metasyntactic

Some hiring committees do take the pedigree of PhD into account. However, what really matters is the reputation a school has in a particular research area. You mostly see faculty from top 20 schools because the top 20 tend to have strong labs in all subfields (if not at one institution then over all of them). Also, in the end what matters more (after you get the interview) is how convincing your research is and how well you are able to convince others.

I've been using Debian GNU/Linux for about ten years now and plan to keep using it as long as it's maintained. Ubuntu is installed on the department machines (such as the one on my desk), so I use that occasionally. I occasionally dual boot to Windows if I feel like playing a PC game, but that doesn't happen very often anymore.

This really depends. Also don't forget that you can instigate more social events and so on. In my department, students felt like there weren't enough social activities, so they just started a mailing list for it this year. In my lab, we have weekly bar nights. Of course, not everyone shows up because not all students are very social.

Vancouver is expensive, but if you're used to Boston prices (I'm guessing from your location info) it's not that bad. You'll get used to the rain. Just have some coffee from Blue Chip and it'll be alright. Speaking of Boston, I made the opposite move you're thinking of doing: went from Vancouver to Boston. Definitely miss the beautiful views of both the ocean and mountains from UBC campus.

My registration opened sometime at the end of March, but I registered in April. Thankfully my program is fairly straightforward to register for and I'm pretty sure I don't need anyone's approval. What surprised me a little bit is that at my new school they don't allow you to register for the Spring term until the end of the Fall term. At my undergraduate institution, you would register for both terms during the summer. Anyone else have any registration surprises like that?

The housing is pretty cheap compared to a large city. You could easily rent a nice place for $500/month. Transit in Corvallis is actually pretty terrible compared to larger cities in the Pacific Northwest. In particular, the frequency of service is very bad: many routes are only hourly. OSU students get free rides though and the transit is probably good for a city of its size. You really don't need a car in Corvallis, if you're not afraid of getting wet (not a big deal with rain pants and jacket). The city is so small that you can get from one corner to the other with a bicycle in 15-30 minutes.

It is probably for the best if you don't get too caught up in the whys of rejection and waitlisting. There are many factors involved that are totally out of your control. Apparently this year was particularly bad for many admissions committees in terms of rejecting qualified candidates. I had the opportunity to talk, in person, to one of the professors at a top institution that I was rejected from. It turns out that I was on a short list of qualified candidates, but they only had one spot to offer. Sometimes it's just a matter of luck. That said, you can improve your chances by applying to more schools and finding professors that are actively looking for students and have slots to offer. Good luck!

Wikipedia has a broad overview of subfields: http://en.wikipedia...._science_fields US News maintains rankings by subfield for CS. Many fields aren't represented though: http://grad-schools....science-schools

From past relationships I've been in, I think one of the most important things to have in a long distance relationship is a set of realistic expectations for both parties. There are some obvious limitations such as communication (especially with timezones) and also differences in social life that you and your partner will have to accept or otherwise figure out. When either party expects something unrealistic, the relationship can break down in frustration. If your sort out expectations ahead of time, things go more smoothly. Also, someone else mentioned this but it's important for both members of a relationship to have their own social lives: unbalanced social lives can lead to resentment.

Oh nice, I'm in CS too. Maybe I saw you at the open house then.

Hey congrats. Which program did you get into? Are you still deciding on if you're going to take the offer?

In general, it's a good idea to take the funded offer unless you know that it will not work out for you (e.g. research interests don't fit). If you're doing a coursework masters, that isn't as big an issue unless the placement rates at WPI are particularly bad. Note that Worcester is very close to Boston, which has plenty of high-tech opportunities itself, so I don't think you have to worry about that as much.

One of the schools I heard back from used FedEx for their documents. Another used normal postal service (Canada Post).

The transit system is generally good outside of Vancouver, but people do complain it's not as good as in the city proper. It also depends on which suburbs you'll be working in. e.g. Richmond is fairly close and is served by both rail and bus lines. Commuting to, say, Coquitlam would be more of a pain. In any case, I think grad students also pay for the mandatory transit pass fee, so it makes sense to use transit whenever possible since you get unlimited access. And yes, I lived on campus for my entire time there. The housing on campus is convenient and you get good bang for the buck. The main problem is there isn't enough of it.

