各位準新生同學大家好：

歡迎大家加入臺師大資工所！

系所將在 3 月 29 日（週五）辦理新生開放日活動，當日上下午各包含三個實驗室簡介時段，每個時段會有多位師長參與簡介，可協助同學們在一日內了解多個實驗室的研究方向與運作模式。

系上將於 3 月 22 日至 3 月 26 日開放活動報名，並於 3 月 28 日（週四）寄發行前通知email，屆時請同學們留意相關通知。

再次歡迎大家，期待與大家共度美好的研究生活！

活動報名：https://forms.gle/PsDdM655gqYwhR37A 

臺師大資工官網：https://www.csie.ntnu.edu.tw/ 

新生 Q&A：https://www.csie.ntnu.edu.tw/index.php/enroll_new/ 

• Who should read this FAQ? 

  • • This FAQ is for people who are holding a bachelor or a master degree and are interested in joining Network and Systems Lab (NSL) research group for your MS/Ph.D. study in NTNU-CSIE. 

• Who is maintaining this FAQ? If I find something wrong/unclear, who should I report to? 

  • • This FAQ is maintained by Prof Yao-Hua Ho. You are welcome to correct the content and ask questions that you would like to know. For any comments/suggestions/questions, please send an email to yho@csie.ntnu.edu.tw directly.

To prospective students who wish to join our lab, 

First of all, let me welcome you to the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at the National Taiwan Normal University. 

To join our lab, there are a few requirements and skill sets that you need as follows.

1. Programming Skills - Our lab have a lot of research projects/topics that require a real implementation or prototype. Thus, you will need to have solid programming skills which means being able to solve three programming questions (實作題三級分) of APCS (Advanced Placement Computer Science). 

2. Mathematic Skills - Many research topics will require data analysis and theoretical analysis. Thus, you will need to have some background in Calculus, Statistics, Probability, Linear Algebra, etc. 

3. English Skills - Many related papers/works/documentation will be in English. In addition, your thesis/research/project must be submitted or published in International Journals/Conferences. Thus, your English must be at a certain level. 

Because I require to have high-quality research work, many students will finish their studies in more than two years even if they have a computer science background. However, many graduated students went to top-notch companies such as Google, NVIDIA, etc. 

If you are still interested in joining our lab, please continue to read this page and then e-mail me at yho@csie.ntnu.edu.tw or yho@gapps.ntnu.edu.tw to let me know. 

I will always reply to your email but you need to check your junk mail folder.  Most of the time you did not receive my email because it was blocked or sent to junk mail. 

• How many students will you accept every academic year? 

  • • There is no exact answer, but it should be around 2~4 MS students every year. 

• Do you accept PhD students? 

  • • Yes, I do. However, I am sorry that there is not much information yet in this FAQ. You are welcome to talk to me directly if you are interested. 

• What’s your expectation for the new MS students? 

  • • Some requirements/expectations are: 

1. Bachelor degree in EE/CS, Math, or related majors; 

2. Familiar with programming languages and problem solving; 

3. self motivated, a team player, and strong passion in conducting quality work. 

• How can I know your recent/ongoing research projects? 

  • • Well, there are many ways to answer this question. For instance: 

      • • You can check recent publications of  Prof. Chen (https://cclljj.github.io) and Prof. Ho's publications.

        • You can check our recent research projects.

        • You can go to Prof. Chen (https://cclljj.github.io) website check their recent research projects. 

        • You can drop by my research lab in Rm 212 at NTNU-CSIE and talk to my current students. 

        • You can send me an email and make an appointment for more detailed discussion. 

• What’s the stipend for MS students in your research group? 

  • • There are four ranks of stipend (in NTD): 

      • • Rank 1: $0/month;if you are taking courses and have not started your thesis research; 

        • Rank 2: $4,000/month; if you have a general topic for your research topic; 

        • Rank 3: $6,000/month; if you have started working on your thesis topic; 

        • Rank 4: $8,000+/month; if you have conducted some good results on your research topic. 

    • The stipend will be offered in the first two years only (that means, if you are unlucky to not finish your MS study in two years, you will not be paid in the 3rd and 4th year). 

