Organization:

Welcome to the fall quarter and to our geophysics group meetings/graduate level seminar.  The goals of this seminar are several:

• To advance our research interests by reading, discussing and critiquing the science of others as well as our own.  Our meetings dovetail with the departmental seminar, which has a topical focus on research related to hotspots, plumes and melting in the mantle.  During many of our Thursday meetings we will interact with the departmental seminar speaker.  This will provide an informal setting that will allow more detailed give-and-take discussions with our visitor.  More on that below.
• For more senior graduate students, our group meetings will provide an opportunity to present the results of ongoing research and to get feedback on the structure of, for example, a manuscript or comps project that is in progress. 
• For beginning graduate students this seminar will provide an opportunity to learn more about research being conducted within our department and to help you progress toward choosing a research topic of your own.

Deadlines/Goals:  We will have 3 milestones for the quarter, occurring at approximately weeks 3, 6 and 9.  These are geared toward the level of the graduate student and designed to help set and complete goals.  We will work individually with each of you to decide the exact nature of these milestones, so there is flexibility.  As a guideline, you might use the following to get your thoughts set on your own goals:

• For the more senior graduate students the end goal is to complete a manuscript or a write up of a comprehensive research project by the end of the quarter.  Thus the milestones at weeks 3 and 6 can be used, for example, to present the scientific motivation of your research (in broad and compelling terms), the outline of a discussion section, a draft of a manuscript/comps paper, etc.  We will then use this as a point of departure for discussions.
• For the incoming graduate students the end goal is to have chosen a research topic for one of your comprehensive exams by the end of the quarter.  In this case, the milestones at weeks 3 and 6 can be used, for example, to develop a list of potential research topics (by week 3) and a more in depth discussion of the pros and cons of each research topic by week 6.

We would like to emphasize that these are guidelines and that we are looking forward to working with you.  And that our foremost goal is to help advance your own research.  So,… this is the class that addresses the intangibles of choosing a research topic and making progress toward fruition.