scaredapplicant2

Also not in your field, but the thing that stuck out at me most was that I think you go into a little too much detail talking about the exact results of your research. Parts of your SOP end up reading like the abstract of a journal article - it sounds very impersonal and doesn't say anything about how the research you did relates to the overall picture of you as an applicant. For example: "The resulting maps indicated a lower total number of publications in the social science departments than the natural science departments, but the citations of those published works were more extensive in the social science departments than the natural science departments. Additionally, the natural science departments exhibited a more distributed network of publications per author as opposed to the more centralized distribution of publications in the smaller social science departments. These findings were contrary to what was initially expected by the department under which I was working due to the more established nature of the natural science departments..." All of this is totally unnecessary. Instead, I would focus on how the research you did relates to your current goals - maybe something you learned about while doing this research furthered your interest in the aging process, or you gained some new skill or expertise that is relevant to the research you hope to do. The same for your other two research projects - talk less about the results, more about you and your goals.

According to these schools' websites none of these programs require you to send in letters of recommendation. However, the CSUMentor application has a space for three academic references. Does anyone know if these references are ever actually contacted? I called a couple of the schools' departments and the people I spoke to didn't seem sure, but said to go ahead and list the references since there was space on the application. However, I feel that doing so would mean that I would have to notify my references (on the very small chance that they were actually contacted), which I'm hesitant to do because I've already asked them to write letters for other schools and I don't want to annoy them with another request. Anyone have any insight on this issue?

I am in the application process like you, so I'm not exactly the most qualified person here to give advice, but my 2 cents: I think it is fine to mention, but I would leave out any specifics (like the fact that your parents filed for bankruptcy), and keep it to a sentence or so about how you financed your undergrad education by working 1-2 jobs throughout college. Working while keeping up a high GPA and doing internships is indeed an accomplishment. It shows that you have a strong work ethic, focus, and the ability to balance your time, all of which will be very relevant to your success as a graduate student. Just keep it brief and don't spend a lot of time in your essay on it, as stated above. Also, I was primarily referring to a statement of purpose above; I've heard that personal statements are different, and I don't know much about fellowship applications, so maybe someone else can give a more detailed answer.

Hi Zoe, thanks for the reply. To address your points: 1. I am applying to a computer science program. In the U.S. where I'm applying, we don't have designated research and taught programs like in the U.K.; however, the program I'm applying for seems to be less research-focused compared to a lot of CS programs. The program includes the option to a do a master's thesis, a master's project, OR a cumulative exam, and I intend to do the master's project. Given that, I'm not sure how relevant research experience (especially outside of CS) would be to making their decision. 2. Unfortunately, my chemistry research experience really didn't have any bearing on my decision to change to CS (except to convince me that I didn't want to do chemistry research anymore). I'm also not really sure what skills I picked up in that research, if any, would be relevant to CS at all. If I were to mention my chemistry research, I think it would be mainly to show that I have motivation and the ability to do research in general (not that I would state it so bluntly)... But maybe programs wouldn't really care about that. 3. Good advice, thanks

A little bit of background about my situation: I graduated very recently with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. In the last ~1.5 years or so of my undergrad, I decided to change directions and pursue a career in programming/software development. I've taken three lower-division computer science courses, as well as most/all of the math prerequisites for a CS degree, but that's the extent of my formal education in CS. I do have a couple of research experiences, and I'm trying to decide whether I should talk about one of them, or both, in my statement of purpose. They are: 1) About a year and a half of research in chemistry. No publications, conferences, etc. though. Even though it's not at all related to CS (and in fact was one of the reasons I decided not to pursue a career in chemistry), I feel that it might be good to talk about it just to show that I've had this amount of research experience. 2) ~3 months in a computer science lab. Basically, in my second to last semester of college, I decided to try to see if I could volunteer with a computer science professor to gain experience and show graduate programs that I was serious about my new career direction. I found a professor who, very kindly, was willing to take me in despite having only a single programming course under my belt. However, due to circumstances I was not able to start until very late, and this led me to only be able to volunteer there for a couple of months. Also, I'm not sure that the things I did would really be able to be classified as "research," even though I was formally called a "research assistant." Basically, the professor gave me a small project to do, which was related to his area of specialization, but was really more of a "learning experience" for me than anything else (ie., it was mostly for my own learning benefit, not to contribute to the lab's research). While the Ph.D student I worked under told me I exceeded his expectations with the project, I'm not sure I really did anything substantive enough to include in my PS. I'm also kind of concerned how graduate programs would look on this kind of experience. So my question is... Should I talk about chemistry research, or CS experience, or try to talk about both even though they're not at all related? Thanks in advance.