Summer Project FAQ
What's different this year?
First of all, the name. The OCaml Summer Project is being renamed to the Jane Street Summer Project, in order to reflect a broader scope. We're not dropping the focus on our favorite language, but we've decided to experiment with opening up funding to other functional programming languages such as Haskell, F#, SML and Scheme.
We're also changing how funding works, particularly in the US. After some feedback last year, we've decided to give faculty more discretion in the running of the project. As such, we're structuring the funding as an unrestricted grant to the supervising faculty member to use as they see fit. All proposals should now include requested funding levels, which will make it easier to tune the funding to the needs of individual projects.
Funding outside of the US will still be structured as direct payments to students, but this year we will ask faculty members to make recommendations as to funding levels.
Our goal for both the US and abroad is for funding levels to be at 20%-40% above what would be available to a student through an ordinary summer research position, and to provide additional funding to the faculty member at roughly $2k USD per month of the project.
How do I apply?
Applications should come jointly from the students who will work on the project and the faculty member who will mentor it. The application should include basic information about the participants (name, contact information, current educational institution and position within that institution).
The application should also include a project proposal. The goal of a JSSP project should be to create open-source software that makes the target language a better practical tool for people using the language as a means rather than an end. A project should aim to produce working and usable code by the end of the summer.
The proposal should have a short abstract, and should be no more than 10000 characters in full, and shorter is better. You should include a description of the project you propose as well as a description of how you intend to go about it. Your description might, for instance, include an overview of your proposed design and implementation strategy, intended platforms, and plans for documentation, testing, and licensing any resulting code.
The application should also include a recommendation from the faculty member, explaining why the faculty member thinks the students in question are well equipped to do the project they propose. The faculty should also propose funding levels and a breakdown of what the faculty member would expect to use the funds for (the breakdown would not be considered binding). The application should be in plain-text (no Word files or PDFs). All materials should be emailed to summer-project@janestcapital.com by the faculty member.
Which languages can I target?
We don't have strict rules on which languages you can work with, but we do have some general guidelines. We want to focus on languages that are already reasonably popular within the functional programming community and that have solid implementations and significant communities of users. Good candidates include languages like OCaml, SML, Haskell, Scheme, and F#. Note that while this year we have opened up to languages beyond OCaml, we still intend to focus funding on OCaml in preference to the other languages on the list.
There are many fine programming langauges that to varying degrees support functional paradigms but are not primarily functional languages. It is beyond the scope of the JSSP to support projects working in these langauges. As such, we are not accepting proposals for C#, C++, Java, Javascript, Perl, Python or Ruby projects.
Note that a project doesn't necessarily need to be written in the language it's aimed at benfiting. For example, a project to extend eclipse to work better with SML would likely end up with large parts written in Java. Such a project would be entirely appropriate for the JSSP.
What's the schedule?
All applications are due by March 31st. Awards will be announced on April 24th.
We expect schedules to vary from project to project, but all projects should aim to be completed by the end-of-summer meeting. The meeting will be in late August or early September. The exact timing will be finalized based on the needs of the accepted projects.
How does funding work?
As mentioned above, funding will be determined project by project. As a rough guideline, we would like to fund students at a higher level than funding that would ordinarily be available for a summer research position, and to in addition to that fund professors at roughly a rate of $2k/month USD.
Can teams of students apply?
Yes, we will consider teams of 2 or 3 students. We tend to think that 2 is the optimal team size for a project like this. In such cases, compensation will take place on an individual basis. We would, of course, expect such teams to attack more ambitious projects.
A group of students can if they feel it necessary propose more than one project, but each project should reference the other, so it is clear to the reviewers that the projects are an either-or proposition. But please don't abuse the privelege.
What will happen at the end-of-summer meeting?
The meeting will take place at Jane Street’s offices in Manhattan. The meeting is meant to be a way for students to present their work, to meet other people from the community, and also to take a look around the city. We’ll arrange for talks on subjects related to functional programming from researchers in the field.
Jane Street will pay for your travel and lodging expenses for this trip, including international travel.
How do I arrange for a travel Visa for the end-of-summer meeting?
Jane Street does not provide any legal help in arranging for travel visas for foreign participants. You might find the following websites useful:
Who is eligible?
Only undergraduate or graduate students can participate in the program. If requested, you should be ready to provide transcripts from your institution as proof of enrollment or admission status.
Jane Street employees, interns, contractors, family members, or citizens of Iran, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea and Myanmar (Burma), with whom we are prohibited by U.S. law from engaging in commerce, are ineligible to participate. You must also be eligible to work in the country in which you’ll reside throughout the duration of the program.
I have a question not answered here
Please contact summer-project@janestcapital.com.