TKassis

There are many excellent US universities for your field. I think some of the best for Biomedical/Bioengineering would be (in no particular order): 1- MIT 2- WUSTL 3- Johns Hopkins University 4- Georgia Institute of Technology I also heard Duke University has a strong graduate biomedical engineering program...

Considering that you will graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology, I think your chances of getting into the schools you mentioned is pretty high. Can't give you any numbers, but an engineering degree from Georgia Tech is considered top notch by any university you apply to.

No question about it, Georgia Institute of Technology beats the rest of your list. You should apply to as many universities as possible. I know for the electrical engineering department at Georgia Tech this year the graduate acceptance rate was around %11, I'm not sure about the computer science department, but I assume it is similar.

That's a hard decision. Columbia has a well established name as a university. Georgia Institute of Technology however would be superior for your degree option. GA Tech's reputation is growing at an amazing rate, over the past 10 or so years it has seen substantial development. I assume your degree is non-researched based, in that case it might not make much of a difference what you choose. Georgia Institute of Technology would be my first choice however, but then again, you said your course availability as a distance learner might be a problem...

Totally agree LingGrad2009.

I still think a Skype-in number is more than adequate. Landlines are just expensive. 911 calls might be a problem, but let's face it, what are the chances of your cell phone not working, having no one around and at the same time having a life threatening emergency?

Thank you Linggrad2009 for the clarification. In such cases I guess where a discussion is involved I do not need a voice recorder.

MaximKat, you are definitely right. The chance of needing a phone for an emergency when it is down and not having any other alternatives is probably 1 in a million and really not worth the cost. We Americans are very bad at cost-benefit analysis in daily life. That's why we spend trillions of dollars on our military of which much of the spending is for hypothetical situations whose chance of happening cannot whatsoever justify the cost.

I agree, that doesn't really make sense. I mean, knowing another language is good, but I don't think it should be a requirement for a PhD in Math!!!

Sorry for any misunderstanding people, but when I talk about lectures I'm referring to any type of classroom instruction. I did my undergrad in England and am not familiar with seminars...

belowthree; foreign language requirements are usually only for PhD students in fields like history, theology, international affairs... science and engineering PhD's never have a language requirement.

kahlan, you need to do a cost-risk assessment :-) It is really not worth paying for a landline just in case of an emergency. It is like building your house with 12 inch thick concrete walls just in case a plane falls on you.

No, if you have a cell-phone it doesn't make sense to get a landline. Not worth it.

Thank you Kahlan, I would like to record all the lectures so that if I need to go back later during revision or self-study. I will not listen to them unless there is something I didn't understand in class from the first place. I can't take notes about something I don't understand (that's when the audio file will come in). Minnesotan, I am doing a Master's so I have a lot of courses to take in addition to research.

Don't expect funding for a Master's, especially not this year. Funds are very limited and reserved in most cases for a Ph.D. unless you have a very high GPA.

Hi all, I looking for a good voice recorder to start recording my lectures starting in August. I would like to record every lecture and transfer it to my laptop for archiving. Do you have any recommendations? I've been looking at different companies, and there are so many to choose from!!! (too many). I need something that is good for picking up a lecture even if I had to sit far from the instructor for some reason. I already have an iPod touch 2G, but don't know how reliable it would be to use it and whether I can transfer the audio files to my laptop. I've considered Livescribe's Pulse pen, but I cannot handle such a big pen while taking notes. It is too thick for my comfort.

The cheapest textbooks I can usually find are on half.com (an eBay company). You can get very good condition books for really cheap prices, compared to new that is. Another option might be to rent your textbooks. Companies like Chegg.com are becoming very famous. I did some calculations though and noticed that book rental companies are not really that great. For the price of renting the book for one semester you can actually buy one that is in good condition and then sell it again. Until book rental companies reduce their rent I don't think they are cost effective. One advantage thought is that they save you the trouble of hunting for a book and they are always cheaper than buying your textbooks new. Another thing, they don't guarantee that any supplemental material will be with the book, such as CD's, access codes, software... which might be a problem for some courses. Best way is to use Amazon, eBay and Half.com to compare prices and then just order a book from one of these. Getting the cheap International editions (which are printed for poor third world countries) is also an option, but the books are not that good. They are black and white. If you are doing a science/engineering degree you will be missing out on a lot of useful colored illustrations.

