yoconman

I am curious if and how getting a graduate fellowship could help graduate school admission. I have been told from a few people that getting a fellowship was one of the reasons they got into their graduate institution. However, I don't see how that could possibly make a difference since you apply for both at the same time, and, I am assuming, both send out admissions results at relatively the same time.

How many letters of recomendation did you have?

Thanks for the information! Obviously I'm nervous about getting into grad school, and just want to make sure that I do everything correctly. I am also hoping to maybe have a TA position for one of my junior year semesters, which I hope will look good on an application. It looks like both of you got into very good grad schools, Congrats! For your own senario, what do you think made them say "This guy is for us."? Was it research experience in general, or was there a project that you got your own paper published?

Hi everyone, I'm currently a sophomore at the University of Texas in Austin in the ECE department who is trying to plan ahead. Right now my desire is to get a phd and then hopefully become a professor one day. I have just declared my major tracks (there are 7 at UT for ECE) as nanotechnology for my primary and computer architecture/embedded systems for my secondary. I realize that in order to get into a phd program, I need research experience. This semester I have been talking with my embedded systems professor quite often, and believe that there might be an opportunity to be a part of his research group this summer on a project. However, my main passion is in nanotechnology, but I am unsure that at this point in my studies I would be able to join in any research projects dealing with nano tech. My question is about whether research experience in embedded systems would be helpful for my main focus which is nano tech. Also, when eventually apply to a grad school, should I at that point have fully committed myself to nanotechnology?

Thanks sm77, that all sounds like really good advice! The ECE department at UT does have senior projects that involve doing some research, but that's about it for courses dedicated to research. I think I'm going to talk to one of my current professors whose is the head of the computer engineering research center. I'll bring to him the name of a few of the research professors that have gotten my attention and see what he knows about their needs for undergraduate assistants. From there I'll do you what you've suggested and go to their office hours, talk about their work, and then volunteer my time to them. Hopefully one will be interested in me and agree to take me on.

Hi, I'm currently a sophomore undergraduate at UT-austin in the ECE department. I'm seriously looking at getting a masters or phD in computer engineering and would hope to attend one of the top engineering schools, Carnegie Mellon is my dream school right now. As I understand it, research is really important when applying to graduate school as it tells the admission board that this person has the potential to do research for us. After doing a little surfing on the UT engineering page, I found a website that lists all of the research professors at UT and their research interest. The website also suggests I email a professor, expressing interest in their work, encouraging them to ask me for help. I'm wondering as to how I would approach such a topic in an email, and also if anyone has advice on other ways I could expand my research potential. Any help would be much appreciated!