Types of Career Paths

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Types of Career Paths

• JT

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Mid-semester - Check up

• How are your CVs developing?
• Need to be ready next week.
• Update on plagiarism and cheating in academia
• Last week with Research Faculty
• Role of research faculty and tenured faculty.
• How to write a research paper.
• Arrangements for remainder of semester.

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Tenure track positions

• Everyone thinks of tenure track positions as the
  norm but in fact quite a lot of variability
• Ivy League schools may have assistant
  professorships as non-career paths.
• Expectations of a research university
• Not only publications but also research funding
  may be expected for success or even survival (9
  month, even 8 month appointments need to be
  supplemented (medical schools may expect far
  more).
• Expectations of an undergraduate school.
• Normally expectations in terms of funded research
  and writing are much less. Significantly greater
  teaching loads and interactions with students.
• State universities typically do not have major
  research resources of their own (outside of land
  grant aspects)
• Private universities may have much better levels
  of support.

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Types of research appointments

• All of these are soft-money positions
• Security is not as great as for tenured positions
  but may be stronger than in the commercial sector
• UM (varies with university and even department)
• Faculty Research Assistant
• No Ph.D. Bachelors or masters
• Research Associate
• Ph.D. funds from another faculty member directed
  research
• Assistant Research Scientist
• More independent effort expected
• Associate Research Scientist
• Established publication record ability to gain
  own research funds national reputation
• Full Research Scientist
• Research team sustained publications
  international reputation

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Career tracks
Fixed term academic appointment
Tenure-track position
Ph.D. obtained
Post-doctoral position
Federal CS research appointment
Contractor
Many many different routes be prepared to be
flexible!
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Writing a research paper

• Important part of nearly every graduate class.
• Crucial that you understand expectations.
• Already discussed general issues of writing
  standards, which must be adhered to.
• Essential that you develop a comprehensive plan.
• Likely this will take comparable time than
  actually writing the essay.
• You must supplement the reading you have been
  given preferably using papers from high quality
  journals, rather than using text books.
• Even in good journals possible to have weak
  articles. Use your own common sense to decide if
  article is worthwhile.

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Writing a research article

• Use search engines within journals to locate
  relevant, preferably recent papers.
• Depending on topic some papers may age very
  quickly.
• Good article 10 years ago may be plain wrong
  today.
• Remember to avoid the web always try and use
  refereed materials.
• Hundreds of electronic journals available to you.
• Use a range of materials.
• Normally I would expect at least 10 papers per
  essay.

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Writing a research paper

• You need to make your essays persuasive and
  compelling and not merely a series of article
  summaries linked with a few sentences.
• Make sure you have read the essay title
  thoroughly and understand what is needed.
• Sometimes you may be given a contentious title
  and then be asked to discuss it.
• E.g. The lack of long term consistent
  observations of many climate variables seriously
  undermines the evidence for the impact of rising
  CO2 levels on global warming. Discuss.
• You do not have to agree with it! Normally there
  will be points for and against. Be prepared to
  discuss both

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Writing a research paper

• Keep introductions and conclusions brief,
  relative to the rest of the paper.
• Introduction can usefully lay out the plan of the
  essay so the reader has a road map and knows
  where he is going.
• Use appropriate illustrations, but make sure they
  are legible.
• Normally you will need your own caption
• Include full citations.
• Get peers to read your paper before handing it in
  if you have serious doubts about its quality.
• But do not get people to do your work for you
• Dont leave completing papers to the last minute
• The end of the semester normally gets very
  crowded.

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Writing a research paper

• Dont recycle old papers
• Its normally obvious that this has happened,
• Often the paper will miss the point of the
  present question and
• If spotted you would normally get a failing grade.

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Remainder of semester

• Week 8 CVs
• Week 9 Raising your own money for support.
• Week 10 Faculty Research Assistants
• Week 11 Fellow graduate students

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Comments on the semester so far