A group that you're involved with For example, you may want to write a program for scheduling the pool table at your dorm or solve fluid dynamics equations for the model rocketry club you organized. Come see me before registration with a project idea. We can discuss it and agree on a basic outline for the project. Then go to the CS department office to get a permission number for CS 399. Specify that I'm supervising it.
Independent studies can be just that - independent.
Here are the typical deliverables for an independent study. By when What Details Start of classes Project contract For projects intended to satisfy the project requirement, you should have your user sign off on the specification portion of the contract. A specification of the program in sufficient detail for us to be able to agree at the end of the quarter as to whether you actually did it. You should probably break this up into necessary features and nicer features that you intend to implement but that can be jettisoned if you run into unexpected problems. Usually a page or two is sufficient for this.