alina-grad-plan.md

High Level Life & Professional Goals

• Help game developers make games. Use tech (spatial computing/machine learning/etc.) to enable small developers (low budget/low skill level/low time) to quickly and easily make interactive experiences.
• Experiment with new ways to create/play/learn using tech.

Course Work

• UD PhD Requirements
• 36 credits minimum
• 9 grad level credits/semester (based on current funding)
• 800 level courses x 9 minimum
• 3.0 GPA minimum across all courses
• CISC 890: Colloquium required every semester
• 9 credits of CISC969: Doctoral Dissertation

Upcoming courses: CISC 684: Machine Learning & CISC650: Computer Networks II

Prelim Breadths¹²³⁴

Area 1: Theory	CISC601: Elements of the Theory of Computation 5	CISC604: Logic in Computer Science	CISC621: Algorithm Design and Analysis 5
Area 2: Systems and Networks	CISC650: Computer Networks II	CISC662: Computer Systems: Architecture	CISC663: Operating Systems	CISC672: Compiler Construction
Area 3: Software	CISC640: Computer Graphics	CISC675: Object Oriented Software Engineering	CISC681: Artificial Intelligence
Area 4: Information	CISC636: Bioinformatics	CISC 684: Machine Learning 6	CISC683: Introduction to Data Mining 6	CISC637: Database Systems	CISC642: Introduction to Computer Vision

Research

Straight Knowledge

• Unity Certification
• Reading List

North Star Build & Applications

• Add 6DOF tracking via Vive pucks
• Add real-world mapping/camera feed (ZED minis? other?)
• Research marker-based tracking solutions for objects (contact project pupil members?)
• Print parts for secondary headset(s)

Full Body Gesture VR Control

• Learn Machine Learning basics
  • The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction
  • Machine Learning with Andrew Ng
  • Deep Learning
  • Linux box for examples / playing with tensorflow and pytorch
  • Continued research
• Start small with a hands-only gesture system?
  • Data collection?
  • Visual FX? Ask Toby?
• Read about other full body tracking solutions

Leadership

• Spatial Computing VIP Team - Co-teaching w/ Andy Novocin
  • Start with unity knowledge baseline, build to collaborators who can do research tasks
• Delaware Games Collective
  • Monthly meetings max, ideally make friends interested in VR development for projects

Timeline

Month	Hard Dates	Goals
JUN		Finish Myplate Project
JUL		Unity Cert
AUG	02-10: Out of office, 21: Grad orientation, 27: Fall classes begin	North star hardware work
SEP
OCT	01-04: GHC
NOV
DEC	Finals
JAN	31-02: Global Game Jam
FEB	Spring classes begin
MAR
ARP
MAY	Finals

Later

• Thesis and Dissertation Manual
• Graduation

Footnotes

1. planned, completed, unavailable ↩

2. average GPA of 3.5 over all breadths required ↩

3. 5 breadth courses minimum ↩

4. Prelim by June 2021 ↩

5. CISC 621 or CISC 601 are mandatory ↩ ↩²

6. at most one of these two courses can be used to fulfill the breadth requirement ↩ ↩²