Annual Review

From GSLISWiki

Every PhD student must complete an Annual Review at the end of the school year. This is usually completed at the end of April or the beginning of May. The webpage that provides the official guidelines for completing the Annual Review is:

http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/degrees/phd-reporting.html

PhD students must:

Put together their own committee and arrange a time to meet with their committee members.
Fill out the appropriate form (accessible from the website above).
Create a CV.
And write a statement.

Some students have had trouble figuring out what to write in their statement, however, so this page is designed to give some alternative approaches to writing the statement which different students have found to be useful. None of these are official guidelines, but simply different approaches which have worked, which can serve as inspiration. Please feel free to contribute your experiences and what you have found useful.

[edit] Some Pointers by Faculty Members

This section has been created by using advice given to me by Mike Twidale and Caroline Haythornthwaite. This advice regards what they like, not necessarily what is appropriate for all faculty members. -Ingbert

Mike's recommendations

One page document (or as close to one page as you can manage)
Statement about your interests and the progress you have made in exploring them, refining them, etc.
List of classes you have taken, with an explanation for each one of either:
1. How they relate to your area of interest, and how they have prepared you or helped your progress.
2. If your area of interest is not yet well defined, an explanation of why the classes were interesting.
List of classes you intend to take with similar explanations.
List of Milestones you have completed which shows your progress in the program.

Caroline's recommendations

Note, these were specific to my problems with progress, and may or may not apply to other students. -Ingbert

List of books and articles you have read that you found interesting and relevant to your research interests, and explanations as to why you found them interesting.
- This is to help show the breadth of your interests, so that faculty members who have more experience can perhaps help you figure out the general field which covers your interests, or at least where you should look for more readings.