Visit the McGill School of Computer Science (SOCS) website. Look at the faculty directory and filter by research areas. Do you like Game Theory? Look into Prof. Adrian Vetta. Interested in Reinforcement Learning? Check out the Reasoning and Learning Lab. 2. The "Cold Email" Strategy
interests you most (e.g., AI, Theory, Systems)? What year of your program are you currently in? Do you have a specific professor in mind already?
– Read 2-3 recent papers from potential supervisors. Understand their lab's focus. Do not email a professor saying, "I want to do AI research." Be specific: "I read your CHI 2023 paper on gaze-assisted selection, and I’m interested in extending the user study to mobile devices." comp 396 mcgill
"I took COMP 396 with Professor Derek Nowrouzezahrai on Monte Carlo methods for rendering. It was challenging because there was no textbook — I had to read SIGGRAPH papers from scratch. But the experience taught me how to debug not just code, but also my own assumptions. I later used the project report as a writing sample for a research internship at NVIDIA. Highly recommended." — Anonymous McGill CS Honours Student, 2023
Having a formal research project on your transcript is a major differentiator for internships and Master’s/Ph.D. applications. Visit the McGill School of Computer Science (SOCS) website
The schedule is flexible. Some projects are theoretical (proofs, complexity analysis) and have no coding at all.
A successful COMP 396 project can lead to a detailed, personalized reference letter from a faculty member—much more impactful than a generic "this student got an A in my class" letter. Look into Prof
A: No. Major and Joint Major students are eligible, but priority may go to Honours students if demand exceeds capacity.