palmfrond

I'm thinking I'll do the Budapest Semester; it'll be nice to get out of Clarkson for a bit. Part of me wants to take a little break after I finish my undergraduate (I started schooling early and then finished a diploma at a really bad high school in a year), but I'm not sure what I could do. I think sticking around and taking more classes would probably be out of the question because of money. I'm not sure if I could get a satisfying job, and I'd probably be having more fun working at a doctorate anyway. I imagine just taking a year off to sit around and do unrelated activities at probably looks worse than any of the above, not to mention that I'd be unhappy staying at home not doing something like math or statistics with other people with similar interests. In general, I feel like I've made a lot of poor decisions, like taking really long to decide on computer science and math and then being miserable doing the computer science coursework. Other regrets: not getting straight As, not being academically focused when I started, and other similar things. I also feel like I've been really unsuccessful in trying to do research. In sum, I guess I just feel like I come from a small department and won't be able to compete at top programs with people who were successful at bigger, more famous universities and have everything figured out already. I'm fairly confident that I'm able to get good letters though, so I suppose that's comforting.

Here's my profile: Institution: Clarkson University (has anyone heard of this school?) Citizen: USA Major: Math, Computer Science (double) Cumulative, Math, CS GPA: 3.789, 3.824, 3.9 Math/stats coursework: Calc 1-3, B, B+ ,B+; Applied Stats/Probability, A; Actuary Seminar; intro. proofs course, A; Applied lin. alg., A; elementary diff. eqns, A; intro. modelling course, A; Advanced Calculus I, A; Abstract Algebra, A; graduate Finite Element Methods, A; I've also TA'd the DE course for a few semesters. Research Experience: I've done a ton of stuff in computational mathematics during the school year with one of my professors; I'm not really finding it as I did when I was still new to it. Last summer, I did an REU at Duke where I learned about and did a ton of Bayesian statistics which I really enjoyed (in contrast to the stats/actuary classes). I'm still working on the computational mathematics stuff, but I've also started working through some material on topic modelling. I feel like I can get really strong letters of recommendation from various mentors or advisors, but on the other hand my home department is rather small. I also haven't had any publications yet, but I've presented work at local poster conferences (not sure if these matter). By the end of this semester, I'll also have completed Advanced Calculus II and a graduate complex analysis course. My plans for the summer aren't set in stone yet since I'm waiting on REUs/internships, but I'm sure I'll be doing research somewhere this summer. In addition, I'll probably try to self-study GRE-type stuff and statistics/machine learning. My plan (class-wise) for next semester is to take graduate real analysis and also a Bayesian data analysis course, as well as finish off my CS requirements. The semester after that, I was considering doing a Budapest Semester, but I'm not sure if this is optimal preparation for stats programs. What really concerns me is that I've done a pretty mediocre job at what I perceive to be a mediocre school. With respect to statistics programs, I also feel like I won't have completed as much stats/prob. coursework as the competition. When I submit applications next fall, I'll also be much younger than most graduates; I don't know if this is something that works for or against me. Do you guys have any suggestions at all for making my application more competitive? My hope is that I can be at least mildly competitive for high-ranking schools.