Stressed... feel my thesis might be too ambitious

AARRRGH

Hello

I guess I'm hoping I can get some reassurance from you guys!

Right, I am doing a Computer Science Masters at night.

My thesis is on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). This is a very complex area. It's interesting, but it's difficult. I chose it as I can see it becoming increasingly popular over the next few years.

I have three months left to complete my thesis. Although my supervisor is being really helpful and supportive, ECC is not really his area, so I am quite concerned there is a real possibility I will not be able to implement a working version of ECC within the next three months. There is also a chance I won't understand ECC sufficiently by the time my thesis is due.

These are my problems as I see them -

1. ECC is a very complex area. I have heard of people who do their Ph.D on this topic. I only have three months to understand it.
2. The books on this subject are terrible. They were not written with "readable" in mind.
3. I don't have anyone I can bounce thoughts or ideas off. My supervisor is great, but he's never used ECC before.
4. I have a very busy job which leaves me tired by the end of the work day. I know this is no excuse, but it does affect my studying.

So, this is how I'm thinking of handling the situation -

A. Keep my supervisor updated on my progress. Basically, keep him in the loop so there are no surprises.
B. Start writing up my thesis now. If I can see I am making progress, it will keep the stress at bay.
C. Keep studying and trying to understand this subject.

Note I've tried paying for ECC grinds via the various universities, but no one seems to know or understand this subject.

Can you recommend any other survival tips?

Any pointers from people who have been in my shoes before would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

It sounds more that you need direction more than anything else. You've said you've looked for grinds from some of the Unis, but have you looked at meeting up with lecturers for an informal chat about your research proposals? What about asking around your department for contacts in other colleges instead of doing it yourself? And finally, perhaps there might be a conference sometime soon on that topic which you might be able to attend to find contacts?

Tom Dunne

dublindude wrote: »

My thesis is on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). This is a very complex area. It's interesting, but it's difficult. I chose it as I can see it becoming increasingly popular over the next few years.

What exactly is the thesis? Is it explaining it? Implementing it? Giving an overview? More detail, please.

dublindude wrote: »

I have three months left to complete my thesis.

Three months is plenty of time to write up a thesis. That is, if you are fully up to speed and relatively knowledgeable about a subject. However, if you are only now learning from scratch, it is not an ideal situation.

dublindude wrote: »

1. ECC is a very complex area. I have heard of people who do their Ph.D on this topic. I only have three months to understand it.
2. The books on this subject are terrible. They were not written with "readable" in mind.
3. I don't have anyone I can bounce thoughts or ideas off. My supervisor is great, but he's never used ECC before.
4. I have a very busy job which leaves me tired by the end of the work day. I know this is no excuse, but it does affect my studying.

Ok, this is a start. But again, I emphasise, three months to learn and write up a subject of this nature is a mammoth task.

dublindude wrote: »

A. Keep my supervisor updated on my progress. Basically, keep him in the loop so there are no surprises.

I can't emphasise how important this is. There should be no surprises when you come to the end of the MSc, for either you, or your project supervisor. Speaking from bitter experience, on both sides of the academic fence.

dublindude wrote: »

B. Start writing up my thesis now. If I can see I am making progress, it will keep the stress at bay.

How will you quantify progress? How will you know if you are understanding the concepts? How will you know you are not writing drivel?

dublindude wrote: »

C. Keep studying and trying to understand this subject.

Hmmm, I would be very nervous about that.

dublindude wrote: »

Can you recommend any other survival tips?

See my first line above. Define clearly what you want to do and work from that.

Draw up a plan, complete with deliverables, e.g. after week 2, x will be delivered, after week 4, y will be delivered and so on. This will have two main benefits - one, it will break down the task into manageable chunks, two, give you a better idea of whether you are falling behind or not.

I don't mean to be overly negative, I do think it can be done, but you need to get a handle on what exactly it is you want to do.

grungefreak1

Here is a link bud.

http://forum.pgp.com/pgp/board/message?board.id=36&thread.id=227
I feel for you as I'm torn about starting my MSc in a subject that I am very new to. I am desperately afraid that I will end up in this boat.

