The best place to start is to attend the weekly Seminar on People, Computers, and Design. Also take a look at our recent publications. If you'd like to get an email from us a few times a year, with information like class project presentations, join the hci-friends mailing list.

Starting from sophomore year, consider taking CS147, the Intro to HCI class at Stanford (usually taught in the Fall). If CS147 piques your interest, both the Computer Science Department and the Symbolic Systems Program offer concentrations in Human-Computer Interaction.

Human-Computer Interaction is a popular focus area for several graduate programs. Graduate admissions are handled at a department level. For students with technical background and interests, Computer Science will likely be the best fit. (That said, there are no "rules" or specific prerequisite classes required for admission. On rare occasions, CS will accept students who have minimal CS background. These are students who seek a technical background, and who have stellar letters of recommendation.) Stanford also has several fantastic graduate programs for students seeking to study HCI with a design or social science focus. Examples include Product Design, Learning Science & Technology Design, Communications, Work, Technology, & Organization, and Symbolic Systems. Students in all departments at Stanford also have the opportunity to take classes in the d.school.

No. (So that the faculty can spend their time with current students, teaching, and doing research.) Stanford is a great place to be an undergraduate or graduate student. Put together a strong application. The admissions committee looks at a range of factors, including grades, test scores, and recommendations. One particularly important point is evidence of ability to do research -- if you have done research, your chances of admission are far better. Especially if you have worked on published research. Stress this in your application. If you'd like to get a feel for the Stanford HCI program, we encourage you to:

• join us for the Friday HCI Seminars (lectures are also videocast live and archived).
• attend quarterly final project presentations (sign up to get announcements).
• tour the d.school.

If you've been admitted; congratulations! We hope you'll come, and the faculty are happy to talk with you and answer questions.

Paint a rich picture of the work you have done and the work you seek to do. Avoid vague claims of interest like "I have been fascinated by computers since childhood" or "Stanford has a great CS department" in favor of concrete desciptions of work you've done and topics you find interesting.

Generally speaking, we do not have the resources for non-Stanford interns. We will not respond to internship requests from students. If you have research experience in HCI, and are interested in a project related to our group's work, please have a faculty member at your university email me, and have them include an explanation of your particular qualifications for HCI research.

When there's a great fit, a talented student, and funding, the HCI Group sometimes has Post-Doc positions. If you write us about this, please explain how your background prepares you for this particular group, and what particular joint research opportunities you see. The volume of Post-Doc requests we receive prevents us from responding to generic inquiries.

Yes. Provided you have the required background, you can take HCI classes as a Non-Degree-Option student through Stanford's Center for Professional Development.

We get several requests per day seeking to hire Stanford HCI students for internships. Given this volume, please follow these instructions to insure the best students read your email. The best way to send internship requests is to contact the Computer Forum. They are extremely effective at getting the word out -- much better than us. If you do send us an email that you want to be sent to students: Please send one email to srk-admin@cs.stanford edu that can be forwarded *as is*. No attachments. No preamble. Just what should be forwarded. Also, as mentioned above, join us for the HCI Seminar and sign up for quarterly announcements -- the quarterly final project presentations are the best place to meet students and see their work firsthand.

Internships are a great way to expose students to real problems and learn how people really use interactive systems. Internships also provide students with valuable experience about what it's like to work outside the university. We encourage PhD students to seek internships when it will likely contribute to the student's dissertation research. Consequently, it's tremendously import that students be able to publish their internship work and use the resulting data and insights to further their research. When appropriate, code that interns write may be proprietary to the employer. However, employers should anticipate -- indeed relish -- the idea that students will continue working in the area of their research internship, and that after their internship students will continue to publish and produce code that is often open source. Interns provide their employer the opportunity to closely collaborate with someone immersed in the culture, insights, and innovations of their university. These internships often result in long-term collaborations with the student and with faculty.