mclare

Due to the current economic downturn, it is increasingly difficult to find funding for just a MS (without the expectation of continuing on for a PhD) in the US. More people are going back to grad school, and schools are getting less funding. When I visited schools that I had been accepted to, each one (all of the big name ones) emphasized that they only had enough money to fund anywhere from 3-6 people at the Master's level. At UT Austin, they used interviews during the open house to determine who received that funding. At Stanford, funding was based mostly on GRE scores, LORs, and GPAs. The UC system is in particularly bad shape if you're an out of state student. I found that at both UCBerkeley and UCSD, you cannot get full funding for your tuition fees unless you are an RA, rather than a TA. TA positions are also increasingly difficult to get, because schools will have PhD students do it, or they'll have students that are continuing on from a BS (this was particularly true at UT). I have some friends who applied for grad school five years ago, and they were shocked at how scarce funding was. UT Austin is known for having money in my area (structural engineering), and it used to be that if you were invited to the first open house, you were guaranteed funding. That being said, I did luck out and get offers of funding at three schools (out of the six I applied to). One of these was only half tuition, but the others were full tuition + stipend for either RA work or TA work. I know that I got funding at one of these schools based on my interactions with professors (I was funded through a particular professor, rather than the program). Do your research to figure out which programs have a history of funding some of their MS (I'd check the stats on this website first). I don't know if you're interested in doing research during your MS, but that will definitely help with your application. You should also check deadlines for the schools you're interested in, because often there will be a separate (and much earlier) deadline for funding.

I actually thought I wanted to do architecture as a profession, and I took an architecture class over the summer prior to my senior year of high school. I hated it. I don't think I've ever been so mad about the amount of BS we were supposed to come up with to justify our designs. I guess I am more practical than artsy, as I didn't realize that architecture was much closer to pure art (I still can't believe that a lot of architecture students don't have to even think about physics until a Master's program.) I decided structural engineering as a major in college, but I still thought I would minor in architecture just to have a good point of reference for communicating with architects. After one semester of studio, I threw in the towel on that as well and did pure structural engineering. I found that in my structural design classes, I was much more involved in design of real buildings and bridges that in my architecture classes. In addition to hands on design work, my program had some strong professors that were involved in practice rather than being purely involved in academia. These professors were able to take our class on job site visits (including the WTC site), which really cemented for me that this was what I wanted to do. I think you're on the right track with wanting to shadow a practicing engineer. I had a classmate who spent the summer shadowing a professional engineer that worked in a small city in NJ. She loved it, because she got to see what that kind of job entails. Most major cities will have internships for municipal work posted on the web, so I'm sure if you emailed and asked to shadow, they wouldn't object. Port Authorities are another resource for shadowing opportunities. With regards to the "top ten school" criteria, my undergrad was at a small program (only 24 of us in civil engineering of all fields) but we were still in the top 15 despite our size. While ranking gives you a place to start, I think it is much more important to see the breadth of classes offered and actually visit the school to see what the atmosphere is like (visiting my school is what sold me on going to a school that had a good engineering department, but wasn't a tech school). Also do a little research to see where the alumni of the program end up for their careers. Good luck!

Another structural eng here! No clue who my advisor is, but I won't be on campus until I can move in on Sept. 9th.

I was unable to attend UCB's open house (out on the East coast here) on Friday, April 1st, and since getting my acceptance email from the department on March 23rd, I have heard nothing about funding! I applied to the two year research Master's, and my acceptance email had nothing about aid notification. Should I be emailing individual professors at this point to discuss research topics (and GSRs), or have I missed the boat? I am currently waiting on financial information from Stanford, UCSD, and Berkeley to decide where I'll be going... looks like I'm out of luck as a non-resident of California...