dat_nerd

If it helps any, I'll answer your original question. I moved across the country four months ago. It takes over 5 hours to travel from "home" to my new home by plane. If I can't afford a nonstop flight, then it's about 8 hours. It did take some adjusting at first, but that's always to be expected. How do you make friends in a new place? The same way that you should in a familiar place -- by investing in relationships. In a healthy friendship, you selflessly support a person and they selflessly support you back. You build trust by being a good friend through the good and the bad times. Your "best friend" certainly seems to trust you. Right now, she's probably scared and could use all the support she can get. What good is it to be a friend to someone if you're only a "fair weather friend"? If you want to know how to befriend someone in a strange new environment, practice by being a good friend now.

Seriously?? Not. Cool.

Focusing on research first, and homework second, has been difficult for me. It's hard to transition from that GPA focused mentality to being alright with putting in less-than-absolute-best effort into classwork. I have to keep remembering that the research work is what matters more.

I don't see why lying is necessary. You can ask your recommenders to submit their letters by a particular date, one that is a few days ahead of the deadline. There's no need to pretend it's the actual deadline, and if asked about it, there's no problem with being honest about it. I'd even consider it prudent, if I were in the recommender's shoes.

No, waiving your right only waives your legal right to view an educational document pertaining to you. You did not promise to never see the letter, but that you wouldn't require your recommenders to let you read their letters. If the recommender offered, I see no issue with you reading the letter.

Agreed. OP, if you're going to take only one piece of advice from the past seven pages of responses, I hope you'll heed this one.

I'm a nerd. I like New York. I'm not sure how the two are related.

So, my understanding is that you're going to grad school.. to get a job.. to pay back grad school debt.. so that you can meet someone.. so that you can stop using your degree? I must be missing something here. If the primary goal is to meet someone, there are many ways to do that without involving massive amounts of student debt.

With grad school, you also have a non-trivial amount of grad school debt for a degree that (from what I understand) you aren't sure you'll use. I don't understand how this is an appealing option. Have you considered taking a year off to work in a city, and then applying to grad schools if you are still interested?

I call this "happy singles land". It's a wonderful place to be. Some of the best advice I've received is to focus on building strong friendships instead of looking for dates. You're more likely to see someone's true colors by being a friend first, rather than be tricked by a be-on-best-behavior date. Seriously, enjoy grad school for what it is. It's already busy and stressful enough without trying to find your soulmate at the same time.

I think you answered your own question... This sounds like a perfectly fine way to tell your advisor. If you're worried about coming across the wrong way, you can find a way to make it a more informal discussion (e.g. talking over lunch, going out for coffee), though do be clear in what you're asking.

Do send him an email prior to his lecture. However, I advise that you approach this less discretely. I recommend that you email him today explaining your situation (that you are transferring between fields and are really interested in pursuing his research area) and asking to meet up after the lecture. If it's a morning lecture, you can ask to meet up for lunch (though he may be already scheduled). When you do meet up, ask questions about his research and discuss where you're interested in going with your graduate work. I don't recommend explicitly asking him to advise you, but if you make a good impression in-person, he'll remember that when looking at your application later.

Maybe, but not necessarily. I went to a community college. After two years, I transferred to a state college. The college is no longer ranked, and it's certainly no top college or ivy league. College is exactly what you make it -- no more, and no less. Once I realized I wanted to go to grad school, I took every opportunity to make myself a competitive applicant. Those opportunities, such as research assistantships and academic mentors, never appear on their own, even at a "good college". I am now attending a top-10 PhD program in my field, and I can say for certain that my undergraduate advisors and the opportunities I was given (not the name of the college) prepared me very well for a PhD program.

Have you talked with your interim advisor? What are your advisor's expectations for your first semester? Have you articulated your expectations? Often times, this comes down to a communication issue. If you and your advisor are not on the same page, now's the time to talk about it or look into working with someone whose advising style suits you better.

Sorry, I only know about Georgia Tech's program... GT's Robotics PhD is shared by the College of Engineering and the College of Computing. You can apply via either college and work in the same labs as students from both colleges.

I had an internship during the summer at a small software company. I LOVED the environment there -- the people I worked with were fantastic, smart, and really enjoyed what they were doing. At the same time, I was working on an undergraduate thesis research project with a faculty advisor at the university. It was difficult and required an extra 2 hours per day of work on top of my full-time internship. The big "aha!" moment for me was when I'd work a full day at the company, and then find that the highlight of my day was my afternoon advising meeting where I discussed research ideas and progress. I enjoyed the industry work, but I didn't see myself enjoying it as much as the people around me did. I am using my skills most effectively when doing work in which I am personally invested, and working in industry did not allow me to be personally invested in my work. Finally, I read the following professor "job description" (from the CMU "grad school talk" document): "If you choose to be a professor at a research university, your life will consist of the following tasks: (i) doing research on anything you like, (ii) working with graduate students, (iii) teaching classes, (iv) applying for grants, (v) flying around to work with other researchers and to give talks on your research, (vi) doing service for your department and school (like giving this talk). Note that I say “your life” rather than your job, because for new faculty, your life becomes your job. It’s a fantastic job/life for me because I love these activities, so I’m happy to work hard at all of them, but it’s not right for everyone. " This sounded absolutely perfect to me. I could imagine going without a PhD, but I would never have the chance to work as a professor and have a job/life like this.

Your background is certainly competitive, but many top programs do require that you have taken a certain list of prerequisite courses. Once you have taken those courses, I think you'd be a very strong applicant, even without a CS degree. Can you take the prerequisite courses (operating systems, theory, etc) as a non-degree seeking student at your current university?

By "unlucky", do you mean that the scores were significantly different than your practice scores? If so, I advise that you sign up for the next exam, take a short break in the meantime, figure out how to make the exam less stressful, and give it another shot. Bring some good snacks with you and get plenty of sleep. You can look up the average GRE scores of accepted applicants to the schools you listed. The GRE cannot get you accepted to a school, but it can keep you from meeting their minimum requirments for admission. If a school has an unusually competitive application season this year, they may use the GRE as a cutoff to reduce the number of considered applicants. If the scores you received are close to the feedback you got from practice exams (or if you didn't take a practice exam), I advise that you retake the exam only after you've worked to improve your practice score. Otherwise, you'll be going through the same exam with the same preparation, but expecting a different result. Best of luck! You can do this!!

That's a tough question. Those fields are all diverse; is there any particular intersection that you're looking to research? Finding a school that is strong in HCI will not be difficult. Computational linguistics and cognitive science, however, would be hard to find in the same department. If you'll provide more details about your proposed research topic, I can reply with some more school suggestions.

Don't ask strangers in the internet whether they think you'll get into the "top X" schools in your field. I get it, the application process is filled with anxiety, and we all want to know whether we have a reasonable chance of getting accepted. However, the people who can best answer that question are your academic advisors and professors, the people who know your research ability and your work ethic. They know you much better than the people on a discussion board, and truly want to help you succeed.

I recommend adding UIUC to your list of schools.