The following information is availablle for:

• Applicants
• Mentors

Applicant Information

SGREP is an intensive summer program which provides graduate students the opportunity to participate in a real research project and gain experience in project planning, coordination, and management while contributing to the product of a working system.

SGREP solicits student applicants from the pool of current USC CS, EE, and CE graduate students, as well as visiting scholars from peer universities.

SGREP seeks self-motivated, self-directed students to participate on the project, and gain useful experience at the same time they help us move forward with project goals.

SGREP provides the following opportunities and benefits:

• Challenging summer work
• High-level project experience
• building on traditional project classwork
• participating and collaborating on a real, large-scale research project
• exposure to project administration and management
• opportunity to produce real output (code, running demos, etc) in a real project
• Opportunity to work closely with other researchers in very small groups
• Directed research academic credit through USC's CS department
• A good recommendation for a job (pending successful performance)

• Applicants must know (be fluent in) PERL before the program begins 
• Applicants must be available from the second week of May through the last week of August, inclusive
• including weekdays that entire period between
• vactation limited to only a few weekdays during that entire period
• Applicants can travel daily to ISI's Marina del Rey office at least 4 full days a week (9am-5pm)
• Applicants are NOT taking any other summer directed research or academic courses
• directed research credits are available for participation in SGREP
• course credit is contingent upon successful completion of the entire summer session of SGREP

• This is NOT a good way to get into USC's PhD program.
• We don't know a good way. This isn't it.
• Because this experience is brief, we will not be able to provide recommendations to USC's or any other graduate academic program as a result of SGREP experience.
• Because credit is offered (DR), this is NOT a paid position.
• Office space will NOT be available (shared lab space will be).
• This opportunity does NOT guarantee a GRA position in subsequent semesters.
• This opportunity is NOT available off-site, e.g., at external summer work positions .

Application, SGREP

If you would like to submit an application for SGREP, please READ THE ABOVE CONDITIONS, and click here.

Mentor Information

SGREP is an intensive summer program where early graduate students are exposed to project experience. We are seeking ISI Project Leaders interested in being SGREP Mentors, fostering 1-2 students each for summer experience.

Here is some information and a schedule for potential SGREP Mentors:

Schedule:

• January - send e-mail to the SGREP Director indicating interest, and describing a possible summer task.
• March-May - review SGREP applicants and select participants. This includes possible additional interviews, at the discretion of the Mentor.
• Early May - planning meeting with other SGREP Mentors, overview of the procedures, etc.
• Late May - meeting of the entire SGREP group
• Late August - presentations by the entire SGREP group
• September - meeting to review the program

• Additional effort to implement tangential components, or investigate tangential issues of an existing ISI project
• Exposure to USC graduate students, useful for vetting potential future collaborations
• in a controlled environment
• pre-filtered for tangeable experience
• instructed en-mass separately on net and lab etiquitte, research procedure, etc.

• Mentors must submit project descriptions tied to existing, funded ISI research projects in advance.
• Mentors must be full-time ISI researchers.
• Mentors are responsible for screening their own students and determining their appropriateness for their own project.
• Mentors are responsible for at least 1 meeting each week with their project participants and their students. There will be a separate weekly instructional meeting held by various Mentors, as arranged.
• Mentors must be available from the second week of May through the last week of August, inclusive
• including weekdays that entire period between
• vactation limited to only a few weekdays during that entire period, except as covered by another SGREP Mentor in advance
• Mentors are based at ISI's Marina del Rey office

• Mentors need not be USC professors (research or otherwise)
• Student directed research credit can be validated by another SGREP Mentor in your group or by the SGREP Director
• Students have a list of requirements, conditions, and caveats. Mentors should be aware of them, and report any difficulties as early as possible.
• Some sort of office space will be required for the students; each mentor is expected to provide such space, either through shared lab space, or dedicated office space.
• Costs for the student, e.g., computer accounts, etc., are the responsibility of the Mentor. This includes possible summer compensation (though not required).

The most challenging part of being an SGREP Mentor, and the task on which both mentor and student satisfaction most heavily relies is the decription of the student's summer task.  It is important to note that summer tasks may evolve or shift over the course of the summer; however, it is critical to always have a tangeable target.

A good task follows these guidelines:

Can be described in one short sentence.

Involves at most 1 week of advance research prior to hands-on experience.

Has realistic trade-offs, which can result in an implementation (even partial), in at most 2 weeks.

Can evolve and be implemented incrementally (i.e., isn't "all or naught").

Is of real benefit to the project, either for internal ISI project staff use (tool development), or as preliminary experiment to later investigation.

Involves a combination of research (reading), implementation, and measurement.

Both you and the student will know when it is reasonably complete.

Has opportunity for BOTH loss-cutting (early completion) AND augmentation (extension)