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ERIK DEMAINE: So with every
sort of advanced class

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that I teach there's
a final project.

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And the goal of
the final project

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is for students to
somehow get their feet

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wet with the material
and sort of experience

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it at a more researchy level.

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In general, this can be
things like surveying papers

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that I didn't cover in
the class because there's

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only so much you can
fit in one semester.

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So they'll go and read other
material and kind of aim

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to teach that to the students.

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So there's a written
project part,

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and then there's also a
presentation in class.

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So this is an opportunity
for students to learn more.

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But actually most
students in this class

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aim for a particular
type of project, which

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is to solve an open problem.

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So actually advance the
field and then present

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their solution.

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Now, of course, not
everyone succeeded.

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And that's fine for a project.

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You don't have to
solve the problem

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that you set out to solve.

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But at least you try
different approaches

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and see what doesn't work.

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But actually most students
actually solved their problem.

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Often in groups.

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So the group size is unlimited.

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So sometimes 2, or
3, or maybe more,

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I think maximum 4
students got together

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and solved their
problem jointly and then

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present their solution.

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So I think, I mean it's
really exciting for me

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to show that they
engaged with the material

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so much they can actually
add new material.

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But it's also, I think, really
exciting for the students

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to show, hey, I can actually
solve these problems.

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Many of the students were not
theoretical computer science

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students.

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This is not their
kind of main area.

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But they were able to conquer
it anyway and have fun doing it.

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So I think it's
a nice confidence

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builder that actually--
you know, it sounds hard.

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The field is called hardness.

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But actually it's
pretty accessible.

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And I think it gives
them the confidence

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that they can go back
to their research fields

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and say, hey, how can we prove
that our problems are hard.

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And justify why we're
using heuristics

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or why we're using
exhaustive search.

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Maybe there's something better?

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Actually, no.

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We can show that's the limit.

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We encouraged, for
all the projects,

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not only to collaborate
with other students

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but to collaborate
with us, the teaching

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staff, the TAs, and myself.

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So we would give them advice,
especially in the beginning.

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So there's like a
project proposal stage,

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we would confirm that,
to our knowledge,

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this problem had not
been solved before.

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And then we would give them
lots of pointers for, you know,

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you might try this technique.

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You should rewatch
lecture seven video

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and see how those
techniques apply.

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Or maybe you could reduce
from this or reduce from that.

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Lots of different ideas for how
they might solve their problem.

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And then some of them
came to us afterwards

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like, well, I've gotten this
far but I'm stuck again.

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Any ideas?

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And so I think the
more you can talk

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to people about where
you're stuck the less stuck

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you will get.

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And so that helped a lot,
I think people generally

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found the solution.

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Some people brought
their problems

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to the open problem
session and had

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all the students look at it.

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So there were lots
of ways to do it.

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But generally, collaboration
was the answer.

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So the last part of the
project is for students

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to present their work in class.

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Usually it's a whole bunch
of student presentations,

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one after the other.

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So each presentation
is relatively short.

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I forget if it was
like 10 or 15 minutes.

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But I think it's really
valuable experience.

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Presenting is also hard.

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And the way to get good
at presenting your work

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is to do it a lot.

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And so, generally,
I find MIT students

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are quite good at this.

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They've had, I think,
a lot of experience

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presenting their work.

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But one of the things I
like to stress in my classes

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is, because most of
the projects were

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joint with multiple
students, how

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to navigate a joint talk
where one person talks

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for a few minutes or
one slide and then they

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switch back and forth.

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And I give general
advice about how

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to do this but for the most
part the students just kind

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of figure it out.

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And by practicing they
find a good way to do it.

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There are no videos of
the student presentations

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because I think that would be
a little bit too intimidating.

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It takes a lot of
practice before you're

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comfortable being video recorded
like this and in your lectures.

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But they are totally
of video quality,

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so it's a shame we
can't share them.

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But it's a chicken and
egg problem, I guess.

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And so at the end of the
class the TAs and I each

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write a bunch of bullet points
about their written project,

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and the work that they did,
and their presentation.

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And I pay particular
attention to like

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how strong their
voice is, do they

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have good presence,
and that kind of thing.

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And try to give
them that feedback

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so they know where
they need to improve,

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or where they're
especially good,

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or that the slides
needed more figures.

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That's my number one comment.

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Usually the answer is yes.

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Can never hurt to
have more figures.

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And also, on the
research side, we

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think-- we look
at their results,

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tell them whether
we found any bugs.

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But for the most
part we're thinking

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what would be the next step?

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Like, oh, here's
another open problem

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that would advance your
problem a little farther.

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And here's some
ideas for solving it.

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And that often leads to
papers that we publish.

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And some final projects
are basically done.

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Their papers are
ready to submit.

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And then we give them feedback
on where they should submit it,

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what would be a good
conference, a good journal,

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we can basically
help them publish it.

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So that's part of
the full service.