Like BKMD said, it seems to me that you could just apply to PhD schools and be fine. On the other hand, if you really want to apply to MSc programs, you might consider Canadian universities. Many of them are more likely to fund MSc students competitively than US schools in general. This is true for at least UBC (~18.5k for MSc) and McGill (~15k). Perhaps less so for Toronto, which I heard is restructuring their grad. program to be direct-to-PhD. There are several strong programs in AI or HCI in Canada as well.

Whoa there, I'm in Computer Science and UnlikelyGrad is in Geochemistry. You're not alone, geekwise. I have considered doing a Philosophy or English minor though. Alas, not enough time.

If JHU's program has a good research fit, then I think there's no reason not to take it. One thing about the Math PhD at UBC is that if you have completed an MSc there, there is no additional coursework requirement. This means that the total time it takes to get the MSc and then PhD is not necessarily much longer than going to an American PhD program (although it could be, I'm sure). In other words, if UBC's program appeals to you, the program structure shouldn't give you a disadvantage in research. I would say it is really up to program preferences in the end and your own interests. For example, I think UBC has particular strength in number theory and probability.

As far as the MSc vs. PhD is concerned, in Canada you will usually obtain a Masters prior to working on a PhD anyway so it's not a "lesser" degree like it is sometimes treated at American institutions. At least for some programs, you can smoothly transition from a MSc to the PhD program. Additionally, UBC departments tend to fund masters students competitively. So this shouldn't be a problem for you. As far as the actual programs go, I have no idea how they compare, but if you have any questions about life at UBC, I may be able to answer them.

I just finished reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It's a great cyberpunk novel, though it is slow starting and struggles with cliches. I also try reading for pleasure, but I find that the only time that I can truly catch up with reading is during the summer. What's great is that I read Pattern Recognition for a literature course that I'm taking in cyborg literature. It's a great topic for a course because it lets me read books that I would normally want to read anyway (e.g. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

I'm in Computer Science. My offers were as follows: $18.5k for 20 monthsAt least $17.4k for ~9 months (not finalized)

Heya, congrats. I got an offer for an MS program at UBC, but I won't be going. It's my alma mater though, so I can tell you that it's a great place to be! As far as housing goes, there seems to be quite a lot of housing 10-15 minutes away by bus in nearby neighbourhoods (Dunbar, Marpole, etc.). You will almost certainly not need a vehicle unless you have particular needs; the transit system in Vancouver is very good.

There were two of us considering it in the other thread: Now that I've visited the university, I'm almost certain I'll be going there. I'm just waiting for my last decision to come in.

You should be fine with that stipend. I've lived here for several years on less as an undergrad. If you go for on-campus housing, it generally costs $5000-$7000 for an 8-month contract in shared housing. If you don't splurge too much, $4000 can keep you well fed and alive for the 8 months (this is after initial costs like furniture are out of the way). Factor in another $7000 and a bit for tuition and fees and you still have a few thousand left over. Even if you live off campus, if you find a good deal you can get about $600/month shared. Your mileage may vary of course. Also, there are plenty of thrift sales and the like to save even more money. There's a church near the university that does a huge sale with furniture, kitchen supplies, etc. every year (on Blanca street IIRC).

I'm a graduating undergrad. My machines run various flavours of Linux and some of them run Windows virtualized or dual-boot. Most of the software I use are actually programming languages: Haskell, Scheme, Java, and so on. Aside from that: R (still a programming language, but I use it to maintain budgets) LaTeX for typesetting documents. Vim, git, svn, and so on for coding. Opera/Chrome/Firefox. Mutt, procmail, and postfix for e-mail. Various utilities: the ones I use most are ssh and screen.

Hi everyone. I've been accepted into a PhD program at NU for the fall and will be going to the visit weekend soon. Has anyone else been accepted or are sure they're matriculating already?