From: Michael Ernst <mernst@cs.washington.edu>
To: "Passing generals" panelists
Subject: "Getting through generals" panel
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 11:02:32 -0700 (PDT)

Thank you for volunteering for the "Getting through generals" panel to be
held Wednesday, April 15 at 4:30 in Sieg 134.  The seminar will be broken
into two parts.

First, each of you will speak for about five minutes about some aspect of
how to make generals a success.  What did you do right, what should you
have done differently, and what advice do you wish you had heard or heeded
before starting the process?  What was the biggest hurdle or the biggest
surprise?  Some potential topics to consider include choosing and managing
your committee, selecting papers, coping with the immense body of related
work they reference, maintaining the right level of detail in your
thinking, in the paper, and in the talk, and keeping on track through the
post-partum slumps following your quals and generals.  Also feel free to
add other topics that I haven't thought of.  Don't fret over this too much,
but do give it a bit of thought before we sit down for the seminar.

Second, we'll take questions from the audience.  They may want you to
expand upon something they heard (or get the other panelists' opinions on
something you said), or they may bring up other, related issues.

Thanks again, and I'll see you on Wednesday.

					-Mike