DorkRawk

I still have 4 schools that I haven't heard anything from yet. At this point I just want to know one way or the other.

This is my 2nd time around. So far I've received 2 rejections and I'm waiting to hear back from 5 more schools. I'm really nervous because if I don't get in this year, I might just have to move on...

@cshci DePaul's HCI masters program is very "industry practical". It's treated soft of like a professional degree and you'll get lots of hard skills from it. There are chances to do research, but you really need to seek them out on your own. It is also a capstone (rather than thesis) based program. If you're looking for funding, your best bet is to apply to be a grader. I got most of my MS paid for by doing that, but you might have a hard time getting one right away and you won't be able to live off the stipend (I worked part time throughout my whole program).

So I just submitted my 3rd app of 8. This is my second time applying so it's been a bit easier this time around. Unfortunately I have a more vivid idea about how painful the waiting will be once acceptance time rolls around... I'm hoping to finish off all 8 applications before the end of the year so I can just rest for a while.

Also check out DePaul's HCI masters (full disclosure, I just finished the program last March). It takes students from very diverse academic backgrounds. http://www.cdm.depaul.edu/academics/Pages/MSinHuman-ComputerInteraction.aspx

Thanks for the response. I've looked into a couple joint PhD programs (such as UCSD and U of CO) and I'll be talking about those in my applications to those programs. I am a little worried that employers for many R&D labs might prefer a CS degree over a Cog Sci one. If I knew I was going to stay in academia, I'd be less concerned. Part of my motivation for looking at Cog Sci programs was just to diversify the types of (and requirements for) programs I'm applying to.

Hi Grad Cafe people! So I'm currently working on my PhD applications. I plan on doing research in AI, specifically cognitive modeling and reasoning systems. I have most of my schools picked out (Berkeley, U of TX, UC San Diego, USC, Northwestern, U of CO, plus a few others), but I'm starting to wonder if I should apply to some computationally oriented cognitive science programs too. I have a gut feeling towards CS, just because that's where my background is and that's the field I think of when I think about AI, but I know there's a lot of cool AI working being done my cognitive scientists. I'd like the option of working in industry or academia after I finish my program, so that's another thing to consider. So what would the advantages of studying AI through CS be when compared to a Cog Sci program? How would my job prospects be different? Any recommendations for programs to check out? Thanks!

I'm starting to write my SoP and I was wondering if any PhD applicants studying AI would be willing to share their SoP? I'm trying to get a good feeling for the style and level of detail I should go into for all the different parts. Feel free to PM me if you don't feel like sharing with the whole world. Thanks!

I thought that The Grad Cafe might get a kick out of a comic I just drew about the attire in the lab I just started at... http://mountsaintawesome.com/comic.php?id=23 Enjoy!

Ok, so I'm looking to apply to a CS PhD program studying AI focused in cognitive modeling, perhaps with a secondary interest in evolutionary computing related to machine learning. I come from a bit of a random, wandering background and I'm fighting a poor undergrad GPA. Undergrad GPA (Math/Computer Science major): 2.3 (from a top 5 CS school) Masters GPA (Human Computer Interaction): 3.97 GRE: 730 Q / 560 V 1 paper (related to HCI) published in a smaller conference (4th author) 1 paper (related to evolutionary computing) published in a student research symposium (sole author) other random research experience to talk about in my SOP I am about to start a job as a programmer/lab manager/researcher at a Cog Sci lab at UC Berkeley. This should result in good research experience, maybe publications and hopefully some good LORs from a well known prof or 2. I took the job in a Cog Sci lab because it will be tangentially related to the area of AI I'm interested in and I wanted more research experience. So what are my chances? I'm looking at UC Berkeley (a long shot, I know, but I live here and might have some people to help me out internally), UT Austin, Northwestern, UC San Diego, USC, UCLA, U of CO. Any other recommendations or a good idea of the ranking range I should focus on?

A little background: I'm planning on applying to a CS PhD program to do AI research particularly about cognition/cognitive models/AGI for Fall 2012 I'm currently applying for a job at a Cog Sci research lab at a very pretentious university (for both Psych and CS) as a lab administrator, so I'll help code for them, crunch numbers, and help with some research. Ideally I'd be able to get a good LOR from this. My question is... for the type of CS research I'm looking to do would this be good LOR? Does it matter that it wouldn't be from a CS prof, if I'm doing good related research with a well respected professor/lab? If my goal is to apply to CS PhD programs would I be better off doing this than taking a better paying job in industry for a year? Thanks!

Does anybody write specific SOPs for specific schools or do most people write one SOP and modify a small section to talk about specific faculty and resources? I feel like maybe I could explain my research interests from different angles to best fit with the research interest of specific departments. Is it worthwhile to make SOPs that focused? I'm planning on applying for Fall 2012 so I have some time (though I hope to have a few more things to talk about by then, too).

Yea, I've thought about trying to do that, too. It all depends on the type of job I get and how well my schedule would work with classes. I can be kind of tough getting new research experience when you're out of school, so I'm just looking around for a bunch of options.