I think it's very important to get a supervisor who is an authority on your subject matter...I know this is like closing the gate after the horse has bolted but best of luck with it all anyway.

GF

Tom Dunne

grungefreak1 wrote: »

I think it's very important to get a supervisor who is an authority on your subject matter...

I wouldn't necessarily agree. What if you were the authority on the subject matter?

I don't want to derail this thread, dublindude sounds stressed out enough, but a supervisor should be able to guide you in general academic terms. He/She should be able to set reasonable objectives, decide what is good/bad and keep you on the right path. I know for my MSc, I knew more about the subject matter than my supervisor, but he still proved invaluable for the reasons I have listed.

AARRRGH

Thanks for the reply Myth.

Myth wrote: »

You've said you've looked for grinds from some of the Unis, but have you looked at meeting up with lecturers for an informal chat about your research proposals?

I've spoken to a few lecturers in my previous college. None of them are able to help as they do not know the subject.

As far as I know there is only one ECC guy in Ireland. He supervises in DCU. I have e-mailed him once in the past. His response was friendly, but I am reluctant to e-mail him again. I would rather save my next e-mail for when I'm really in trouble.

Myth wrote: »

What about asking around your department for contacts in other colleges instead of doing it yourself?

I could try this. I think I will just be referred to the DCU guy though.

I reckon if someone sat down with me for a few hours and I could pick their brain, I would be fine, as I'm generally good at tackling whatever is placed in front of me. I guess I feel a bit "oh ****" having to rely on Google and horrible textbooks to try to understand this stuff...

Hmmmm.

Well you aren't necessarily limited to this Island - perhaps ask for contacts outside here? E-mail, telephone, and/or video chat are all open to you. Not ideal but you never know...

Edit: I'll quantify* my posts by stating that I haven't undertaken anything beyond a Bachelors myself, so take my points with a pinch of salt.

*:pac:

AARRRGH

Hi Tom

Tom Dunne wrote: »

What exactly is the thesis? Is it explaining it? Implementing it? Giving an overview? More detail, please.

I have to explain and implement it. This includes the maths, and the fairly advanced programming concepts required to get ECC to work. I know I am not expected to implement a commercial standard version of ECC, but just getting it working is a big task in itself!

My supervisor feels we will get some sort of thesis out of the topic, but I know I will not be comfortable unless I truely understand what I am implementing.

At the moment I feel there are large sections of this topic which will take me a lot more than three months to grasp.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Three months is plenty of time to write up a thesis. That is, if you are fully up to speed and relatively knowledgeable about a subject. However, if you are only now learning from scratch, it is not an ideal situation.

Yes, this is the way I feel at the moment.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

How will you quantify progress? How will you know if you are understanding the concepts? How will you know you are not writing drivel?

I understand the concept. The general idea of how to generate keys and encrpt/decrypt is fine, for example, I have implemented a (not quite working!) version of ECC using natural numbers rather than the proper way of using polynomial/normal basis maths. So I'm not totally lost. It's just that some of the concepts are quite advanced, and I feel I need more time/more resources to truely understand this subject.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Draw up a plan, complete with deliverables, e.g. after week 2, x will be delivered, after week 4, y will be delivered and so on. This will have two main benefits - one, it will break down the task into manageable chunks, two, give you a better idea of whether you are falling behind or not.

Yes, I think I need to work out a plan and keep an eye on the time going by. My supervisor is aware of this, but I worry he doesn't realise the task ahead of us!

Thanks for the reply.

Pride Fighter

I have'nt the foggiest on what you are studying. All I can say is good luck:)

damnyanks

Do a search on http://search.safaribooksonline.com/ I got some results back on it. Tell me if their any use to you and I'll download the chapter for you. (Assuming you dont already have a subscription)

AARRRGH

damnyanks wrote: »

Do a search on http://search.safaribooksonline.com/ I got some results back on it. Tell me if their any use to you and I'll download the chapter for you. (Assuming you dont already have a subscription)

Thanks Damnyanks.

