Charalampos (Babis) E. Tsourakakis 3rd Year Graduate Student
Open House February 26th , 2010
Carnegie Mellon University is a historical
university with living history.
Herbert Simon
Alan Frieze
Avrim Blum Manuel Blum Tom Mitchell, Head of MLD Carlos Guestrin John Lafferty
Alen Newell
Stephen Fienberg Larry Wasserman
Admission highly competitive!
International Student (Hellene, ECE NTUA) 2007-‐2009 worked with Christos Faloutsos on
Data Mining (Tensors, Graphs and Large Scale Data Mining using Hadoop) Switched at the end of the second year. Now, Algorithm Design (TCS) Manifold Learning (ML) Breast Cancer Evolution (App) Gary Miller e.g., Miller Primality Test
Russell Schwartz e.g., decoding human genome
Change/add advisor Immigration course: (if you want) Data analysis faculty gives talks, project, you choose advisor speaking skills ( get MS) Start doing research! (publish 1st paper)
Finish!
Propose
Summer internships
time
0
1
2
3
Coursework: 5 core courses: • Intermediate statistics, ML • Stat ML, Algorithms, Data mining +3 electives (1 from statistics)
TA for 2 classes
4
5 …
Conduct research Enjoy dept. tea gathering and TGs
Very critical choice for your career. Great faculty to choose from. Make a good choice by:
choosing a project that excites you making sure that you and your advisor have the
same research “mentality” (Ask yourself, do you like more applications, theory, a mixture of them and what proportion from each) reading papers of your potential advisors
Year 1:
Intermediate statistics Intro machine learning Stat. machine learning Algorithms
Year 2:
Data mining Advanced Discrete Math:
Additive Number Theory Advanced Discrete Math: Mixing times and Markov Chains Computational Methods for Biological Modeling and Simulation (Some of my electives)
Many ML classes
Graduate ML Statistical ML Graphical models Convex optimization Graduate AI Learning theory Bayesian methods Comp bio + learning Computational Complexity Randomized algorithms Approximation algorithms Lots of area-‐specific machine learning (text, bio, brain, …)
MLD Seminars: MLD/Google seminar Intelligence seminar Machine learning lunch ▪ organized by students
Many other seminars: Theory, LTI, Robotics,…
MLD weekly tea gathering TGs (Thank Goodness It’s Friday)
A city which has two main advantages which
are typically inversely proportional:
Many things to do around, good restaurants, nice
coffee shops, bars, pubs, dancing places etc. Inexpensive.
Easy to travel to other beautiful cities which
are near, e.g., Philadelphia, New York City, Toronto.
You can feel all four seasons while in Pittsburgh
Different Health Plans Basic (<~1K for a year) Enhanced +Dental +Vision
CMU Health Services UPMC My personal experience so far has been more
than good.
Most of the students live in Squirrel Hill,
Shadyside, Oakland. Other neighborhoods: Bloomfield, Point Breeze, Regent Square. If you do not own a car, make sure that you pick a place with many buses coming by from there (e.g., Squirrel Hill, Shadyside) Great places to live for really good prices.
An excellent environment for conducting
research, having pleasant breaks (great coffee on the 3rd floor), interesting research discussions on a whiteboard, Tea Parties.
Biking Canoeing Caving Swimming
Climbing Ski (Seven Springs Resort) with student prices ~15$
Hiking Kayaking
Tennis
Scuba Diving
Skydiving
Chess Club Gym Volleyball, Basketball Badminton Dancing
Publications Travelling. I have visited Belgium, France, Greece, Italy,
Stanford, New York. Meeting Scientists from all over the world Attend highly interesting talks (some of them). Communicate your ideas, get people to learn about your research. See and explore new places.
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge…. …Always keep Ithaca in your mind. ToWelcome arrive theretoisCMU your ultimate and goal. Congratulations again! But do not hurry the voyage at all…
Joseph Bradley for sharing previous year’s
slides.
Jernej Barbic http://www-‐rcf.usc.edu/~jbarbic/cmu-‐start.html
Diane Stidle “Mother” of MLD