Case studies: What would you do if...

CS 302  Spring 2006 M. Faloutsos

Discuss. There is no one single correct answer. Often the question
is too broad and you need to take different cases. Discuss all.

- your supervisor blows off your meetings consistently

- you read papers but cannot come up with ideas of your own

- you want to meet someone at a conference: how do you go about it?

- you fall in love with your supervisor. What should you do?

- you send emails to a famous researcher and she never replies. 

- your supervisor is aggressive and intimidating and kills your ideas.
  S/he says: "go think of something and let's talk about it". 

- you loose too much time in the lab talking to people, although you try not to.

- you picked a research topic and now two big groups publish aggressively on the topic
 you get scared. should you change topics?

- you love the topic and the supervisor, but there is no money for an RAship.
 should you find another topic/supervisor?

- you find that some area (math, statistics, optimization) is needed for your work,
 and you lack the background. Should you take a class, although it will slow down your research (homeworks, exams)?

- Work is going well, but you feel that you are having no fun. You get depressed,
 and miss home, family and friends. What should you do?

- Your idea is great, but you can't get the simulator to work. The deadline is coming up.
  Your supervisor wants you to submit a paper.

- You sent the paper to 3 conferences and got rejected. What next?

- You wrist starts hurting and your fingers get numb. You need to work like crazy
  to send the paper though.

- Next to the deadline, your advisor tells you that you should not submit your paper. However, you think your paper is really good and it’s worth a shot.

- a person you considered friend PhD "steals" your ideas

- You fall in love and can't concetrate. Should you tell your supervisor?

- your supervisor seems to be friendly and helpful to the person in the next office,
 but is strict anr professional to you. It starts to bug you. Should you say something?

- you want to take up tennis, but this would mean that you have to comit to 2-3 times
 a week of practice. You love to play, but you are afraid that it will slow down the work.

- You seem to always come late to the meetings with your supervisor. How can you make sure you show up on time?

- Your advisor seems to have a “short memory problem” because s/he usually does not remember what you discussed/decided in the previous meetings

- Your advisor changes his mind in every meeting, and you never know what you really need to do

- You're participating in a collaborative work, and you don't know who should be the first author

- Your advisor never gives you any concrete input, you are not sure he/she is reading what you send him/her

- Your advisor is all excited about a topic, but you don't like it that much. You can't come up with anything better, though. Should you work on that topic anyway?

- Navigating on the internet is really killing your productivity 

- One of your buddies is constantly teasing another person in the lab. The other person seems to be annoyed, but your friend thinks it is good fun.

- You have two great ideas about research on fairly different directions. Should you pursue both?