Hit Rockbottom. What's the pathway out from here?

[damnedghost]

So, here I am:

1. Indian student. IIT.
2. CGPA of 6/10
3. Zero research experience.

Reasons - without getting into too much detail, let's just say that I had totally withdrawn myself from my life. I wasn't facing it. You could call depression an issue - and I am still struggling with it.

 

Now, I want to research in the field of computational biology/Systems Biology.

 

As laughable it might seem, I want to give myself a shot at Tier I institutes in USA.

 

And this is why I ask this question here:

 

How do I build up experience now? What are the alternatives available that can make me work on projects that can compensate for my lowly CGPA. I stumbled in life once. I find it a little hard to believe that it can set me back for ever.

 

I know that there would be a lot of hustle involved, but I am willing to do it.

[aberrant]

I'm afraid that you'll have a difficult time to survive in graduate school if you are still struggling with depression issues, especially a PhD program.

 

You will need to start working on computational bio-related work, ideally in a search lab. If nobody does that in India, then consider computational biophysics, or any bio-related research that uses the tools commonly use in computational bio / system bio. If nobody does any of these in India, then you should consider relocate to somewhere else just to gain that research experience. If you are looking at PhD programs, you will probably want to have at least 2 year of full-time research experience, ideally independent. To compensate your low GPA, you can try to shoot for a high score in GRE (higher than what the local applicants have without a doubt). But again, research experience is a requirement for most, if not all, of the graduate programs anyway. You will also need to write a SOP / PS, and secure strong LORs. Your LORs should come from someone that know you well and/or someone who works / worked in the field.

 

It's just a couple quick pointers, which may not be useful to you tho.