The Coq mailing list

[Carl Patenaude-Poulin <carlpaten AT protonmail.com>]

Hi all,

I am a young software developer with a hobbyist's interest in formal methods,

including and especially Coq. I feel like I've taken what I could from working

in industry as a software engineer, and I am extremely interested in

transitioning to a career in research. I am humbly asking for pointers on

entering the field of PL, Coq and formal methods. I am also trying to adjust

my judgment with respect to what's realistic and what isn't for me.

My academic pedigree is underwhelming; I have an undergraduate degree with

middling grades (GPA 3.24/4.00), and do not have research experience. I am

confident I can do better after maturing for a few years in industry, but I am

not sure how to best make that case.

The first thing I've tried was cold-emailing a few researchers who I would be

enchanted to work for/study under. I've consciously aimed too high by writing

to those whose work I found the most interesting; not coincidentally, lots of

other people would like to work with them, and I'd imagine they have their

pick without taking a chance on cold emails from unknown undergraduates. I did

not receive strong returns, and halted this approach after I saw this bit on

Philip Wadler's page (http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/phd.html) which

suggested that I had not been demonstrating sufficient effort in the emails I

sent:

>When you apply, pay particular attention to the research proposal. The

>purpose of this is not to fix an area of study, but to assess your ability to

>select a suitable research problem, to justify why it is interesting, and to

>express yourself clearly.

On to some questions:

- The blurb from Wadler's web page implies that cold emails should include a

  research proposal with a non-trivial amount of detail. Should I pick a

  problem and start working on it _before_ I apply for a PhD program?

- What approaches might I use for finding potential advisors that would be

  open to taking a chance on an unproved student? Surely it would be uncouth

  to email-blast the >100 authors of papers I've found interesting in the past

  few years? I don't want to make a bad name for myself when I've not even

  started working in the field.

- What should I include in such an email? I could put my CV and/or my

  undergrad transcript, would that be helpful? Should I attempt to signal that

  I've meaningfully engaged with the recipient's research (which I have,

  otherwise I wouldn't be writing to them)?

- One of my professors from undergraduate once offered to recommend me to a

  researcher they know, someone I would be enchanted to study under - this is

  probably a best case scenario, right? I should probably start by pursuing

  that?

All of my gratitude for your time and attention,

Carl Patenaude-Poulin

B Eng Software (McGill University)