was1984

I took a class @ Columbia online during Summer 2008 in electrical engineering and it went relatively well. It can be hard sometimes to make yourself sit down and watch the lectures on your computer, or at least it was for me. I do feel like I learned a great deal in the course and the online system is fairly well designed. My class and many of the other classes were previous semester recordings with a TA administering the class. I felt like this was one of the greatest shortcomings of the course, because the TA often was unable to answer my questions. I was fortunate enough to be working with people who could (this was an MOS transistors course and I sat 1 cube over from a guy with a PhD in solid state physics), but otherwise I wouldn't have liked it. In most cases (I can say for sure at USC and Columbia) the degree is exactly the same, so I wouldn't worry about that. You are going to have to be a lot more motivated and disciplined than you would be attending class in person. Columbia had rolling admissions for the online program, had I decided to go that route. I was taking classes as a non-matriculated student. If I were going to continue distance education for my M.S. I would have done it at USC. The number of courses they offer is far greater. I'd say you could get in just about anywhere for distance education as this is essentially a cash cow for these schools. Its going to cost about $4,000 a 3 hour class at both USC and Columbia. I don't think that 30 lectures recorded 4 years ago and a few hours of grading were worth that much, but that's what it costs. I was fortunate enough to have it paid for by the company I worked for. After I took this class was when I decided I was going to go back full time, FWIW.

I would aim for 800 quant so that you can miss a couple of questions and still be right up there. GRE doesn't matter that much other than for cutoffs but it is sometimes used in formulas for aid and such so its a good idea to do as well as you can. As an engineer you should have no problems hitting 780+. Its basically middle school and early high school math. Just do some practice so you can eliminate stupid mistakes that we all make because we are so reliant on calculators. Doing about 10 hours of problems brought me from a 740 to an 800 on practice tests by eliminating math errors.

English is rather unusual because it is derived from so many other languages. I don't know, but I assume the roots of Ukranian are not quite as complex. Beyond that, I think a lot of the GRE words are picked that don't have obvious Latin or Greek roots. Most people could figure those out. Most of the harder words on the GRE I would argue aren't even real English words, though I'm not remotely qualified as a linguist. Beyond that, its a crapshoot. The fact that rising_star was a lit major and scored a 610 while I was a EE major and scored a 640 should illustrate that fairly well. It just depends on which words you get and if you happen to know them. On the official practice tests (or old tests) I scored anywhere between 550 and 730 depending on whether the words used were in my wheelhouse. The only way to "beat" the test is to spend hundreds of hours poring over word lists, and I for one wasn't willing to do that.

I found the best way to get a professor to acknowledge your emails is not to send them generic emails. I know it takes a lot of time, but you should read some of their papers and ask them questions. Everyone loves talking about their work, and you can mention briefly in your email that you are considering applying to said school for graduate study.

The GRE is not the LSAT or the MCAT. It is a pretty easy test and everyone does well on it. Pay attention to people who are telling you that the GRE will ruin your chances but won't improve them one bit.

Most (yes, I said most) of the professors at the schools you applied to either don't even know what the AWA section is, or don't care at all about it, given you are a CS guy. I got a similar score to yours on the GRE (790Q 640V and 4.5AWA), so those saying that is way out of whack obviously don't understand that there is a huge difference between being well read and being able to write dull, formulaic essays, especially when as an engineer/CS guy you don't get much exposure to structured writing. I wouldn't worry a bit about your GRE score. Regarding last year, I think it was an exceptionally tough year and (hopefully?) you should have better luck this year. I was purposefully safe in my application choices and was rejected (or told I could delay my application for a semester) from all but one. Even the school I was admitted to, which is only a top 70ish school in electrical engineering (but happens to have an awesome prof in my sub-field, and great skiing to boot) was only able to accept 15% of applications. If I were in your situation I'd apply to most of the same schools again, and maybe add another school or two a bit further down the list.

Backpack now and forever. I've been using the same JanSport backpack since I was a sophomore in high school.

I would suggest talking to (or emailing) the professor teaching the course you want to take and describe the coursework you have taken and ask about your preparedness. I've generally found professors to very accommodating in this regard. Even if you don't have all of the prerequisite knowledge already, you still have a couple of months and professors will generally have no problems letting you in the course if you feel prepared.

