Working with Dr. Coppit
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If you want to work with me...
For a summary of my research and future research plans, see the projects page. Also see the funding page if you are concerned about getting a research assistantship.
If you are interested in working with me, you must first get accepted into the graduate program and do well in your first year of classes. DO NOT SEND ME EMAIL ABOUT WORKING WITH ME IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE GRADUATE PROGRAM.
Expectations
The W&M CS web pages are woefully out of date with respect to expectations of graduate students. They date from an era when the CS department had very little research expectations of the faculty. Things have changed, so I'll try to give my expectations of my students here.
Overall, what I'm looking for in a student are (1) smarts, (2) initiative, (3) a good work ethic, and (4) a nose for research. Basically I want you to impress me, to show up at every meeting with a notebook and a list of discussion items, to bring me interesting papers you've read, and to challenge me with new ideas. If you're a PhD student, I'm looking for more of all of these things.
Figure on spending more than 40 hours a week at the office, especially the first year. (I didn't use my TV and hardly used my bed my first year of grad school.) I can't micromanage everyone, so you'll need to be self-motivated. If I went on sabattical for a year, would you get research done, or would you become an expert at the Sims? Learn time management skills.
Check out this survival guide if you haven't already. In particular, you should know about the (now famous) story of the mechanical arm.
Master's
Officially there are two options for you: the 710 project and the thesis. With me, your only option is the thesis. Don't worry though, the thesis is actually easier! The reason is that I require you to do something research-worthy, and to write it up at the end. If you're going to do all that work, why not take a few less classes? (Okay, I guess I should have said that a 710 with me is a lot harder, approaching the difficulty of a thesis.)
The optimal timeline is for you to start talking with me sometime in your first year as a graduate student. By the beginning of the summer, we should officially become advisor-advisee. I'll want you to write a proposal early in the summer (by the end of May). You'll then do most of the work for your Master's during the summer, then spend the 2nd year finishing up the work, writing your thesis, and writing one or more research papers with me. This will leave some time in case something goes wrong, and will give you some freedom to go job hunting during your last semester.
Most likely your project will be some part of a project I'm already working on. If you have a neat idea, you'll need to work with me to hone your idea into one that will lead to a publication. If your paper gets published, and if I have the money, you'll get to go to the conference.
The thesis isn't as hard as you might think. After you get done saying what you need to say, it will probably already be more than 50 pages.
PhD
The first couple of years are the same as for the Master's. I think you should get a Master's, in case I get hit by a bus, or you decide you hate graduate school. Then you'll put together a PhD proposal. Hopefully you will have at least one publication related to your PhD before you present it to your committee.
My goal is for you to become an expert in some area---more expert than me. You will need to grow out of the advisor-advisee relationship, until you call the shots and are ready to become an advisor yourself. This means that you will need to demonstrate initiative and the ability to do research.
A good PhD thesis is about 4 or 5 papers. Then you publish 1 or 2 follow-on papers after you graduate.
