Here are some questions and sometimes an answer from me from the first
phd seminar:

1. How can I balance time between the classes I am taking and my duties
as a TA?

ans: time management is hard. It is still hard for me. As I said, your
classes are the highest priority in the sense that if you do very badly
in your classes, it will not matter how well you perform as a TA. I think
we all tend to respond to time-deadlines and other peoples' needs so 
it is usually not possible to not do the TA work. So I would say, try to
make studying for your classes (especially PPL) a priority and the TA
work you will do anyway, because if not, you will feel guilty.

2. How can I decide what area to do my PhD in?

ans: attend seminars

3. Do we need a published paper in the third year or just a submitted one?

ans: In my opinion, submitted is enough, because if not, everyone will submit 
to poor conferences, which accept nearly all papers. But then your advisor
has to make a case that the paper is good, even if it got rejected. So
write and submit papers your advisor thinks are good and you think
are good. Acceptance is chancy if you pick a good conference with a low
acceptance rate.

4. What happens if the professor we want to work with does not have
enough money? Can we be supported for five years as a TA? 

ans: This SHOULD be our policy. However, if you pick a professor who hasn't
got funds to support you, you risk being on the waiting list in the Spring
(after the first two years, when you are expected to be supported as
a TA.) Many factors influence your position on this list. For example,
if you have been submitting good papers, you are likely to be higher
on the list. If you can teach "as a teacher of record" (excellent English)
you may be higher on the list (but not if your research is lacking). 

5. Are people who have RAs favored over people who have TAs.

ans: no, as long as you are submitting papers for publication. I.e., if
you had a TA, but you are making good progress, that is as good as
being an RA and making good progress. Of course, it is a little harder
to do research if you also have a TA. But it is not impossible. YOu can
imagine all of the faculty are doing this. We all teach. 

6. Is it better to get acquainted with a lot of professors the first
two years, or to be more selective but deep in interactions.

ans: be more selective. Quantity does not count.

7. How much time to spend on  classes, TA, seminars, talking to professors,
phd seminar...

ans: I gave a priority list. Do your classwork first. Come to the phd
seminar only 1 hour per week.

8. Does thesis work start before thesis proposal is finalized?

ans: yes...reading and writing papers will be the "start" of your thesis.

9. How can we break the cycle: no-grants, no-funding-for-prof, no-students,
no-papers, no-grants

ans: write a paper

10. What is a polite way to ask, "Have you got RA funding for me?"

ans: attend the seminar, talk at the seminar, show you have some ideas
first before you ask this. Maybe help write a paper, if you can. Then
ask. Also, if there is no funding ask if another professor in the same
group has funding. Also, I have had a student say, "I want to work with
you even if you do not have funding. I can work as a TA." (see above about
chances of getting TA funding)

11. What is the dangerous signs that maybe phd is not a suitable choice
for you?

ans: you want to sleep and you want money (just kidding). If you do not find
something you are passionate about studying, you should consider another 
path. PHDs take 5 or 6 years, and you don't earn much money while you
are a student, and although you earn a living wage as a professor, and
can have a nice life, you can probably earn as much without the phd, just
with a master's degree. So if making a LOT of money is your goal, forget it.
bottom line: there has got to be something you LOVE doing as part of your
phd studies. 

12. what is goal of the first two years?

ans: get a firm grounding in the basic knowledge needed for research and
pick out an area you want to specialize in. You get this from your classes
and from attending seminars and reading papers.

13. What relevance is teaching ability to future performance as a phd?

ans: none, unless you want to do research the rest of your life. If so,
you want an academic position, because there are a LOT more academic
positions than industrial research positions. Academic positions require
teaching and you won't even get an offer if you can't make a good
presentation. 