I actually have every ECC book available (and a Safari Subscription) so I have every publication at my fingertips... unfortunately I've found they're either too basic or too advanced (i.e. they assume you already know the subject.)

I'm feeling a bit better today... think I just had a freak attack last night.

I'll keep plugging away.

Thanks.

NextSteps

dublindude wrote: »

As far as I know there is only one ECC guy in Ireland. He supervises in DCU. I have e-mailed him once in the past. His response was friendly, but I am reluctant to e-mail him again. I would rather save my next e-mail for when I'm really in trouble.

Ask him to meet you for coffee and pick his brains. Try to figure out a smaller area than the whole thing. Is there some area or aspect you can look at without understanding the whole thing? (Or is this just a humainties tactic? )

Tar.Aldarion

I would definitely email teh dcu guy and ask to meet him for a discussion and so on.

LeixlipRed

Dublindude, have you tried contacting Maths Depts not Computer Science departments for lectures experienced in this field? My thesis is on Elliptic Curve Divisibility Sequences and my supervisor is knowledgeable in the area. There's a chap called Pat McCarthy in NUIM who is also an expert in ECs. Not necessarily exactly what you're looking for but sometimes the mathematicians will be more knowledgeable.

neil_hosey

Theres also a crypto group in NUI Maynooth headed up my Dr. Tom Dowling. Had him in 4th year college for cryptography, brilliant lecturer. Might be worth getting onto them(http://www.crypto.cs.may.ie/)

I know someone doing a Phd with them aswell, was in 4th year with him.

Also have a look at their downloads part of the site, have some implementations of EEC.. might be somewhere to start, http://www.crypto.cs.may.ie/software/


Good luck!

AARRRGH

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Dublindude, have you tried contacting Maths Depts not Computer Science departments for lectures experienced in this field? My thesis is on Elliptic Curve Divisibility Sequences and my supervisor is knowledgeable in the area. There's a chap called Pat McCarthy in NUIM who is also an expert in ECs. Not necessarily exactly what you're looking for but sometimes the mathematicians will be more knowledgeable.

neil_hosey wrote: »

Theres also a crypto group in NUI Maynooth headed up my Dr. Tom Dowling. Had him in 4th year college for cryptography, brilliant lecturer. Might be worth getting onto them(http://www.crypto.cs.may.ie/)

I know someone doing a Phd with them aswell, was in 4th year with him.

Also have a look at their downloads part of the site, have some implementations of EEC.. might be somewhere to start, http://www.crypto.cs.may.ie/software/


Good luck!

Sorry guys, I only saw your posts now! Damnit. They were good suggestions!

OK, I have a small update:

Well in the end I got it all working, both an integer arithmetic and polynomial arithmetic version of ECC. And I've written up a fairly large thesis which explains everything, so in the end it all worked out ok.

It was painful though, very painful!

I'm glad I stuck with it, and I'm glad I plowed ahead, because it goes to show a bit of persistence can go a long way.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Tar.Aldarion

Well done.

Red Alert

Well done, I bet you feel relieved now!

Macha

Ah well done, I'm seriously jealous of you having finished. I'm still at the panicky don't-know-when-to-stop-reading-and-start-writing-stage. *deep breaths*

AARRRGH

taconnol wrote: »

Ah well done, I'm seriously jealous of you having finished. I'm still at the panicky don't-know-when-to-stop-reading-and-start-writing-stage. *deep breaths*

I reckon you should start writing, or at least break up your thesis into its chapters and write a rough introduction and conclusion. It will help put everything together for you. Also it'll help you realise you probably know a lot more than you think you do!

When is it due?

Macha

AARRRGH wrote: »

I reckon you should start writing, or at least break up your thesis into its chapters and write a rough introduction and conclusion. It will help put everything together for you. Also it'll help you realise you probably know a lot more than you think you do!

When is it due?

It's due mid November so I have 3 months.