    • Most people bypass Rank 1 and stay Rank 2 till the end of the first semester. Some people may get into Rank 4 earlier (say, after two semesters), but it really depends on how much effort you are willing to invest and how much progress you have conducted.

• How many days should I stay/work in the lab? 

  • • As you like. 

• How about the group meeting? 

  • • We do have a weekly group meeting. The meeting is held jointly with Prof. Ling-Jyh Chen's research group, and it takes place in either Academia Sinica or NTNU depending on the schedule of the two professors. 

    • Generally, the group meeting is proceed as follows: 

    • For the first semester of an academic year: the new students are observers, and the 2nd year students are presenters. The presenters have to present their research progress every two weeks. 

    • For the second semester of an academic year: there are two speakers every week. One is the 1st year student presenting their research work, and the other one is the 2nd year student presenting their thesis work (new results or literature survey). 

• What will happen if I don’t show up in any meetings and have no progress? 

  • • Nothing will happen, and both you and I will enjoy peaceful days. 

• What’s the requirement for completing the MS degree? 

  • • The only requirement is that you have to complete a work of good research value. 

    • Typically, your MS thesis is expected for submission/publication in an international conference. 

• What’s the typical time required for completing the MS degree? 

  • • It really depends on how much time you devote yourself to research. Most students finish it in two years, but there are certainly some exceptions due to various reasons. 

• What are the placement after getting the MS degree? 

  • • There are not many samples yet. Based on the examples so far, some of them are pursuing PhD degree, some take the civil service exam, and some work in the leading companies. It really depends on your own career plan.

Steps:

1. Narrow down to a general research topic

2. Find a specific research topic / problem

3. Propose a solution (or solutions) to the problem

4. Analysis / Simulation the solution to proof the correctness and show the performance

5. Prepare you thesis and oral defense

6. Oral defense

Normal:

•                   [Semester 1] [Semester 2] [Summer] [Semester 3] [Semester 4]

•                   [     Step 1    ] [     Step 2    ] [  Step 3  ] [     Step 4    ] [   Step 5/6  ] 

• Most studet failed to find a specific topic or the solution to the problem is been done. 

Option 1 (Best):

• [Summer] [Semester 1] [Semester 2] [Summer] [Semester 3] [Semester 4] [Summer]

• [  Step 1  ] [   Step 1/ 2  ] [   Step 2/3  ] [  Step 3  ] [     Step 4    ] [     Step 5    ] [ Step 5/6 ]

• This allow students to have more time to narrow down the research topic and think through the solution.

UU Dual Degree Student:

• [Summer] [Semester 1] [Semester 2] [ Study at UU -----------------------------> ] [Summer] [Semester 3] [Semester 4]

• Student spent one year at Uppsala University

• Do I need to write the thesis and slides in English?

  • • It is encouraged to write your thesis in English.

    • The slides must be prepared in English. You can do presentation in Chinese though.

• What are the basic rules for thesis writing?

  • • Please follow the IEEE template to format your thesis.

    • It is expected to have 20+ references in a thesis.

    • Please avoid the cases that

      • • there are only one subsection in a section;

        • there are less than two paragraphs in a section/subsection;

        • there are less than three sentences in a paragraph.

• Please follow the principles below to prepare figures

  • • • • please use GNUplot (or R) to generate figures (sorry that we don't accept Excel figures);

        • the figure must be readable on black-and-white print-outs;

        • please make sure the labels and legends are easy to read;

        • please consider different scales (log scale or linear scale), styles (line, box, radar, map, etc), and other options before plotting;

        • each figure should have more than two observations (e.g., the trend, intersection, oscillation, peak, valley of the curves);

        • each figure should be explained in the text using more than the space occupied by the figure.

• What are the basic rules for presentation slides?

  • • Please focus on the "content", not on the "art design".

    • Some tips are:

      • • please use color figures as long as possible;

        • please do your best to have at least one figure/image on each page;

        • please avoid lots of text on a page;

        • please use different colors to highlight the keywords in the text;

        • please minimize the animations;

        • please put your hard-working but not important results in the back-up slides.

• Philip E. Agre, Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students (http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/network.html)