Priss

First of all, thanks for the advice! My undergrad is in History and Japanese Studies, but I'm applying for Informatics Masters....do you still think that would work? Also, supposing that I have the money to take another university class, should I do it so I can get a university professor's recommendation? Like, does anybody think the letter would have a great impact on my application? the particular department in the university has a very good reputation in the field, but I took undergraduate classes and the lecturer is a PhD candidate (or she JUST finished her PhD...something like that), not a regular full-time professor. Anybody think it's worth it to spend $900 for the class and get a LOR from her, rather than take an online class with the same content at a community college for something like $700 less?

I am applying to a field that is completely unrelated to my undergarduate studies. I have taken several online classes and one physical university class for in the field that I want to apply for graduate school in. The problem is, most of my classes are online (provided by my local community college), and taught by different people. Should I ask these professors for recommendation even though all I did was turn in assignments electronically before the weekly deadline? I have tried asking my the professor who taught the university class, but she said if I were to take another one of her classes and do well, then she would consider. However, university classes are really, really expensive if you are not enrolled (at least in my area), and I don't know if a letter of recommendation from a university professor is worth another $900? I work full time, also in an occupation that is completely unrelated to the field that I will be applying to for Masters program. Should I ask my supervisors for letters of recommendation even though they technically cannot comment on my work or capability in the field that I will be applying to? I have mediocore undergrad grades (GPA 3.2) and am planning to re-take the GRE (81 precentile on verbal last time, but bombed math so need to retake). I am very stuck at the LOR stage since my undergraduate work and my occupation are totally unrelated to the programs I am applying for, and the only resources I have looks a bit, well, dubious at the moment. Anybody has any suggestions as to whom I should go to for my letters of recommendation? Thank you!

Thanks Balatro and habanero for your input!! I posted this in the Comp Sci section because I don't know where else to put it.... but I thought the UCI quote regarding Comp Sci GRE were for people who are going into the the hardcore Comp Sci, or the software engineering side of Informatics? I mean I know it's good to have some knowledge of computer languages in general but I thought some fields in HCI don't require you to have as much of a strong background in Comp Sci? or am I totally off about this? because I know someone who's in UCI's Informatics Master's program and what she told me was that for HCI in Informatics there's a software side and a more social-oriented side (I'm guessing this refers to stuff like user experience, etc.). What she told me was that if you are in the program that is more social-oriented, you won't need to know any computer language at all. Correct me if I am wrong, as I have only started researching graduate schools in this area and would love to know more about it (or if I just had completely wrong ideas about the HCI field?). Thanks a lot guys!!

Hello, My undergraduate studies were in humanities, but recently I started taking HCI classes and am very interested in pursuing graduate studies (Masters) in this field. I'm currently taking a year-long HCI class through a university's Cog Sci program. The first 1/3 of the class is all theory/introduction, then it moves on to project-based work, and for the final part students are required to do research and develop their own interactive designs. I'm thinking about taking some Computer Science classes at community colleges to strengthen my profile, since I come from a background that's almost completely unrelated.... What kind of computer langauges would be best if I am thinking about going into HCI? The ones offered by my community college are Visual Basic, C/C++, C#, and Java. Also, any advice on applying for HCI graduate schools would be appreciated. My dream school is actually UC Irvine's Informatics program, but since I don't have the right background I'm a bit worried. Would classes be enough? Your advice is much appreciated! Thank you!

I just graduated from UCSD last summer and am now working as a paralegal. I double majored in History and International Studies-Economics for my undergraduate coursework. I have no interest in economic theories and did not do splendidly in those classes, but by the time I wanted to back out it was too late, so I stuck with it and got a double major.....Needless to say, my GPA got dragged down a lot by my economic courses. Anyway, I'm considering going to graduate schools now because once I started working, I realized just how much I missed learning. I am considering linguistics as one of my options because I am actually very interested in languages (and in learning them, too; I am fluent in Chinese and English, and have intermediate speaking/written abilities in Japanese). The thing is, I've never taken any linguistic classes, and as I'm working now, my time and resources have become very limited (I work in San Diego now). Can anybody suggest any introductory-level books on linguistics, so I can see if it's something that I would possibly want to commit to? Any suggestion is appreciated; thank you very much!