underscore_frosty

Well, I'm not chronically physically ill, but I am suffering from chronic mental illness and I'll be starting my PhD in computer science this fall.
My mental health journey has been...an interesting experience to say the least. It started about 2 or so years ago when I was about half-way through my 3rd year of undergrad (this is my 5th and final year). As of right now my diagnoses are schizoaffective disorder (depressive type, mood disorder dominant), panic disorder, HPPD, PTSD, and Aspberger's/HFA. It's been difficult and there were times when it severely affected all aspects of my life, college and family included. There were times when literally everyone who knew about my condition was urging me to dropout and consider long term hospitalization (this came after, we'll just say, a credible threat to my safety). There were more times than I care to mention when I seriously considered giving up for good.
But I pushed through and now here I am 2 years later about to graduate with a BS in computer science and well on my way to starting a PhD. I know doing a PhD is order of magnitude more stressful and difficult than undergrad, but I feel that now that I have matured some and learned to cope with my conditions I should be able to get through this.

Well, I'm not chronically physically ill, but I am suffering from chronic mental illness and I'll be starting my PhD in computer science this fall.
My mental health journey has been...an interesting experience to say the least. It started about 2 or so years ago when I was about half-way through my 3rd year of undergrad (this is my 5th and final year). As of right now my diagnoses are schizoaffective disorder (depressive type, mood disorder dominant), panic disorder, HPPD, PTSD, and Aspberger's/HFA. It's been difficult and there were times when it severely affected all aspects of my life, college and family included. There were times when literally everyone who knew about my condition was urging me to dropout and consider long term hospitalization (this came after, we'll just say, a credible threat to my safety). There were more times than I care to mention when I seriously considered giving up for good.
But I pushed through and now here I am 2 years later about to graduate with a BS in computer science and well on my way to starting a PhD. I know doing a PhD is order of magnitude more stressful and difficult than undergrad, but I feel that now that I have matured some and learned to cope with my conditions I should be able to get through this.

Well, I'm not chronically physically ill, but I am suffering from chronic mental illness and I'll be starting my PhD in computer science this fall.
My mental health journey has been...an interesting experience to say the least. It started about 2 or so years ago when I was about half-way through my 3rd year of undergrad (this is my 5th and final year). As of right now my diagnoses are schizoaffective disorder (depressive type, mood disorder dominant), panic disorder, HPPD, PTSD, and Aspberger's/HFA. It's been difficult and there were times when it severely affected all aspects of my life, college and family included. There were times when literally everyone who knew about my condition was urging me to dropout and consider long term hospitalization (this came after, we'll just say, a credible threat to my safety). There were more times than I care to mention when I seriously considered giving up for good.
But I pushed through and now here I am 2 years later about to graduate with a BS in computer science and well on my way to starting a PhD. I know doing a PhD is order of magnitude more stressful and difficult than undergrad, but I feel that now that I have matured some and learned to cope with my conditions I should be able to get through this.

Well, I'm not chronically physically ill, but I am suffering from chronic mental illness and I'll be starting my PhD in computer science this fall.
My mental health journey has been...an interesting experience to say the least. It started about 2 or so years ago when I was about half-way through my 3rd year of undergrad (this is my 5th and final year). As of right now my diagnoses are schizoaffective disorder (depressive type, mood disorder dominant), panic disorder, HPPD, PTSD, and Aspberger's/HFA. It's been difficult and there were times when it severely affected all aspects of my life, college and family included. There were times when literally everyone who knew about my condition was urging me to dropout and consider long term hospitalization (this came after, we'll just say, a credible threat to my safety). There were more times than I care to mention when I seriously considered giving up for good.
But I pushed through and now here I am 2 years later about to graduate with a BS in computer science and well on my way to starting a PhD. I know doing a PhD is order of magnitude more stressful and difficult than undergrad, but I feel that now that I have matured some and learned to cope with my conditions I should be able to get through this.

UPDATE:
WSU (PhD): Meeting with POI either in person tomorrow morning (he'll be in my neck of the woods tomorrow for a conference), or a chat over the phone on Friday. Getting a little excited about this. This is the same POI I talked with last year when I applied (but had to withdraw my application since my graduation was delayed by A YEAR ). It seemed like I made a good impression last year because he asked me, if they were able to secure some sort of funding for an REU type experience, whether I would be interested in such a position over the summer. To hear back from him again this year is a very good sign.