I have only read & made notes on about 40 articles tho...My problem is I can write essays in my sleep but have never done a dissertation so I'm a but unsure of everything. P

I'm doing a questionnaire & I've finalised that & have started collecting responses. Another thing is I'm kinda with an interim tutor at the moment & when I emailed her my questionnaire she said it "seemed OK" -what the hell does that mean?? So the lack of support from the college is not really helping either..

AARRRGH

I was lucky my supervisor was excellent. He helped me with some of the research and advised me on how I should organise my thesis and presentation.

I know you already know this, but put in a lot of effort now while the stress levels are fairly low, because it's just going to get worse every week.

I wrote an introduction, five technical chapters, and a conclusion.

My introduction was basically why I chose this topic, and things I noticed as I researched it (for example, the textbooks are written for mathematicians and experts, which makes the subject inaccessible for beginners). I also mentioned some things I did which were cool, like creating all my own algorithms from scratch. I then laid out what the next couple of chapters are going to be.

My conclusion started with a summary of what I said in my introduction, then presented my findings from the five previous chapters, and then gave a few paragraphs stating where I want to take things next, such as improving my code, implementing a more real-world version of my software, and publishing a beginners guide.

This seemed to be what they wanted. Not sure if that's of any use to you!

Macha

Thanks yeah, that does help. I know the format of my thesis:

Abstract
Intro
Literature Review
Methodology
Results
Discussion
Conclusions & Recommendations

Thanks yeah, I'll put in the hours now & will benefit from it in the end. Luckily I don't have to work so I really do have 3 months & not just afternoons & weekends. How long did you have to do yours? & how many hours did you put in a day?

AARRRGH

I had 5 months to do mine. I'd say I thought about it for about 12 hours per day, and set aside about 8 hours per day for research, coding and writing.

Basically, I've had no life for months, as people may have noticed by my constant posts on boards!!

I was told my thesis is "well beyond what is expected of a masters" so I think I am perhaps an extreme example of how much work you need to do, but definitely you will save yourself so much stress if you get cracking on it now!

I left all my writing to the final three weeks! Retarded. It worked out ok in the end (I'm an ok writer and I had a first class honours English graduate who is an IT specialist as my proof reader!) but I should have gotten cracking on the writing way sooner.

I gave my presentaton today. I'm offically finished my masters.

I can't believe it.

Feeling very emotional!!

Macha

Well I agree with the "thinking about it all day". Even when I'm not working on it, I have a niggly little cloud in the back of my mind, reminding me about it. That's cool, I'm trying to do about 8 hours a day as well, while everyone else is off at work, but try & keep the weekends a little bit free.

Well done again! Now in the time-honoured tradition, go out and get drunk & forget everything you just learned :pac:

AARRRGH

I don't really drink much anymore, but tonight I am getting totally wasted.

Drinking a can of Fosters as I type this!

I'm trying to delay going to the pub so I can enjoy the relief and confused emotions I am feeling now.

I honestly didn't think this day would come, hence my first post in this thread!

Tom Dunne

Congratulations and well done!

AARRRGH

Thanks Tom. You gave me some good advice over the past few months

Ahhh feel so happy. So great!

Macha

You can also celebrate coz you're 6 away from 6,000 posts! (Although according to the Newbie FAQ this makes you an off-the-charts freak with no life..)

So double celebrations tonight! (With other people I hope..)

AARRRGH

I actually have loads of things to celebrate this week!

1. Got my masters. Hopefully have straight A's.
2. Got a raise in work.
3. Got a bonus (1k) in work.
4. Got a "recognition award" in work which is sent to the entire company.
5. Got a website thingy (hard to explain) I've been working on for 4 years.

Sorry to keep posting about this, but I really thought I was ****ed, so to come out the other side not only having finished everything but also in line for an A... feels so good.

I really hope someone in the future will read this thread and see that if they stick with their course (on quite a few occasions I thought I would have to drop out due to things being too hard/not working hard enough/etc) they will come out the other end with their qualification. And I've gone from nearly dropping out to probably getting an A. If I can do it, so can you!

Macha

If you keep going, you might get a spot on the Oprah show - the inspiration slot! I think you have to sign a contract that you break down in tears at least once during the recording tho..