14. What pointers can you give in learning to do research?

ans: the reason to go to seminars and talk to professors is you will
get a selection (not all) of papers to read. Otherwise, you have no
way of choosing good ones. You should read these papers asking the
question "what is wrong with this paper?" "why is the result important
or not important?" "is the result practical"---in other words, you need
to read critically, to develop judgment. Then, you need to start thinking
of ways to solve problems yourself, even if you do not always succeed. 
Prof. Zhang suggests reading only the statement of a problem in a paper
and then putting down the paper and figuring out how you would solve the
problem. This helps you remember the paper, and be critical ("I had a better
solution than that"...or..."that's a lot better than what I thought of".)
Also, when reading papers, work out short examples. See what the patterns
are. 

15. What's the best way to prepare for the comprehensive exam?

ans: so far, in my experience here, the comprehensive exam is not really
an exam. What you do is write up your thesis proposal, with a long
related work section, ask some faculty to be on your committee, give them
copies of the proposal, respond to their criticism, and then present
the ideas in the proposal in a public talk. The audience can then question
you and the committee questions you also. Be prepared for questions
on the material in your proposal and on basic material in your subject
area. You should have a good idea of what is going to be in your thesis
when you do this. YOu do not have to have already done the experimental
work or programming, but you should know what you are going to do.

16. What's the best way to find problems on the appropriate level?

ans: read papers as above. go to seminars. pay attention in class. when you
see a problem you are interested in, try to solve it. Ask for help.

17. Can I have a list of all the funded professors?

ans: try the NSF web page

18. If I do X, Y and Z, will I promise to be funded?

ans: no. We can't make promises to fund more students than we have 
money for. 

19. How do you write a funding proposal?

ans: students normally do not write the proposals. A big part of proposals
is a description of work in progress and proposed work. You should be 
doing the "work in progress", not writing the proposal. A professor
may take parts of papers you have writen (usually with others) and paste
these parts of papers in the proposal. So in writing papers, you help
your professor write proposals.

20. How do you find professors who would be interested in working with
you?

ans: in classes and in seminars

21. Can we have a networks seminar?

ans: ask Professor Rajaraman

22. Do we need a paper submitted by the end of the second year?

ans: no, third year

23. Will I have to change my research area due to the funding problem?

ans: this is a bad idea. We will TRY to find funding for anyone who
is making good progress. Sometimes a generous professor hires as RA
a student who is doing the PHD with another professor. One of my students
is being funded like this from the engineering department. Sometimes
we find another TA somewhere.

24. How do you know when to start writing a paper if you are already
working on a research problem?

ans: we are keeping lists of due dates for the next important conferences
in our area. You OR the professor can say, "do you think we will be
far enough along by this date to submit a paper to this conference?"
This motivates people to write up their results by a given date. It is
normal to keep dates of the upcoming conferences in mind. (aside: it is
not like this in other disciplines like mathematics, where there are
no such conferences.)

25. Are there classic examples of bad papers in CS? 

ans: I can't think of any. But I have surely seen them. IF you ever serve
on a program committee, you will see several really bad papers. These
days, all submissions are nicely formatted and have good English, but
they can have a lack of ideas ("less than the least publishable unit") 
or they can propose obviously stupid ideas (like I can't decide
which of these two or three algorithms to use so you should program
all of them for your system and switch back and forth from one to
another) or strings of buzzwords with little or no substance, or
using mathematics to obscure the lack of ideas---wavelets and 
simulated anealing are often used in this capacity; once I saw a paper
which described a binary number as a sum of a_i 2^i where ai was 0 or 1. 
YOu are right that having a list of bad papers would be a good idea.

26. How can I manage my time so I can take a vacation?

ans: you can't; schedule one anyway.

27. How can you tell if a professor's future work will be good?

ans: hummm...try looking at his/her past work

28. Why did you talk about all these procedural things instead of a "fire
in your belly"

ans: good point. If you really love what you are doing, you will probably
succeed. However, the phd process can be mysterious.
I was a math phd student and I wanted to be a university math teacher
and I loved math, but I did not really know what math research was until
I started doing it. I only knew that you had to have a phd to be an academic,
which is what I wanted to do. I wanted to work on really hard problems, but
the only examples I saw were homework problems in math classes. I don't 
think I really knew what was involved and I am sure others were the same.
I had an idea that if I followed directions, I would get a phd. 

