Faculty Mentor Panel Notes

Panel

• Richard:

  • Accessibility

  • 100 undergrads, many went to grad school

    • Lucy, best senior thesis, went to work with Shiri

    • 24 students got Mary Gates fellowships

    • CRA DREU

• Zach

  • Research: Help people write tricky programs

    • e.g. Floating point

    • e.g. rewriting

    • e.g. Fabrication, CAD

  • 10 years at UW 

    • 12-13 undergrads who went to PhDs

    • 12-13 went to industry

    • Undergrads, smaller but critical

    • Undergrads have a grad student mentor/buddy

    • Good way to figure out what you want to do, but pick a goal soon then help you set up

• Sara

  • At UW for 2 years, professor for 8 years

  • ML, genomic bio-technology: Understanding bio datasets

    • e.g. sequence human genome: a very long string, how do we make sense of this string to make predictions about disease/outcomes

    • Challenging b/c of overfitting, not so much data, so many confounding factors like socio economic status

  • Non-linear path, first generation college student, wanted to help people so decided to be a doctor, did pre-med but realized it is a lot of memorization and not much creativity; took computer science by chance and loved it, stated undergrad thinking biology is in the past, but going in grad school timing aligned well with being able to make measurements.

    • 8 years, undergrads interested in research

    • One UBC undergrad ended up going to UW and graduated last year

    • Current student Goldwater finalist

    • Students paired with grad students

    • Give students critical responsibilities

Question: Difference between senior thesis and publication.

Question: What do you look for in undergrads?

Sara:

• CompBio: Difficult to get into, two languages, need to get familiar with biology for CSE students

• Usually taking students from the class, students talking to Sara during the class

Zach:

• No real recipe; it’s useful to have taken a class

• Persistence is important. PErson needs to keep showing up.

• Feynman video: Confusion. Spike in the beginning. You’ll be confused in the beginn ing, only way through it is through it. Ask dumb questions.

• It’s about the people. How do you feel when you go to a meeting? You should feel good. Not rather do something else. Find the right vibe. 

Richard

• Doesn’t currently have a lab

• Students would come b/c they’re interested in accessibility, social good interest, closer to impact.

• Undergrads worked on individual projects, occasionally working with a grad student (50/50)

• Some leave after a quarter, some stay two years

• Now very selective, students have to be very motivated

• Advice: talk with other undergrad researchers

• Advice: join graduate seminar, 590s

  • Go and be confused, it’s normal to be confused

Sara:

• +1, also picking projects based on people 

• It takes time to understand and get good at the proces

Zach:

• Mantra: If you see someone being really good at something, they’ve spent a lot of time being bad at it. 

• Mantra: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Show up and try to keep up, you’ll have holes.

  • It’s okay to take the time to build building blocks, but it is worth it.

  • Grind early on: but it will pay off.

Question: Balancing life and making a good impression. 

Zach:

• You cant do great work if you’re not healthy.

• Transparency is helpful. 

• People should care about you, you don’t want a relationship

• Things go sideways when people think they can pull it off, but they keep missing deadlines.

• Better to under promise

• Tough conversation but useful for the larger team

Richard

• Solo projects, if they don’t progress, they loose

• It’s up to the student

Question: Failure modes

• Zach: 

  • Undergrads tend to have a healthy routine b/c of structure

  • Failure due to procrastination, spiral of overwhelm

  • It’s okay, you are not your research

  • Supportive accountability:

    • Keep a journal

    • HAve a peer mentor who knows when you don’t make progress

  • Break the cycle: just getting started pulls you into the work

• Sara:

  • Existential crises: Big delay between work and reward. (h/t rejections). In the meantime you don’t feel that your work is meaningful. 

    • Talk yourself out of it: Think about other processes that take time, like losing weight, you need to consistently keep exercising. Keep showing up.

• Richard:

  • Make sure you’re enjoying what you’re doing, might need to change project to find the right fit

  • Answer you don’t know, can be frustrating.