2025-02-25: A Rollercoaster of Deadlines, Discoveries, and Late-Night Snacks: A Reflection on My Ph.D. Journey
It felt like yesterday when I first enrolled in Old Dominion University (ODU) to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2019 ( Muntabir's introduction ). Fortunately, I was accepted to the Lab for Applied Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing Systems (LAMP-SYS), part of the Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group (WSDL) in the Department of Computer Science at ODU. LAMP-SYS is led by Dr. Jian Wu and focuses on building intelligent systems that solve real-world problems using natural language processing (NLP), computer vision (CV), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) techniques. I was overwhelmed with joy on the day when I had my first meeting with my professor regarding project briefs and discussions. I was assigned to a collaborated project with Virginia Tech called " Mining Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) ," supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) . ETDs are scholarly articles that usually serve as...
