(ITSC-3990)
2025-2026

Fill out this Google Form to attend an Info Session for Fall 2025:

Course Overview

ITSC-3990 is a course designed to engage undergraduate research students in research. This course is designed to be a student's first experience with research. The key details of this course are:

Project-Driven Course
- There is no lecture component to this course.
- Course participation primarily involves working on your research project.
One-on-One Collaboration with Faculty
- Every student is assigned a faculty mentor.
- You will meet regularly (e.g. no less than once a week) with your faculty mentor.
- Faculty mentor meetings help plan the project, evaluate progress, and plan next steps.
- This is exactly how real-world research teams operate!
Supplementary Content
- Multiple out-of-class opportunities for training and professional development.
- Introduction to Research, How to Design a Scientific Poster, Masters/4+1 Program Overview, HPC Data Center Tour, and other potential out of class events.

Requirements & Expectations

As an introduction to research, the students generally succeed if they meet the following requirements and expectations:

Sophomore or Junior by Credit hour
- Research is a potential new career path
- Taking the course before you have reached 90 credit hours allows you time to develop research skills before graduation.
Completed ITSC-2214 (Data Structures and Algorithms)
- Research requires some basic CS Foundation
- Additional skills may be required for your project!
Time to Contribute
- Your research project is primarily driven by you!
  - The progress you make depends on your time commitment.
- Ordinary Courses require 12-15 total hours of total time commitment, including outside of class
  - This course reflects that.
  - Ensure you do not have too many conflicting priorities when taking this course; it will be offered regularly.

Course Outline

Week 1-2: Meet your Mentor and Decide on Project and Scope
Weeks 2-14: Attend Research Meetings with Mentor, Independent Project Progression
Midterm: Lightning Talk Presentation of your Project
Final: Scientific Poster Design and Presentation at Campus Event
- Fall: CS Research Day
- Spring: University Research Conference

How Do I Apply?

Register for courses as normal.
Fill out the interest form here.
Attend Interest Session to learn more.
Complete course application.
Wait to be contacted for admission!

Due to mentor constraints, this course does have limited entry. We cannot guarantee admission. We do try to match as many students as possible, and prioritize multiple-applicants where possible.

Benefits

3 Elective Course Hours towards Graduation
Research looks good on your resume
Potential publication or portfolio outcomes
- Projects can produce real research results, publications
- Projects look great on your resume/portfolio if you have contributed a lot of effort into them.

Ambitious students have had conference publications and travel. If you're passionate and committed to continuing your project, the sky is the limit for positive outcomes.

Page updated

Report abuse