UW CLMS MS options

Draft of 10/20/09

The UW CLMS program includes both thesis (1) and internship (2) options. This page describes the requirements for the options.

Option 1. Thesis: 10 credits of Ling 700

Students wishing to pursue the thesis option must have their thesis proposal approved and their committee constituted by 3/1 (with previous drafts submitted on 1/3 and 2/1). Students failing to meet deadlines between 1/1 and 6/15 may be "dropped" from the thesis track in favor of one of the non-thesis tracks.

Students pursuing the thesis option may complete an internship as well, but only if the internship is tightly integrated with the thesis.

More detailed description of the thesis requirements can be found here.

Option 2: Internship: 10 credits of work experience (Ling 600)

For an internship to count towards the MS degree, the following requirements must be met:

1. The internship must be relevant to computational linguistics or human language technology more broadly.

2. The internship (or portion thereof relevant to compling) must include at least 200 hours within a four-month period. The internship report cannot be be filed until these 200 hours have been completed. (200 hours over 4 months is 31%-time, so parttime positions are applicable, as are positions in which only part of the reponsibilities are compling-related.)

3. In preparation for applying for internships, the student is highly recommended to visit the Career Services Center for advice on developing a resume and related materials.

4. The student must develop a pre-internship proposal (8 pages), in two steps:
   1. Prior to applying, a statement of the area of interest/ proposed contributions, a discussion of why the company targeted is a relevant place to do this work, and a list of relevant references. (2-3 pages)
   2. Once the student has been offered and accepted an internship, a literature review (based on the references identified above). (5 pages)

   Students applying to multiple companies might develop 2-3 documents for step 1, but only extend one to step 2 for the company they end up working for.

5. At or near the end of the internship (prior to graduation), the student will write a self-evaluation which s/he will present to the internship supervisor for approval and then to the faculty advisor. The student's self-evaluation should answer the following questions:
   1. Briefly describe the tasks you have carried out in the internship so far, as well as those which you are still working on and their estimated dates of completion.
   2. In which ways/areas did you excel during the course of this internship?
   3. Identify some areas for improvement: What can you work on to become more effective in this line of work?

   In addition, we must receive a confidential, written evaluation from the intern's supervisor of the intern's work, which references the self-evaluation. If this evaluation does not indicate satisfactory work, the internship will not count. The supervisor's evaluation should comment on the following areas:

   1. The intern's work ethic and degree of self-direction during the internship.
   2. The overall quality of work carried out.
   3. The intern's contribution to the group: Did the intern bring in additional information sources? Contribute original ideas and new directions?

6. At or near the end of the internship (prior to graduation), the student must write a post-internship report (of 12-15 pages), with the following structure:
   1. A description of the activities undertaken during the internship and their results (5 pages).
   2. A discussion of how the CLMS course work related to/prepared the student for the internship work (3 pages).
   3. A second version of the literature review. We expect this to be different from the initial version in incorporating the additional perspective gained in the course of the internship as well as any additional key papers that the student discovered in the course of internship work. (4-8 pages)

Students who are already employed in full-time (i.e., not internship) positions doing work relevant to computational linguistics or human language technology may also apply their activities at work towards the MS degree. Students in this position should negotiate with the CLMS faculty about how to adapt the above guidelines to their situation. For example, a student may propose a new project to undertake at work which applies what they've learned in the CLMS program.

Students taking the CLMS program over two years may do internships in the first summer. However, it can be more difficult to find an internship sufficiently relevant to computational linguistics to count towards the MS degree (under the "internship option") prior to taking the core computational linguistics sequence (570-573). Students embarking on internships prior to taking the core sequence should consult with faculty before enrolling in 600. If the internship is not sufficiently relevant to count towards the MS degree, there is no harm in taking it (without enrolling in 600), but another internship (or thesis) would need to be completed the following summer (with 600).

Work permit for international students

Deadlines for the internship option

Application deadlines for many companies are in January and February. Students taking this track should prepare their initial pre-internship proposals by early January, and work with faculty to identify contacts at relevant companies. We expect most internships to start in June and run through August. The deadline for departmental approval for conferral of graduate degrees is the Sunday after the Friday of finals week. Accordingly, we have established the following deadlines:

• Pre-internship proposals (step i) due: 1/15/10
• Career Services visit complete (recommended): 1/31/10
• Pre-internship proposals (step ii: literature review) due: 6/15/10
• Post-internship report (initial version) due: 7/20/10
• Internship self-evaluation with supervisor's approval due: 8/05/10
• Internship supervisor's evaluation due: 8/10/10
• Post-internship report (final version) due: 8/10/10