbnbs and attend talks together. These are also the people who you get to take your photos when you are presenting in conferences (as shown in the following sections).
Funding
As a research based graduate student, there are fundings from different scholarships, part-time internships through Mitacs and being a graduate research assistant, so there is no worry about pulling money out of your own pocket to pay for tuition.
Teaching assistant
During my masters, I also gained teaching experience through being a teaching assistant for 3 terms. This allowed me to make an extra amount on top of my funding while also figuring out how to teach tutorials and explain what may seem like simple concepts to me to confused undergraduates.
Research
Although selecting a thesis topic and working on thesis research is important, this should not be the sole focus of your masters. I would suggest selecting a thesis topic early on to optimize the masters experience, as masters programs are usually only 2 years. For a thesis-based masters, courses are still required but are significantly less than the course load during undergraduate. In my case, I just had to take 4 courses throughout my WHOLE masters. By selecting a thesis topic early on, this allows you to effectively plan which courses to take, as well as to use the course projects as an opportunity to conduct your thesis research. As my professor says, the goal should be to “kill two birds with one stone”. Not only do you get credit for the course, but you also make progress on your thesis research. In my case, 3 out of my 4 courses contributed to my thesis as shown below.
- Statistical Image Processing — Although the project in this course did not make it into my thesis, this course laid down the fundamentals of computer vision.
- Deep learning — I used the project in this course to explore initial experiments, which made it into the first technical portion of the thesis.
- Fundamentals of Assistive Technology and Rehabilitation Engineering — I incorporated what I learned in this course to the introduction and motivation of my thesis.
- Graphical Deep Learning — The project in this course allowed me to explore the second technical portion of my thesis.
By taking advantage of course projects and content, I was able to allocate time towards researching and publishing other projects unrelated to my thesis, as well as going to internships and conferences.
Internships
Having chosen my thesis topic early on, I was able to plan out the remaining months of my masters. Masters typically last for 6 four month terms. Giving myself a lot of room, I devoted 3 of those terms to coursework and thesis research. For one of those terms, I decided to intern at Lyft Level 5 in the Bay Area to work on perception for self driving cars, which has been an interest of mine. For the remaining two terms, I interned part-time at DarwinAI through Mitacs while still working on different research projects and writing my thesis. The internships I had during my masters allowed me to gain hands-on experience on how AI can be productionized in industry and areas where more research is needed. Additional internships during graduate school also give you an edge when applying for full-time positions.
Conferences
Overall, conferences are very overwhelming but rewarding. Many months before a conference, you have to plan a paper to submit or see which current research project is at a stage for submission. During the conference, you go from attending oral and poster sessions, along with visiting company expos, during the day to attending company networking events at night.
Peer reviews
Although the research in a masters thesis does not need to be peer reviewed, submitting papers to conferences can provide you with expert opinions that can be incorporated into the final thesis. Getting through the peer review process, which means the acceptance of the submitted paper, also provides you with an “all expenses paid” trip (ie: flights, Airbnbs/hotels, food) to the conference by the university. In the case of the lottery draw for NeurIPS tickets, I was able to obtain a ticket for being a presenter. During my masters I have not only received reviews, but also given reviews. Overall, the peer review process taught me to be more critical and detailed in both my work and in the papers I have reviewed.
Presenting
Throughout my masters, I have presented both my thesis research and other research projects at conferences. This experience improved my communication skills and how to explain my research motivation, methods and results concisely. These presentations also allow you to connect with others in the field and gather feedback.
Expos
One advice I would give is to bring an extra bag and pack light, especially on T-shirts. At large conferences, such as CVPR and NeurIPS, you are likely to be overwhelmed by the expo. There are companies ranging from self-driving to healthcare to financial. Expos are a way to meet employees at various companies and discover new companies. There is also a lot of swag (aka stuff we all get)! Make sure to go early in case the swag runs out. The picture on the left shows the types of swag. Although there are a lot of t-shirts, hats, stickers, bags, chargers and water bottles, there are also some unique items like fitness sliders, reusable bubble tea straws, umbrellas and if you are really lucky, sweaters! As my professor says, “Don’t come back if you’re not bringing me back swag”.
Parties
A couple weeks before the start of conferences, companies often send out invitations for private networking events at night. So keep a look out for the emails as you have to RSVP fast before spots fill up. Another upside to attending conferences as a lab is that sometimes you are able to share party invites with each other. I found these events to be a great place to meet industry researchers and engineers while also dining on unlimited food and drinks, and sometimes even more swag.
Networking
Conferences are also a great place to network with people from all over the world. Every part of the conference is an opportunity to network. Poster sessions are a way to connect with other researchers in the same area. Expos allow you to connect with many recruiters, which will be especially beneficial when it comes to applying to internships and full-time positions. At private company events, aka “conference parties”, you can connect with researchers and engineers at the company and other invited graduate students in a casual setting.
Key take-aways
- Pick a thesis topic early as it helps plan out the rest of your masters
- Apply for internships and conferences! Internships give a nice perspective into what positions are out there in your area and helps when it’s time to apply for full-time positions. Conferences are a great way to meet people, learn about trends in the area and get your work critiqued, which is helpful when finally writing that thesis
- Networking! I am coming out of my masters knowing a diverse group of people (industry engineers/researchers, graduate students, professors) that have all had different experiences for me to draw on
