Snoq

Hello there, I am from Europe and even though I can read and understand books in english (for technical books, cause I have't tried to read a literature book in english) and I can also understand dialogs in movies, I find it hard when communicating with other people in English and when I am writing in English. Can you please tell me how to improve my english in general and especially for TOEFL? Can you suggest me methos and books to study english? I would prefare at least one general English book and one explicitly for TOEFL. I would also liek to extend my vocabulary. I am in a B2 level or 5.5 IELTS or 70 at TOEFL iBT (as http://www.examengli...ltest/index.php told me). Edit: I don't know if this is the right place to post it.

Please tell us how it went and if it went well enough for you cause I will be applying in a few years (2015) and I wanna know. In wich field are you?

But can I apply for general CS at Princeton and then find a Theory advisor to do a PhD? or change advisors after getting admited. Or get in for an MS and try to do my best to impress advisors to ge me for a PhD. My problem is that at first year I didn't get good grades at a few courses (2.6/4 in physics, 3/4 at calculus I and Probability) so it may hurt my appliction. I haven't done much research about lower ranked universities that are good in their fields. But I neither can't decide in what i am more interested, cause I really like all those fields I mentioned and I am really good at all of them. That's why I want to start doing research in those fields to see if like research in general and in wich field, but there aren't many oportunities in my country for research (I am trying to find though). Can you mention some of those good universities in robotics and in which subfield are they good?

I know that is very hard to get accepted to those two universities cause they are really the best in their fields. I another question though. Am I applying to a specific department (f.e. Compute Science), to a specific area (f.e. Theory) or to a specific lab/project? And if I want to apply to more areas is an other application or can be mentioned in the same? I am asking to know how specific should I be about what I want to do for PhD. Also I know that maybe I don't like research and thats why I want to do research, to see how it is.

Hello, I am studying Electrical and Computer Engineering, in a not well-known university, in Europe and I will graduate in three years (one more term cause of some problems I had). After my graduation I am thinking of going for a PhD, and I would like to get in one of the best universities like MIT/Stanford/Berkeley or in another top university like CMU/Cornell/Princeton/UIUC/Caltech. So, I have some questions (that I think will help other students as well) about what to do to have a chance on being accepted to one of the MIT/Stanford/Berkeley and being surely accepted to one of CMU/Cornell/Princeton/UIUC/Caltech cause I am not seeing myself graduating with 3.9 GPA or more (I will succeed though to get at least 3.7 GPA and I hope a little more – and I think more than 3.8 in major). Also I don’t know the specific area that I want to study (I like though control systems/robotics, artificial intelligence (/machine learning), algorithms and theory, computer architecture). I have joined a software engineering team in my school where PhD students are members too and I will ask them if I can do research with them in machine learning/data mining (cause that’s their fields of study, and also trading agents) and I want to go for a summer internship in European Space Agency during my last year’s summer. Apart from that I will ask another professor about research in computer architecture and another one for robotics. But I don’t know what else to do cause my university doesn’t have that much research so my only chance is to go for internship research at summers. Another thing I would like to do is to participate in Google Summer of Code this year or next year. But I don’t know if that will count enough for those universities, or should I spend my time in something else (do some more research myself, study a little more for better grades or find a research internship position somewhere). So, my questions are: Should I apply to Google Summer of Code this or next year, or do something else? (Also I have exams from 11 to 30 June and that will be a kind of problem) Do you know any summer research internship (Europe or US - preferred EU) for ECE (not a specific area)? Because I am trying to find anything but I don’t get much results. Does anyone know if I can go (in any way) to any good university (EU or US) for the summer to do research, or to study there? (for example is there any way to go to CMU for research in robotics?) Any other way to do research as an undergraduate? Do you have any other ideas about how to spend my little free time? Should I contact any professor from another university to ask him about how to do research? (I am not in the mood of doing this right now, cause I don't know how he will see that) And some questions that are not for now but I want to know how things are: After finishing my studies, if I won’t get accepted to any of those universities listed above can I do something to strengthen my application (in terms of research/work experience) and reapply next year? If I go first for MS (at one of those universities or any good EU university), cause I think is a little bit easier to get accepted, will I have better chances to get in one better university for PhD? I also need to study English a little more because I am not fluent enough. I didn’t knew where to post is (Engineering or Compute Science). Please move this thread if it is in the wrong place and sorry for my English. I am not expecting for anyone who applies to answer me all questions, but your opinion in any of my problems/questions will be appreciated and helpful. Thank you!

Can you please share your profile?