I think a fast Internet connection is all you need. I absolutely hate cable with all the useless programming and flooded with annoying advertisements. Just get a NetFlix subscription which will let you watch any show you want via DVD or some shows instantly. Much cheaper than cable. As for things like news, most news channels these days have gone so much downhill that you can't call them news channels anymore. Get your news from online websites/blogs/newspapers. As for a landline, you don't need that. Just get a Skype-in number for $60/year which includes unlimited free calls in the US and Canada as well as voicemail. In conclusion, you only need an fast Internet connection for everything. If you use a laptop, might to well in investing in a large moniter for your movie needs. I ordered one two days ago from Dell, they have some pretty cheap 22" on sale. Whatever you decide to do , don't waste your money on cable. Awful channels and you get to watch ads all the time in addition to paying an outrageous monthly subscription (compared to 7 other countries I've lived in).

Really depends on what you want to do in the future. Spanish and French are both very useful. Have you thought about other languages like Arabic for example?

I'm starting my Master's in Bioengineering. ECE is my home department though.

Why did you live there 4 years then? Post-Baltimore is too expensive. I live on a property called Cityscape which is 30 min walking distance to the center of campus. Cheapest prices I could find in Midtown and an absolutely great property. The landscaping is fantastic and the staff are great. Really quite as well, you wouldn't think you where in Midtown.

I'm starting at GaTech this Fall as well. I considered GLC. I realized though that it wasn't much cheaper than living off-campus. You have to share a bathroom with one other person and a living-room/kitchen with 4. Personally, I cannot see myself living with 3 other people that I do not know. In addition, the GLC contract I read was worse than any private property I've seen. One would think that the housing department at a public university would make everything in the interest of the student, but with GaTech housing, it seemed everything was against the student. Add to that the fact that the campus isn't really a very nice place to live on. My undergraduate university had an AMAZING campus and I absolutely loved living on it, but can't say the same with GaTech. I can't really answer your question, but I recently moved to a very nice property next to campus. It is a 30 min walk to my department, but I think the exercise will be great. Considering the rent and utilities I am paying, it is a bit more expensive than on-campus, but at least I have my own 1-bedroom apartment.

I'm still waiting to hear from them. Not going to attend as I already had to send in my acceptance to another university before the deadline. I really do not understand why it is taking them that long. I'm having the same situation with another university in Ohio, University of Cincinnati.

English is not my first language. I had to retake the GRE to get a reasonable score. The best way I found is to memorize GRE vocabs and their use in a sentence. I got the Kaplan GRE in a box flashcards and memorized them (500 words). You will have to review them the day before the exam but they should be able to stay in your short term memory until you finish the test. If you memorize them I think you will be able to improve your score by at least 100 points. I think your problem however is not with the verbal, it is with the writing section. For PhD students the analytical writing section is the best indicator of your writing skills. Unless you can prove your writing skills in some other way, the minimum GRE score should be 4-4.5 for a PhD applicant.

Same here. I find it so confusing. It really scares me. I can't figure out what is a good plan and what isn't. Why can't we just have universal healthcare and not worry about this stuff. I attended undergraduate university in England. I didn't have to worry about a single thing when it came to healthcare, everything was free, even for international students. Even dental work and braces were free for under 19. All the process involved was me opening an envelope in the mail that had my NHS card. I would go to doctors, hospitals, therapists... and all they needed was my name. I didn't even have to show them my card. The amount of stress involved with getting coverage in the US is by itself a cause of health concern!!! Needless to say the financial cost... and the ridiculous amount of paperwork you have to go through everytime you actually need some form of health care.