Critical Assessment of the Module: AI Seminar

Reviewing my learnings from the AI Seminar

As my 5th and final blog, I would like to review what I have learned (and didn't) by critically assessing my own journey. I will also try to incorporate the SMART goals that we wrote down at the start of the course

On my first day of taking the seminar, my goals were pretty clear: improve my communication and interpretation skills and improve knowledge of my VT topic. I have now gone through several different papers, reading, reviewing, presenting and writing survey papers about them. I feel like I have made a lot of progress in the following categories :

• Reading and Understanding a Scientific paper
• This has become most likely the largest learning for me. Previously, I had a tendency to skim through scientific papers and only have a shallow understanding of the methodology and contents. By reading the same seed paper multiple times by analyzing its main contents, summarizing its contents into a short pitch and especially reviewing it using a strict IJCA forum, I have imposed my ability to analyze a paper methodically
• Literature research:
• For the survey paper, I have went through several papers to gain a thorough understanding of my Topic and in the process I have learned to systematically perform literature research, to quickly look at a paper and understand the new insights it brings into my topic. I have also learned several AI tools to assist in literature research
• Putting research into context: 
• This is an area I could still use some improvement. As there are large amount of papers in my topic, it is often difficult to construct a proper taxonomy of the field and could use a more in depth survey of the topic
• Forming my own scientific judgement:
• I have noticed that I  have  improved in this aspect after performing the IJCAI review. I am more comfortable in saying a paper was good content-wise but is unnecessarily complex or the methodology is not generally applicable to similar problems. 
• Presenting scientific results:
• Writing blogs was pretty straightforward for me. Presenting the results to orally was slightly more challenging, especially in managing the short time constraint and deciding to choose which parts to keep and which parts to skip was more challenging. I think I definitely learned that there is gap between knowing something and understanding it well enough to communicate it clearly. I have also learned more about actively thinking about your audience and adapting your presentation style accordingly
• Engaging in scientific communication:
• The in-class discussions were very valuable. I think I have become more active in class as the sessions progressed as the class was communicative and open-minded in hearing various perspectives. Receiving feedbacks, especially some comments on the blogs has made me appreciate how impactful sometimes outside perspectives are

Comparison with my peers

Comparing myself with my peers is difficult as everyone brings something unique to the table. On that note here is an honest take in this aspect:

• What I did well: I think I bring a practical perspective to the seminar. I often like to simplify topics and try to understand my topics using examples
• What others did well: Some colleagues had more theoretical depth and also more complex topics . They were also better at identifying limitations of a paper. I think there were also colleagues that were more active during the discussions and willing to share their perspective
• What I learned from my colleagues: I have improved both my writing and communication skills with the help of my colleagues. Often before writing a blog, I would look at how others are writing theirs to get ideas to structure my own blogs. I also noticed that when more of my colleagues are willing to share their opinion during class, I also become more active and willing to share my opinion.

SMART GOALS

My two goals that I set at the start of the AI Seminar was to improve my communication skills and expand my knowledge in the topic and to systematically have a report following the progress. I think I have improved in both aspects and here is a systematic review of both SMART goals:

•     Improving communication skills: Each time in class I tried to share at least one comment / question during group discussions. I have become more aware of the audience / medium and to adapt my messaging depending on whether it is a pitch, blog or live discussion. I have kept track of 4 such interactions systematically as mentioned in my smart goals
• Expanding knowledge in my topic: By doing my VT project as well as going through several related papers, I have definitely improved my knowledge in all three subtasks: camera calibration, image segmentation and robotics. I can explain each concepts, what I did and the challenges faced /  learnings in a report

Final thoughts

Overall I found this seminar to be a very hands on training to both write and communicate scientific papers. I feel more capable of critically analyzing papers, expressing thoughts and ideas but there is a long way to go to do it consistently. I think this course prepares you on how to think rather than just how to read a scientific paper and I think it is very effective in laying a strong scientific foundation for students.