I think it depends completely on what its going to be used for. If I were writing papers I'd want the smallest laptop I could get, but if I'm running a CAD or doing software development I would hate using anything less than 15.4". Since I'll often find myself doing the latter, I voted for 15.4 inch.

The great thing about being a graduate student is that you are fully excused from looking like you are homeless most of the time. I second the goodwill suggestion, unless of course you are going into a more professional program.

I accepted an offer more than a month ago, so I don't really care, but I still haven't heard from UC Davis ECE department, even though the deadline was over four months ago. I received an email in late April saying all decisions would be made by May 1 (which was already ridiculous), but I'm still (well not really) waiting. The email was pretty clear that many admissions decisions had not been made yet, so this isn't simply a waiting forever to get rejected sort of deal. Based on the survey, this is all to common in this department. It certainly doesn't reflect well on the department, imho. Also, I wonder what kind of graduate quality they are getting when so many students will have already accepted offers by April 15th.

One thing I would advise against are the online roommate finding services. My girlfriend used these services twice, with disastrous results both times. People tend to be very dishonest about their habits and expectations.

Nope, my management knew (needed a recommendation), so I was laid off in February. That was smart of you to keep it under wraps, especially in this economy.

Thanks for the great idea!

Anyone else?

I used to live in a furnished complex called Century Square Apartments located at 3401 Red River St. It has (had?) furnished 1 bedrooms with all bills paid (electric, water) for $725, but keep in mind this was back in 2003-2004. It is an older complex, but fairly well maintained.

Sounds like any other job in science and engineering. Weeks I worked *only* 40 hours were rare.

Washington University in St. Louis named after George Washington. Seriously, dumbest thread ever...

Well, you will probably have more opportunities to network with people from schools on the east coast if you are going to school on the east coast. So at the very least, there is that small amount tipping the scales toward going to school where you want to end up. OTOH, if the school in the midwest is much more likely to send you to conferences, you might actually have an easier time getting a job on the east coast (or anywhere for that matter) from that school. So I don't know what to tell ya

The areas I marked are areas I know have multi unit housing in them. The reason I marked all the way up to 35th street (and I could probably have marked much further, at least to 45th street) is because there is a bus that picks up along Speedway and drops you off right by the engineering buildings. You always have at least 10 minutes (unless this is some weird scheduling thing specific to your situation) to walk from one class to another. On Tuesday/Thursday classes you have 15 minutes. A MWF class that starts at 1:00 ends at 1:50, not 2:00. A TR class that starts at 12:30 always ends at 1:45, not 2:00. Besides that, ENS to ECJ is maybe a 1 minute walk. They are right next to each other. Campus map: http://www.utexas.edu/maps/. The building I marked red above is ETC. ECJ and ENS are both on the other side of Dean Keeton Street.

Uh, being a native Texan, I'm pretty sure we appreciate the same sorts of gifts as everybody else. The stereotypes are mostly false for the vast majority of the population. I shot a gun for the second time in my life last year, and that was in Illinois, because I don't know anyone who owns a gun.

Sounds like me during my undergrad...lol.

When you say more crime in West Salt Lake, what are we talking about? Are we talking about property crime, or violent crime? My car is a piece of crap, so if I could save some money I might consider somewhere out west along the TRAX line as long as I won't feel physically threatened.

I put up a map a few weeks ago, but it appears that my image host put the kibosh on it. Never fear, here is is again. The colored area in the bottom right is the Mechanical Engineering building. All of the other engineering buildings are somewhere around there. Don't worry about the part on the left side of the map. I was trying to dissuade a previous user from living on west campus. What you're interested in is above and to the right of the ME building. I'd call a Realtor that knows the campus area well, because many of those buildings are condos for lease by individuals. As far as noise, that isn't usually too bad, especially during exam times, on north campus. North campus is close to engineering and law, and is mostly frat house free, so it is much quieter than west campus. You can get a decent 1 bedroom for around ~750-800. 2 bedrooms around $1200-$1400. Hook 'em.

I'd suggest studying for and retaking the quant portion of the GRE if you did poorly. That's going to be a major blight on your record. Someone with a math degree should be able to get at least a 750 on that test, even with a C average.