Academic profile: American male with a BS in CS from a comprehensive, state/regional university that is not well known. One, roughly 6 month REU experience (not to toot my own horn, but I received an extension to the award for my apparently excellent work) which resulted in a poster presentation at the NSF REU Symposium. Additionally, high marks in senior level CS electives (4 or 5, I'll have to take a look at my transcript) and high marks in a research oriented CS class (3 research projects + 1 lecture on a topic of our choosing).
Experience: 4 years IT experience, currently employed as an information security analyst, 2 years tutoring in a dynamic, laboratory environment.
Publications: 1 poster presentation at a national level conference/symposium (see above).
GPA: 3.50 cumulative, 3.58 major.
GRE: 158Q, 164V, 4.5W
LORs: 3 strong LORs. One from my (former) advisor (former because I redeclared in a different catalog year which for some reason assigned me a new advisor), one from a professor who has continually encouraged me to attend graduate school (who also taught the research oriented CS class), and one from my REU advisor/mentor.
SOP:  Learned from my mistakes the first time round and definitely improved.
Program(s):  PhD, MS (thesis option)
Schools: BSU (MS, where I did my REU), EWU (MS, my home institution), WSU (PhD)
Areas of interest: Cyber/information security, logic/metalogic, computability logic, theory (particularly applications of category and object theory to computability theory), formal methods in SE (what I did my research in at the REU), social network analysis with memetics
Decisions: None (?) so far, either good or bad. Around this time last year is when I received my rejections, but I have yet to hear anything back. That said, I noticed something curious when I went to audit my degree. Way at the bottom was a little blurb that said "Graduate Level GPA (GGPA): 3.00" with a date of 17 JAN 2017. This is for my home institution, and to my knowledge I haven't taken any graduate level classes, and if I did I certainly didn't receive the bare minimum 3.0 to pass. I was a little perplexed by this because I hadn't seen that entry prior to this morning. Searching around didn't yield any answers either. So this may be an unintentional indication of admission to the MS in CS program at my home institution, only the adcom would know.
Reasons for applying where I did: WSU has a research center dedicated to researching the smart grid and IoT devices, and part of that research includes evaluating the security of such things. Also, WSU has a research center for network science which is related to social network analysis. I applied at my home institution as a safety school and because I currently work in the area (and there are rumors of a promotion in the works). Knowing all the faculty and being on good terms with them is also good. And BSU of course because I did my REU there and my former advisor there has already extended an invitation to continue work on the project I started should I be admitted. Furthermore, knowing that my academic profile is somewhat less-than spectacular, I applied at schools that were within reach (and I only applied at 3 because of funds and timing).
Anything else: I'm just incredibly nervous right now because this time of year is when I received those oh-so-painful rejection letters. I'm always nervous when I check my email because I'm afraid of that, "Mr. X, We regret to inform you that...." This year feels different though. Even if I end up not being admitted anywhere, I have a kick ass job to fall back on (literally the only job I have really enjoyed). Anyways, good luck to y'all!
 

Thank you for the encouragement!
Anyways, to answer your questions, I did talk to my (former) academic advisor (I strategically redeclared under a different catalog year which caused me to be assigned a new advisor, but I can change my advisor whenever) about my previous application list and came to a consensus on the 4 original schools I applied at. Their input was that even though I had relatively good stats, my chances of getting into a really good school were pretty slim. Slim not necessarily because of my academic profile (at the time), but simply because the university I'm coming from simply doesn't have the prestige that other universities do (not to say that my university is bad or that the CS program is bad, just that the university itself is not well known in the academic world). They also mentioned that because the CS program at my school is geared more towards software engineering than pure CS, that puts somewhat of a damper on my profile as my education in the field did not incorporate particularly great amounts of theory/research. So their suggestion was to look at schools with good engineering and CS programs that have mid-range acceptance stats for CS, which I did, and then send them a list of schools that we would go over.
Anyways, regarding my personal statement, now that I look back it was pretty weak. I was too personal and too generic when it came to the 'why this school/program, why pursue graduate education, what are your research interests, who would you like to work with, etc.' portions of the statement. So I'm definitely going to work on that, a lot.
A year of postbacc professional experience would be helpful, but the jobs in my neck of the woods are limited and highly competitive. Typically, the jobs in my geographic area go to those who have the most connections, and I have very few industry connections. Sure, I could definitely look elsewhere, but I'm not too keen on moving somewhere unless I'm going to be there semi-permanently (as in 2 years or longer). I would hate to get a job and then a year later quit to attend grad school (though I know some companies will at least partially pay for graduate school, or at the very least encourage attending). Not to mention, but once I look outside my area at larger, more well known companies I will also be competing against more people and likely competing against people that are better qualified for the position than I am.
Of note though, at one point I had offers from IBM (security analyst position), Google (IT resident position), and a local company (scientific/mathematical software engineering) on the table, but I had to give those up for the aforementioned reasons.
What I hope to do with my degree is, well, research. Since beginning college I've desired to be a researcher, to answer questions in computer science and better understand exactly how computers/computation works. If you really want to boil it down, I basically want to be a professional thinker/philosopher specializing in the field of computation. Secondary to this main goal is that I also desire to teach. Teaching has always been something I've been drawn to and am good at (I tutor computer science in addition to working in IT, and tutoring is definitely a rewarding, but challenging experience). At what level I teach, elementary, high school, college, online tutorials, etc. doesn't really matter to me, I just want to teach and spread knowledge of computer science. However, if I did get to teach I would probably teach at the high school level. I think in an ever increasing technological world that it is in the students' best interest to have some familiarity with how technology works, i.e. some basic understanding of programming and the underlying concepts driving this technologically integrated world.
If I decide not to pursue graduate education, that is actually one of my fall back plans. I would come back to my alma mater and get either a teaching endorsement or MEd at the secondary level and pursue a career in middle/high school education in computer science.
Regarding the GPA and GRE thing, in my case it is sort of personal. I'm not necessarily a perfectionist, but after my mediocre performance in high school I feel like I owe it to myself to do well in college. It also has to do with looking at others' academic profiles and admission stats for school and seeing how I stack up. Being in the middle isn't bad, but it isn't that good either. Not to mention, but in my personal experience a lot of sites (aside from this one, though I'm new here) say you at need least an x GPA and a y GRE score to be competitive when applying to grad schools.