thissiteispoison
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Posts posted by thissiteispoison
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- Computer science professor
- Professional runner
- Sports journalist
- Professional triathlete
Absolutely not, but I think 1 is the most realistic, so that's why I'm about to do this whole grad school thing.
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Hey, there's a thread for this:
But welcome to Seattle!
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Hey guys, here's my listing for my place: http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/roo/4962551698.html
If aynone's interested let me know! I'll be chatting with some potential roommates over the next month or so and seeing who is probably the best fit. I'd prefer someone around June but if you're not here until September and are interested, feel free to still reach out. PM or response to the craigslist ad is best.
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I asked several people about this at my visit at UW. Basically, your advisor can come up with additional funding to support you over the summer if you're doing research for him/her. The reason for not including summer support in the package is that some people choose to do industry internship instead.
Thank god. I just placed an offer on a condo and affording it is totally contingent upon those three extra months of funding haha
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I just put an offer on a 2 bed, 1 1/2 bath in Queen Anne (extremely nice neighborhood), will be looking for a roommate for $800-900/month depending on the closing price if I get this one. Easy bus or bike ride to UW.
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I applied last year as a senior and got HM with very little feedback. Took all that feedback, improved my application, and applied this year as a first year graduate student and got VG/G, G/G, G/F--not recommended. A lot more feedback this year but, of course, it would have been more helpful if I had gotten it last year...
The things that really bothered me is that they weren't really all that negative but I was still scored poorly. Also, they seemed fixated on the fact that I didn't have a single publication despite having multiple (10) local, national, and international conference presentations, and a publication in progress. My research plan wasn't really "specific" with methods, which I guess I do see, but at the same time, I came to a totally new field and new university so I had a big learning curve to take care of (something that someone who knows senior year exactly what he/she is doing for research who is not switching universities or programs does not have to go through).
I'll come at it from a different angle next year and hope for the best. In all, I think I have a plan to work with based on the feedback I got. So...maybe next year.
Congratulations to everyone who got the award! Maybe we could start a thread with advice you have about improving applications.
Yeah I had someone give me a P/P (while everyone else gave me G/VG) and his actual feedback didn't seem to be very negative, other than pointing out that the research proposal was a bit rough and needed more development, and my recommendations didn't mention support for my specific research path. I have no idea why he gave me a P for broader impacts, since he wrote about those broader impacts factually and then concluded it at that without any mention of where his opinion that the broader impacts were poor came from.
There were a lot of great applicants and I'm not bitter about not receiving it, but I am confused by how two of three gave me reasonably good scores and this one guy seemed to absolutely hate my application.
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I don't think I was specific enough about research interests. Should have went ahead and proposed a specific project. I picked a specific subfield and explained how it could be useful to the DOD, but it still wasn't an actual project from what I can remember.
I should do well in most categories but might get docked a lot for that.
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I think as long as you are still early in your research career (ie an undergrad/no grad school yet) and have a solid research record with at least some presentations that came out of it you should be okay. My only "publications" are conference proceedings and classified technical reports (which due to their classified nature cannot be released to the public).
I've been working for three years since I graduated college and apparently sometimes people get docked for that due to higher expectations. I've been in a software engineering job though so I obviously haven't published anything during that time. I've done lots of interesting internal projects but that's about it
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I had a 160/170/3.50 V/Q/AW on the GRE, 3.8 GPA with several grad courses taken, several TA positions, 2 years of research and 3 excellent letters of rec and I've been rejected from 7 schools, accepted to 1, and haven't heard anything back from 4 others (I'll just assume those are rejections given the pattern). I only applied to 2 schools in the top 10, the other 10 schools were uniformly distributed in the 11 - 40 range. Have all y'all been getting wrecked this application cycle or is it just me?
I have similar GRE scores and a similar undergrad GPA. I also was a TA (in a senior-level undergrad course) and did two years of undergrad research. My second year of undergrad research culminated in an honors thesis, but I have no publications. I also have the diversity thing going for me. I only got into two out of seven schools; I'm lucky one of those schools was my top choice from the start.
Also got rejected from two fellowships so far. Only one left. Really nervous about summer jobs. Can't imagine living in Seattle off of nine months of income.
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Is it possible to get this without any publications or am I kidding myself at this point? I wrote about my undergrad research and linked to my honors thesis but I never bothered submitting it to any journals.
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Did those who won draft research proposals alone or with the help of an advisor? Wondering how to approach next year. Since I've been out of school for three years I did this year without any help, which apparently didn't work out too well.
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I didn't get it, and furthermore, the reviewers seemed to totally disagree about me:
VG/VG
G/G
P/P
uhhh
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Staying up for the grfp is like waiting for christmas morning, but you're old enough to realize that the shiny box waiting for you underneath that sparkly tree is most likely gonna be a 6pack of itchy beige crew socks.
