Call for Participation

The Student Mentoring Workshop (SMeW) at ICSE encourages and supports students who are entering the Software Engineering (SE) research community. The goal of the workshop is to attract students to research careers in SE, to demystify the graduate school experience, and to offer first-hand perspectives on the graduate study from recent Ph.D. graduates, young scholars, and senior researchers. SMeW’s core mission is to foster the development of the next generation of researchers in our community — supporting undergraduates and master’s degree students who are applying to Ph.D. programs, and early-career Ph.D. students who are just beginning their studies. SMeW aims to foster an inclusive community, promoting diversity and increasing the participation of students who are members of underrepresented groups in computing.

The workshop program will focus on important skills for beginning researchers and will offer mentoring opportunities with senior researchers attending the conference, discussing the topics such as the following.

• How to build a mentoring network and what to look for? What is the difference between mentorship and sponsorship?
• How to network effectively at a conference? How to find your cohort and support groups? How to find a mentor and what to look for?
• What non-technical skills are also essential for a research career? To give a good presentation? To write an outstanding paper? To find great collaborators?
• What are the possible research career trajectories (e.g., differences across academia, industry, startups, consulting)?
• What are the new, emerging areas in software engineering research?
• What are the best practices and common pitfalls in an early-stage research career?

Format

The workshop will be structured to encourage interaction and confidential small-group discussions. We aim to provide a supportive and friendly environment for students to share their personal experiences and seek advice from their mentors comfortably. We will match mentors and mentees into small groups based on their technical and non-technical interests.

Following ICSE 2024’s structure, the workshop will be in person. This is a one-day workshop on April 16, Tuesday at the same venue as ICSE (lunch included!). We intentionally organized the workshop one day prior to ICSE’s main conference, aiming to prepare students (especially first-timers) for a wonderful ICSE experience! The workshop format will include presentations (a small portion of the workshop to warm up the discussions), skill practice (e.g., networking skill practice right before ICSE starts!), small-group mentoring pods based on the topics of your interest, and panel discussions on topics of common interests. The mentors will have diverse expertise and experiences to offer different perspectives, such as researchers at different stages with academic or industrial backgrounds.

We expect the final program to be very similar in structure to the SMeW 2023 Program - you can also find a video recap of the event on YouTube.

How to Participate

Student Application

All students who are interested in attending the workshop in person must submit an application, which will help us match students with mentors and ensure that we can provide sufficient space to have productive discussions. To help support students to attend the workshop in person, we have funding set aside to defray travel costs, and also to cover the registration costs for ICSE.

Apply for the workshop at: https://forms.gle/RkYEFvXTLyi7Tnxx8

Travel support is made possible thanks to generous support by the US National Science Foundation and by ACM SIGSOFT.

Mentor Application

Would you be willing to participate in ICSE 2024’s Student Mentoring Workshop (SMeW) as a mentor, leading a small group mentoring pod? We will perform a match-making process, assigning specific students to mentors based on technical and non-technical interests. We expect this to be a roughly 2-hour commitment in person at ICSE 2024 on the workshop day (April 16, Tuesday), although you are welcome to meet more with the students.

Apply to serve as a mentor at: https://forms.gle/2KAgsnF36QL66qDD6

Sessions

Student Application

All students who are interested in attending the workshop in person must submit an application, which will help us match students with mentors and ensure that we can provide sufficient space to have productive discussions. To help support students to attend the workshop in person, we have funding set aside to defray travel costs, and also to cover the registration costs for ICSE.

Apply for the workshop at: https://forms.gle/RkYEFvXTLyi7Tnxx8

Travel support is made possible thanks to generous support by the US National Science Foundation and by ACM SIGSOFT.

Here are some tips for our students and we hope they can help you prepare for a fun trip at ICSE! :)

You can find the resources collected from ICSE 2022’s mentors here.

Please don’t be overwhelmed by the tips :) Not all advice will serve you as we’re all unique individuals. Here’s an article about How to ignore advice by David Evans and we hope you’ll find what’s really working for you!

Couldn’t attend our workshop in person? You can find the video recap of what was covered at ICSE 2023’s workshop HERE.

Networking Tips

1. How to get the best out of any conference, by Bara Buhnova

2. How to get the most out of your first research conference, by Yixue Zhao

Job Search

1. The two-body academic job search, by James Davis

2. How to Get a Letter of Recommendation, by Fabio Massacci

3. Materials for academic job-hunting 1.0, by Shurui Zhou

4. Academia, Industry, and Everything in between. A (non-exhaustive) list of job opportunities for PhD students and Postdocs, by Yixue Zhao

Academic Well-being

1. Dealing with academic criticism, by Amy J. Ko

2. Depth and Persistence: What Researchers Need to Know About Impostor Syndrome, by Danfeng (Daphne) Yao