These requirements were written for students at Missouri State University. Please see Projects Requirements When Working With Prof. Clark for more up-to-date information.

I really enjoy working with students on independent study projects. For such projects, students:

come up with their own project plan,
work on the project for a semester (or longer), and
learn something CS-related while developing a new tool or idea.

Independent study projects are not a one-on-one class or tutorial.

I’ve had students design a programming language and build an interpreter, develop a robot path planning algorithm, and create a new markup language for specifying robots. You can find past projects (starting fall 2018) on this site.

If you are interested in getting credit (course credit or pay) for an independent study project, then you can look at the following courses and other opportunities: CSC197, CSC596, CSC696, CSC798, CSC799, UHC396, Work Study (paid hourly), and LSAMP (comes with research stipend). Most students register for a section of CSC596.

If you register for a section of one of the above courses, you can do so for 1, 2, or 3 credit hours.

Proposal

I require all independent study students to write a project proposal (search for “proposal” for examples). Proposals must:

describe a project that can you can complete in a semester (even for longer-term projects),
detail enough work that will take 1 to 2 hours of work per week per credit hour (3 to 6 hours for a 3 credit hour class),
discuss how the project relates to your academic and/or future career,
list your goals and a rough timeline, and
be submitted as a pull-request.

You must complete your proposal before the end of the first week of the semester. Preferably, you will complete your proposal by the end of the previous semester. Proposals should be roughly 180 words per credit hours.

Updates and Meetings

I meet with all of my independent study students weekly (we can meet less frequently if you are working on a project for 1 or 2 credit hours). These meetings can take anywhere from five minutes to one hour. We can occasionally skip a meeting or meet more frequently if you need quicker feedback.

To prepare for the meetings, I require all students to submit a weekly update the night before we meet. Updates help me prepare for questions and issues, and they provide you with all the information you’ll need for your final report (see below). You should email your weekly updates to me (or we can use Slack), and they should follow this template (you will delete all text inside square brackets):

ACTIVITIES

[List of items you worked on since our last meeting.]

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

[Any breakthroughs (small or large). Some weeks there may not be any—that’s OK. If you want to include plots, images or videos, that would be great.]

ISSUES/PROBLEMS

[Any roadblocks you have encountered or issues that you want to discuss. Please include as many details as possible.]

PLANS

[Plans for next week (and beyond, as appropriate).]

CONCEPTS/LESSONS LEARNED

[Please include a list of concepts or lessons learned since our last meeting.]

PAPER SUMMARIES (OPTIONAL)

[Summarize any papers you have read in the past week.]

Grade Justification

I require all students completing an independent study project to give me a grade justification at the middle and end of the semester. Justifications are typically 1 to 5 sentences and they must include the letter grade you think you’ve earned. These short conversations ensure that we are on the same page regarding your effort.

Report

I require all students to complete a final report at the end of the semester. Final reports should be roughly 350 words per credit hours, and I much prefer it if your post includes images, videos, code snippets, etc. You will also submit final reports as a pull-request. I like to have final reports submitted before Tuesday of finals week.

Along with the final report, I highly encourage students to give a presentation to the Computer Science Club (also known as the ACM), create a poster to hang in the CS hallway, submit a paper to LOGOS, and/or present a poster at the CNAS Undergraduate Research Day.