I was thinking more like when you're not sure if you've been naughty or nice and legitimately believe in Santa and think you might get coal. I'm Jewish, so I don't know if anyone ever actually believes the coal part, but it feels analogous.
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You'll have a PDF document in your FastLane account containing comprehensive feedback from each reviewer with the strong and weak points of your application. Usually you'll have info from 2-3 reviewers.
That's actually a huge relief. If you don't get it one year you can legitimately consider the feedback and apply the next year. Way cool. Transparency is awesome.
Also, someone asked about other people who aren't already in grad school. I've been working for three years. There were only a few fellowships that let me apply as someone no longer in school but about to return (NSF, Hertz, NDSEG). Didn't get the Hertz obviously because apparently the Hertz is a unicorn.
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I was trying really hard not to care, but here I am. I love the fact that 190 people are in this thread haha. Someone should open up a Google hangout or something to pass the time. I definitely won't be staying up though. I value my sleep
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My understanding is that the fall quarter starts on 30 September right? Is it normal to worry about place to live now? I am just wondering when I should start to actively look for a place.
There are almost always places available to rent in Seattle, and honestly if you look now (unless it's something like an arrangement with another grad student who already lives here, like me) the listing you're looking at probably won't still be available in the fall, but it can't hurt to look and get an idea of what neighborhoods generally cost what amount.
When I buy a place I'll post the neighborhood and exact rent but my only real requirements for a roommate (putting this out there for anyone) is that he or she is generally quiet between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM and is OK with keeping the lights in the common rooms off during that time.
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I graduated in 2012 and will be starting my Ph.D. this fall. I've been working as a software engineer in the meantime.
Would it be helpful to review anything in particular from undergrad CS classes? How would I most effectively go about doing this?
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Presumably if you are interested in a specific area, you have research experience in it, and thus you know at least one person working in that area (most likely your undergrad research advisor). He or she will be best positioned to give advice on which schools are good.
Most rankings are (1) outdated, (2) do not reflect strengths across different areas within CS. This is especially the case within top 20 schools.
Not necessarily; my undergrad research was crypto but I switched.
I did chat with one of my undergrad professors and he gave me a list of faculty at different schools I had some basic interest in that would be worth looking into.
If you don't have such a contact, you can always post here with specifics and people can list off places/faculty relevant to you.
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Chemistry here. Our funding info was incorporated into the acceptance letter. Fall in love with university when they arrange open house visit all paid for - I am a simple man. When is everyone going to look for housing for the fall quarter?
I live in Seattle, but I'm in the process of purchasing a condo or townhouse, two beds two baths. Biking distance from UW, not positive which neighborhood yet, but most likely Greenwood or Sand Point (near Magnusson Park, off the Burke-Gilman trail). I'll be looking for a roommate, $800/month most likely, but will see if I can go cheaper depending on the price of the house (that is relatively standard rent for Seattle though). If anyone is interested please PM me and I can give you more details when I buy a place.
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I'm officially going to UW now. Fell back in love with them at the visit day. So I'm a Husky! Hope to hear from other future Huskies soon
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Visit day is today for CS. There's about a 98% chance I'm going to end up going there. I'll decide after.
I got information with my initial admission.
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For UW I got impatient after checking TheGradCafe and seeing other acceptances, so I finally caved and emailed a professor I'd been in touch with, who basically responded and said "call me, I have good news." Turns out he was about to email me to set up a call!
I was at work, so I walked about ten minutes away to make the phone call haha
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So, how about sports facilities? Does the university or the city have facilities for sports for recreational purposes? I have recently started playing tennis and would love to continue when I join UMCP in Fall'15.
There are tennis courts outdoors on the university premise. There is also a tennis club. Anyone can join the club. They probably compete.
For sports, Maryland is a great place to go. The only thing they really need that they don't have is an indoor track (unless you count the 1/10th of a mile one in the gym). The gym is beautiful, the auxiliary gym is still pretty sweet, the pool is amazing, and there are tennis courts and fields all over campus. I was an NCAA athlete at Maryland and the facilities were sweet (granted, some of what I had access to was only available to athletes, but most of what I just mentioned is open to all students).
DC is expensive, but College Park itself is really cheap. Like you can get a really good $5 meal if you know where to look. Rent is a little overpriced for the area but way better than most major cities. You can definitely get by on $30K/year in College Park; my sister got by on that much in DC, and DC is like twice as expensive as College Park.
Recommendation letters for non traditional students
in Computer Science
Posted
A lot of schools have programs for adults returning to school late in life. I would hunt hard for them starting now. Might just be financial aid (which is great too obviously) but some schools have staff who are equipped to handle these sorts of questions. They can probably help you get on track to get accepted somewhere decent.