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Infimae

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  • Location
    San Francisco
  • Application Season
    2013 Fall
  • Program
    Materials Science

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  1. Industrial R&D is WAY faster paced, because you will be working on actual, real-world products or solutions. You don't have the pampering that is a university lab schedule; you have deadlines that you have to meet, or else you jeopardize your company's products, and ultimately you own standing in the company. If you end up working for a big engineering company that gets results it is pretty much the antithesis of working in the ivory tower. Trust me, even though you don't have to work for grants and handle students, you have VERY high pressure to perform well on the job. That is especially true if you are in an entry-level position; your work schedule will typically go well beyond 5 pm and sometimes on weekends. If your ideal work day is one in which you can leave sooner than 4 pm and have weekends to your self, stick with academia. In industry, you have to perform because you won't be sitting on a fat pile of research funds that you can spend at your own leisurely pace. I commonly see professors and postdocs leaving school/work very early, although that is not always the case. Obviously your experience in industry will vary depending on the company. From what I can tell you from experience though, working for certain companies can be absolutely brutal; graduate school feels like total cakewalk by comparison.
  2. I graduated from CMU last year doing the one year MSE program. I didn't do the dual ETIM degree but based on the requirements of ETIM, it looks like you'll need to take quite a few extra classes in addition to the MSE core curriculum. I can tell you that the core classes can be challenging and as a result, very time consuming. But once you make it past them, you could probably take ETIM classes with relative ease and most technical electives you take for MSE can probably count for ETIM as well. I didn't do ETIM but it sounds very manageable to do in conjunction with MSE - just be prepared to spend more time and energy than most other MSE students, who may have an edge over you because they will be taking fewer classes and can focus more time on the core MSE classes.
  3. You probably won't find a lot of universities that will fund Masters students in MSE. I did a one year program in MSE at Carnegie Mellon (private), and they only offer funding for PhD students. Nothing for Masters students. On the other hand, I got accepted into the University of Florida (off the waitlist) and they DID offer me about $4000 for one year. It's something but obviously not that much. Definitely talk to the admissions office or MSE department masters advisors and ask about funding specifically for masters students, because I have a feeling a lot of schools don't have much unfortunately.
  4. ZacharyObama, the funding is for the first year expenses at UCSC. And there will be opportunities to TA there as well but I do not think there are guarantees he could be a TA at USC. EngiNerd-12, the problem with UCSC is that it's not an ideal fit for research. And he doesn't want to reapply next year. I don't suppose anyone reading this thread has any experience in his field? If anybody with a math background can comment on UCSC and USC that would be greatly appreciated.
  5. I wanted to help my roommate make a decision between USC and UC Santa Cruz for applied mathematics. He wants to do a phd in math and has been accepted to UCSC for their phd program. He applied for the phd program at USC as well but was accepted into their masters program instead. With UCSC, he has $40000 in guaranteed funding, whereas USC has offered none. He told me he likes USC better (both in terms of research and student life) but since he really wants to do a phd, he would have to re-apply again. Apparently, USC does not give preferential treatment to their masters students when applying for the phd program, so he could very well end up at a different (read: worse) place after completing his masters there. Although he looked at UCSC and said he'd be ok going there, it was originally more a fallback plan and I think he wants to go to someplace more reputable. He told me that there is a chance of going to USC and then doing worse on applications, which could result in getting into even lower ranked schools then UCSC or USC. Because of this fear, he has no idea which school to pick. I want to help him make the best possible decision. Anyone on these forums have any advice for him?
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