mbreck

Sounds really good! Thanks so much Decaf! I'm basically planning on going to the schools I want to apply to in person (specifically Berkley, UCSF, Stanford, etc) to try and do just that. Sorry to keep adding the questions, but 3) Any suggestions for getting/scheduling in person meetings with professors about working in their labs? Also, I'm planning on applying for fall of 2013, so this next year in large part will be based around preparing for grad school (i.e., I'll get a job in whichever of my fields of interest seems to have the best shot of funding my studies and research, take whatever pre-reqs, etc...). These meetings I'm hoping will also be a good opportunity to get a personal description of what individual professors look for when choosing Grad Students for their labs. This leads me to the question of: 4) How important is it to be accepted to a given school before scheduling these meetings? Thanks again! This forum is answering in minutes questions I have been churning the web for all day.

Thanks Joe! I am indeed looking for a funded MS. I have friend who is fully funded (RA position) doing a MS in Mech Engineering. Like I said, it seems harder to get a funded MS, but of the people I know who are doing it, most of them have found labs/professors which are very well off. Anyone have any input for question 1?

Hello all! I'm currently looking at graduate schools, and in the spirit of the best graduate school being the one that pays you to do it, I wanted to ask you all about the relative levels of funding for various departments. Based on some quick research, I get the impression that this is usually dependent on how well individual professors are funded. Which leads me to my first question: 1) How do you best identify a well funded lab/professor? Question 2 relates to fields with in the sciences I'm personally interested in. 2) How would you rank the following fields by relative funding level? If these departments are too specific, feel free to rank overall categories. Cognitive Neuroscience (Psychology dept, usually) Neuroscience Biotech Bioengineering Biochemistry Chemistry Materiel Science Thanks so much for your help!