victor.s.andrei

Dude, I feel your pain. That said, try dealing with all of that and a full-time job in your field...at the same time. A full-time job where you get thrown on call repeatedly, folks around you can't manage their own projects so they dump things on you at the last moment, and management throws you to the wolves on a regular basis. I'm out of town on a weekend trip (that I paid for out of my own pocket) right now, and this morning I have to wake up early to sit at my work laptop, praying that the project I'm supporting doesn't fail and cause me to miss my return flight in the evening. All of this while worrying that a project proposal for one of my classes is now overdue, and it turns out the topic I wanted to propose might be outright infeasible after doing a literature review. Plus I have a really nasty problem set and a programming project for another class. Oh, and I'm the only one on my team in on Monday so things will probably get dumped on me...again.

If it's any comfort, I just transitioned into a regular degree program from non-degree status and simultaneously increased my course load to six credit hours from three. I also work full time in my field, with occasional on call responsibilities, and the last three weeks have been hell on earth. Oh, and it's only September, too. My advice: 1. "If you're going through hell, keep on going." Don't worry too much about GPA. Just pass, and keep your sanity. Don't worry about your school's reputation too much, unless you made the mistake of going to an online for-profit. You will get a job...and with any luck, one that you enjoy. Also, none of your prospective future employers will care about your grades, but they will care that you passed. 2. Make some friends among your fellow graduate students. (They will help you keep your sanity.) TGC folks are amazing, but don't count on them to fly to your school to give you a hug when an assignment goes to pieces at 3:30 am. 3. Corporate life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I know this for a fact, considering I switch hats on a daily basis. Do not worry about whether you will end up at some big, "prestigious" corporation that might work you to death and then throw you away. Instead, worry about whether you will have made your (positive) mark on this world before your time is up.

I'm curious what school you're at. I feel that way in my engineering classes at Mason. LOL.

It can, if you want to write a really good one. Writing a SOP or goal statement often requires very intense and deep soul-searching.

I wanted to +1 you for this but apparently I reached my quota of positive votes for the day. Grrr!

Ever heard of impostor syndrome? Where in the Midwest? I'm an East Coaster, and I generally like folks I meet out in the Midwest more than the ones here on the East Coast. The culture is just so much more chill out there than here, and I'm sure that comes through in how people communicate and act - including how they grade other people's papers.

That reminds me of something I saw scrawled on the fridge of a friend's house at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (He was a graduate student there and now works for U.Va.)

Your stats are competitive for a Ph.D. Look carefully at the programs you want to apply to: some will value work experience more than others. As for getting the M.S. while in a Ph.D. program, you usually can ask for it once you've completed the requirements for the M.S. if you want, but just know that you'll be walking a fine line there. Your program might view you as applying for a Ph.D. (which usually comes with funding) and then just getting the M.S. (which is usually not funded). If your program funds you for a Ph.D., they would rather keep you all the way to the end than lose you with just a free M.S., unless of course you aren't cut out for a Ph.D. (which you will find out when you get to quals).

NYU is expensive. If you want to work for start ups, go to Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin, or Boston. I've also heard Boulder, Colorado is a good place to check out.

With regards to the GRE subject test in Computer Science, it's a mixed bag, plus you will really need to be self-motivated to study at least seven or eight textbooks on your own. Your best bet is to take a couple of classes (discrete mathematics, digital logic, computer architecture, software design) from your local school as a non-degree student. You can also take online courses in programming from schools like UC Santa Cruz. Get your employer to pay for the classes.

There are many hot tickets. The problem is that what is hot today might not be so hot tomorrow. After all, certified Novell engineers had a great time in the mid '90s but can't find jobs now if they didn't continuously update the breadth and depth of their technology skills and credentials.

For a direct Ph.D. program, yes. For a terminal master's degree, no. Piece of advice: if you like research but only want a master's degree, do an M.S. (not one of the M.E. or M.S.C.S. degrees) with an actual thesis. Go work for Amazon and do some fun things. Take a couple classes at UW as a non-degree student. Then, apply. My understanding is that Amazon has a tuition reimbursement program of $2,000 per year after three years. Kinda sucks, actually. Then again, working for a company like Amazon will do wonders for your resume (or CV) in this field. The GRE subject test in Computer Science is a mixed bag. Professors at my undergraduate school (UVa.) told us that most folks don't do so well. It's a challenging test due to the breadth of material covered, and the pickings are very slim when it comes to study material, unless you really want to review all of your undergraduate textbooks. You will get better bang for the buck in taking and doing well in graduate classes as a non-degree student at your target school. Or, go back to Michigan. You have a home court advantage there as a current student. If you choose that route, one of my classmates from a graduate algorithms class that I took two years ago at Mason is there now - say "hey!" to her for me, please and thank you.