So I'll be moving near San Fransisco next year and I'm looking to get some AI research experience (and maybe some more possible LoR writers) in order to apply for PhD programs next Fall. As I am no longer in school I need to be more creative with my options. I noticed that The Singularity Institute ( http://singinst.org ) takes volunteers, so that seems like a place where I could at least get in the door pretty easily. My question is, how would this organization look to admissions committees? It seems like fun stuff but is it too pop-science to be viewed as valuable experience by academia?

I finished my masters degree in March, but I'll be applying for Fall 2012 PhD programs (in Computer Science), so while I won't be in school I will be doing a lot of self educational work to better prepare myself for PhD work. This includes working through math books, reading various papers from labs I'm interested in, and learning from MIT Open Courseware classes. Would it sound weird to mention this type of work in a SoP? While it isn't really verifiable to the ad com, I would think that being self motivated enough to peruse education outside of the classroom would be perceived as a good thing, right? Is this something I should delve into more deeply in my SoP or should it just be a passing sentence or 2?

I will be moving to Berkeley, CA in a few months and I want to take advantage of my time there before I start my Fall 2012 PhD applications. I recently finished my Masters degree but I would like to have more research experience so I was hoping that I could volunteer in a lab at UC Berkeley. Is this something that professors allow? How should I go about contacting someone? I've seen professors put messages such as this one: "I am no longer able to reply individually to the large number of messages from non-Berkeley students who are interested in summer internships. PLEASE do not send me messages describing your qualifications etc." on their websites, so I don't want to just email people out of the blue. If a professor hasn't made an explicit note asking people to NOT contact them, is it OK to just email a prof about something like this?

Does anybody know much about what The Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing ( http://www-bisc.cs.berkeley.edu/ ) is doing lately? I've been trying to find good info from their site, but it seems to be pretty outdated and a little sparse on information. I'm not really even sure how big the lab. There are a few links to papers (mainly by Prof. Lotfi A. Zadeh) but most of them are pretty old so I'm not sure what's been coming out of the lab recently. If anybody has any association with this lab or knows more about it, I'd be very interested in more details about the lab and what's being done there now.

I think you're right. I'll need to sort of shape my SoP to fit the professors/research areas of each school I apply to and come at my interests with different language or from a different angle, depending on the program.

Cool, thanks! I've heard some other people say that this type of work isn't much of an academic/research focus because while it can be tweaked for decent "real world" work, it just isn't taken very seriously in a lot of academic AI circles. Would I be better off talking about other areas of focus in a SoP and if I'm really interested in the work, using some GA/Evo stuff as a tool if it's applicable to a certain problem?

I'm right there with you. But I've decided to take this as motivation to learn more about my field, try to do more research, and make contacts with people in my field. Not getting in makes me think that I wouldn't have been prepared for any programs worth going to, so now I know more about the whole process and more about grad school in general, so I think I can use the next 8 months to make myself better qualified for the type of work I want to do.

Wow! That list was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much! I totally understand that a lot of computational creativity stuff won't necessarily be done as a main focus in CS programs. Many of the papers I found on the subject came from Music related conferences (I was looking at music as a specific domain). I think if I could find some place that would allow me to study AI/evolutionary systems I could focus my own work on creativity if I wanted later on in my research.

So I'm trying to find programs/professors doing working in evolutionary computing/genetic algorithms or computational creativity but I haven't found too much work done on either of these topics recently. Is this type of research out of fashion? Should I be using different terms when looking for this type of work?

I'm in a somewhat similar position as you. I was a CS undergrad and then did my masters in HCI. While I was taking a cog sci course for my HCI degree I became interested in AI and started trying to take more grad level classes related to that field. I recently had an unsuccessful round of PhD applications where I had mentioned an interest in studying AI (though I wasn't specific enough with what I really wanted to study) and a secondary interest in HCI. AI and HCI are not the same thing and they are both WAY too broad to say you want to "study AI" or "study HCI". I think it's ok to have interests in both, but make sure that you have SPECIFIC interests in both and that you can speak intelligently about those specific areas of interest. There certainly are areas of overlap and if that's what you're interested in talk about specific work in that area.

Thanks for the advice everybody. While I'm working on some research right now, I'm trying to decide how I want to make up for my poor CS undgrad grades. I'd prefer to take classes over taking the CS subject GRE. If I were to take classes, what classes should I take? (again, my undergrad grades were REALLY shitty and I think that admissions committees are worried about my ability to do grad level CS work) I've taken intro to AI, intelligent information retrieval, and machine learning/neural networks classes at the grad level as electives during my HCI masters programs so I have some CS grad experience. I'll likely be moving to Berkeley, CA soon, so I was hoping to take some classes as a non-degree seeking student there. If I had to pick only a couple classes to take between now and the next application season, what should I take to best make up for poor undergrad grades to show committees that I have the foundation to do work in their program?

Ok, thanks everybody! The coding challenge just seemed seemed like it would be fun and I was wondering if I could kill 2 birds with one stone. I might still work on it, if I have time, just because I think I'd learn something but I'll stick to mainly research related stuff in my SoP.