FAQs

Q: I want to meet my fellow PhD Students, is there anything going on? A: Yes! See below

DoCSoC

DoCSoC occasionally run events for postgraduate students, including their semesterly “Postgraduate Drinks Night”. Membership is free for DoC PhDs, so be sure to sign up on the union site or to follow them on facebook.

Pizza Fridays

Organized by our very own PhD Student Reps, Pizza Fridays take place most weeks on Friday at 5pm. Be sure to come along to chat with other PhDs and Faculty. Note: If you don’t receive the emails for these contact CSG and ask them to check whether you are on the DoC PhD mailing lists.

• To make working with lab machines from outside of college easier (i.e. without a VPN), we recommend setting up SSH tunnels. In particular, see this remote working guide from the Deep Learning course.
• You can find other useful advice for Imperial Computing in this github repository

• Q: Where do I submit my milestones? A: Usually on CaTE
• Q: The PhD requirements say that we need 4 postgraduate credits by the time we complete the ESA. Where can I see my completed courses? A: You can see this under “My Student Record” on My Imperial

• Q: Can I fail the RPC? A: Not really. The RPC serves as a formal confirmation of your work alongside your supervisor, as well as finalizing your second supervisor.

• Q: When is the ESA due? A: Usually 9 months after you started the PhD
• Q: Is there an ESA Template? A: There is no officially required template. However, this template, modified from the MSc Project template, is commonly used.
• Q: How long should the ESA be? A: Typically around 20-40 pages, but you should ask your supervisor as this is project dependent.

• Q: When is the LSR due? A: Usually within 18-24 months after you started the PhD
• Q: Do I need to prepare a presentation for my LSR? A: No. Typically the LSR involves presenting a poster
• Q: Can I use a poster from a publication at a conference? A: Not quite. You will likely want to include some background (what you did up until now) and a future plan in the poster too.

• Q: Where do I sign up for teaching? A: tsc.
• Q: Where do I claim teaching hours? A: the payroll system (CWMA) see also the claims guide.
• Q: If I complete fewer than 100 hours of teaching, will I need to do additional teaching the next year? A: If the course loads were such that you end up doing fewer than 100 hours, no additional hours are carried forward.

New PhD students (or those who haven’t claimed this before) are entitled to an allowance for a computer / laptop from the department. You should contact CSG if they haven’t contacted you already.

• Q: Can we print remotely?: A: Yes - via email (see the ICT guide) or the remote printing website

See the Department’s High Performance Computing guide.

• In addition to Imperial’s HPC Cluster, the department has a GPU Cluster.
• If you want to use many CPUs, Condor can be used to queue and execute jobs on departmental lab machines
• If you want to run interactive GPU jobs, you can use JupyterLab on the HPC or make use of the Department’s GPU Lab Machines (outside of teaching hours!). These are gpu[01-30] and ray[01-26]

• Q: Can I claim travel expenses in advance? A: No. If you will struggle to pay for your travel, speak to your supervisor or Amani
• Q: How do I claim travel expenses? A: Complete a departmental expense form (also used for miscellaneous expenses or event organization) and send it to Amani.

Q: Am I allowed to collaborate on work which I intend to include in my thesis?

• Yes, though you should first clarify with your supervisor
• It is best to agree on planned contributions with collaborators beforehand, including main authorship vs. joint authorship with specific contributions
• You can include a Statement of Contributions in your thesis

Q: How much am I allowed to spend on travel? A: The total travel allowance throught your PhD is £4000, with a maximum per-trip spend of £2000; This may change in future. If necessary, you should discuss with your supervisor if they are able to cover additional expenses above £2000.