For Prospective Students

Language

The working language in this lab will be English. I strongly suggest you to think twice if you don't feel comfortable communicating in English. Please note that when we say the working language will be English, that includes all the email exchange, group discussions, and presentations. Communication with other group members will be in whatever language that you prefer.

As an advisor, my responsbility is to

  • Teach you how to play the game as a whole like a NBA coach (BTW, I do play basketball in real life…:-), assuming you know how to dribble.
  • Create a stimulating research environment
  • Come up with good research topics for you to work on
  • Show you with examples regarding how to do system research

As a student, your responsbility is to

  • Educate and occasionally inspire me
  • Learn from your fellow students
  • Do not give up when things stuck
  • Perform experiments and analysis

To become sucessful in LENS lab, you should try to be

Motivated
  • Curiosity > Prove yourself > Impress your advisor > Get a degree
  • You should be in this for yourself, not for anyone else.
Ambitious
  • Do the impossible
  • You need to have a sense of purpose and urgency. It's YOUR project and your future job counts on it!!
Hardworking
  • Be prepared that 12 hrs/day and 6 days/week work will be a norm.
Strategitic
  • How to get things done on schedule? Prioritization is the key!
  • Good writing and verbal communications skills are CRITICAL
  • Build up your connections whenever possible
  • Cooperate by exploiting local talents
Broad
  • Read as much as you can
  • Computer science is too young. You should not confine yourself to only certain areas
  • Try to learn as much math and algorithms as possible. You never know when you're going to need it.
Smart
  • It's not given, i.e., it can be learned
  • Experience and taste are what really counts in experimental research
  • The speed you conduct for your research is just as important as the research itself
Solid
  • Excellence is expensive
  • The last 10% to perfection typically consumes 80% of the effort, but is also what distinguishes between mediocrity and GREATNESS
  • The devil is ALWAYS in the details

When you graudate from my lab, you are expected to know how to

  • Design and implement a novel system
  • Analyze the corretness and performance of working systems and improve them
  • Wirte a good technical report
  • Lead a project, and
  • Come up with interesting project ideas by yourself