Your GPA is fine, especially since you went to Michigan. You did major in computer science, right? Know that if you go for a terminal master's degree, your chances of funding are next to zero, so I would strongly recommend staying at Michigan, since I'd bet that you already have in state status there or take that job in Seattle and figure out how to get your new employer to pay (tuition reimbursement) for your M.S. from the University of Washington, which is also a top-notch graduate school. I do hope you have a special project that you're involved in at Michigan, and you might not get the extra reputational boost from getting a degree at a different school. As for your choices, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Princeton have good reputations, but I would vote for the University of Maryland at College Park. There are several major computer security companies located in very close proximity (Sourcefire in Columbia and OPNET in Bethesda), and if you want to do research of any sort, the market here is very good - in other words, there are employers (NSA at Fort Meade, MITRE in Tyson's Corner, DARPA, etc.) that offer the chance at stellar research opportunities in your areas of interest.

What kind of work experience? Are you aiming for a Ph.D. or a M.S.? P.S. Austin is an amazing city to have a social life...and the tech job market there is fantastic.

Agree with this, especially since that's exactly what the folks at my undergrad (in the 20-30 range for CS/EE grad rankings) school told us when I was last there.

Ph.D. programs are very different from undergraduate programs and most master's programs. Adcoms will look for potential to do research, not just complete more coursework. Make sure those recommendations demonstrate that you can and want to do research.

So basically, not stellar, but not terrible. I got a 2.7 as an undergraduate in Computer Science. As for your remaining class, do well. Your GPA won't go up by much but it can sink due to a bad grade. Like any other college class. Whether it's completed at a community college is irrelevant, though some schools will informally weight GPAs based on the quality and reputation of the school where they were earned. EE is a huge field. What part of EE are you interested in? Your lack of research experience will hurt you badly if you apply for a Ph.D. program. As for the GRE, take it once, and do well. It's not impossible, but your GPA will rule out a lot of schools...for now. Building an alternate transcript as a non-degree graduate student is probably the best place to start, but you shouldn't just focus at schools like Berkeley or Stanford. If you are in the Bay Area, there are plenty of great schools, including SJSU, and the entire UC system has tons of relevant online classes you can take. Also, getting relevant work experience is highly valued by professors, especially if you pick up skills and knowledge that you apply in research. The Bay Area has a great tech job market right now, so go get a job, if you haven't done so already. Plus, many employers offer tuition assistance that you can use to pay for that alternate transcript you want to build. I would bet that a lot of employers will be flexible, but you have to ask nicely. Also, remember that graduate courses, especially at lower-ranked schools, tend to be offered in the evenings, so you probably could get away with working full-time. This is the most valuable type of relevant work experience. Industry work experience counts, as long as it's relevant. Also, read the academic regulations for the schools where you build the alternate transcript. You may only be able to transfer up to a certain number of credits into a degree program at a later date. Keep this restriction in mind. Yes. That is a reasonable time frame and a reasonable track. I started work in June 2010 and took two years to build up relevant work experience in industry, get a good GRE score, write up my goal statement, gather letters of recommendation, and complete twelve credits of non-degree coursework at the school where I applied...and that ultimately accepted me for the Fall 2012 semester. (I convinced them to let me take a few more credits as a graduate student this summer.) Good luck, and feel free to PM me with any questions you may have.

Disagree. Quite a few schools will award credit for coursework earned in a master's degree, and doing a master's thesis provides valuable research experience, especially if the master's thesis results in one or more publications.

Doesn't the CS department maintain a list of the topics covered by the exams or the courses that correspond to the exams? You can probably grab the syllabi for the courses in question off the CS department Web site. Find the courses' textbooks, and go through them.

Tuition assistance from one's employer...in a job that's relevant to the degree. Of course, the legwork requires quite a bit of initiative on one's part.

Chill. Your GPA is perfectly fine for an engineer. Yes, you will have to explain your less than stellar grades in your first three semesters, but that won't be too difficult given your upward trend. Right now, you can go take the GRE and apply to a few schools, and I would bet you would get admitted, at least to an MS or MSCS program. The only real concern I have is that you didn't explain why you want a PhD in computer science. In order to get through up to seven years of hell filled with moments that will test your sanity, you need passion and determination and tenacity and direction. You're also going to need some potential research interests, so I would sign up for ACM, IEEE CS, and USENIX memberships. Your company might be willing to pay for these. Look through the journals for articles that strike your fancy. Go to a conference or two. If you are unsure of your GPA or whether you really want that PhD, you can always do what I did: take a few non-degree classes (paid for by your employer), study for the GRE, do some intense soul searching as you write your goal statement or statement of purpose, and get relevant work experience.

Take a few classes that are relevant to your intended graduate program as a non-degree student.

Azazel is right, except I want to add that you shouldn't shelve the idea of a graduate degree entirely. You might want to wait until you get a job with an employer that will pay for the degree.

Where did you do your REUs? Get some LORs from your REU advisors and apply to their schools.

Where did you go to school for your undergraduate degree? You mentioned that your major is biomedical engineering. Do you have a CS minor? What undergraduate CS classes did you take? Any upper-level mathematics classes? I'd say you have a good chance at a top 10, provided that you can show that you have sufficient CS background and that you can explain how your undergraduate biomedical engineering background (including your research) meshes with a CS program. Don't restrict yourself to the top 10, though, as there may be leaders in your research specialty - bioinformatics - who may be at much lower-ranked schools. Good luck with your application.