29. If you did not do so well the first year, how can you turn this around?

ans: do well in classes and attend a seminar and give talks in the
seminar. You will have a harder time if you got low grades in your
classes the first year. If you still have INTENSIVE classes to take,
be sure to do well there. 

30. How many papers do you write during your phd?

ans: I have said at least three. But there are variations from area to 
area. A phd thesis is supposed to be a significant contribution to ONE
topic area. If you write a lot of papers on different subjects, you may
need more papers than if you write a few but significant papers on one
subject. (But your CV will look great.) I would not award a phd to a 
student just because he/she wrote (or co-wrote) three papers. They
need to be good papers and the thesis needs to be a coherent contribution.

31. Aren't we funded definitely for 3 years?

ans: no

32. How many phd students are there?

ans: Nearly every RA or TA is a phd student. I think there are about 65
this year.

33. Why is research weighted so heavily over teaching?

ans: A Phd is expected to be capable of research. Many people without
PhD's are capable of being good teachers. The PHD is a research degree.
When you get an academic post, for example, in a university with
a graduate program (and some without graduate programs), you are expected
to write papers, supervise phd students, write grant proposals AND teach.
If you get an industrial position with a phd, you are expected to be
able to do research. If you were only expected to teach, you would
not need a phd.

34. Why is PPL considered more important than other classes?

ans: I don't know, but it is. It has been taught by Professor Wand for nearly
twenty years, so he has a good database for comparison. 

35. Is the difference between an A and A- looked at?

ans: not really. It's if you get B or B- in an intensive course, for
example, that people question your abilities (especially PPL!).

36. Shouldn't talking to a professor be more important than teaching
as a TA in your first year?

ans: hummm maybe. (I gave a ranking with TA duties above seminars
and talking to a professor.)

37. Will a student get funded if she/he has had some papers 
published before she/he entered Northeastern?

ans: Normally, publications before you came to NU are not counted.

38. How long does the average student take to graduate?

ans: 5 or 6 years

39. What percent of students are funded by the College for the summer?

ans: I don't know. Some professors continue funding RAs over the summer
and there are a few TAs, but not many.

40. How can I get a summer internship?

ans: be alert to announcements on the web or sent by the faculty here
over email. Ask the other students. I have been able to get one
student each year in to Microsoft for an internship. Partly this is
because I collaborate with one person in Microsoft. One of my students
found his own internship. Three were funded through NU over the
summer---one by my grant, one by another professor, and one was a
teacher of record (Experience and English good enough to teach a class
entirely by herself).

41. How can I be a good teacher?

First, you have to speak English well. Second, you should speak slowly
and explain using examples. Third, you should give the students an outline
the first day, with a schedule of exams and so forth. Undergraduate 
students need explicit directions when asked to do projects. 
Grading should include extensive remarks. Repeat difficult material.
This is just a start. 

42. How do you find an advisor?

ans: attend seminars, or if the professor has no seminar, read papers
written by the professor. Ask the professor if he/she will be your advisor
if you want to work in his/her area.

43. Is it it common not to get funded after the second year?

ans: no, it is not common. However, several advanced students were
on the waiting list last spring and did not know about their funding
until later in the year. And a very small number were considered not
to be doing well and were rated unsatisfactory and not offered funding.

44. How do you find a good research topic?

ans: go to seminars; read papers

45. What happens if after a thesis proposal is accepted, a paper
is published by someone else with the same results?

ans: If the thesis is done, and accepted, it is called 
"independently solved by several people" but if you have only made
a PROPOSAL, you need to find another topic.

46. If I don't pass the comprehensive exam, how many times can we retake it?

ans: As I said, it is not really an exam. If your committee ok's the 
written proposal, you are normally done.
They sign a paper saying they approve. If someone does not approve
of something, you have to rewrite it. Normally you don't start the process
until you are pretty sure it is ok. The real test in our phd, now that
we do not have "qualifying exams" is the requirement to get good grades
in your courses. This has replaced any real "exam".