Getting research experience after graduating from college

[exe163]

Hello everyone,

 

I am a senior ECE major from a reputable college hoping to do graduate school. Like most people on this forum, I applied to quite a few PhD programs this cycle in machine learning and robotics. And from the results so far, it's unlikely that I will get into any of them (I am only interested in the top 20). I didn't decide to do graduate school until the beginning of my senior year. This leaves me with only a year of research experience and no publication by the time I graduate. With my average GPA and GRE and only one strong LOR, I don't think I am very competitive for top programs.

 

So I am a bit stuck. I am currently applying for regular software jobs as backups. But after a bit of thinking, once I go this route, there's no easy way back to the research arena. So I am wondering if there's any research related jobs out there that I could take full time to gain more research experience (especially in machine learning) before I apply again for graduate programs in the future? I have also considered applying for professional masters. But this would mean going into debt which I try hard to avoid since my ultimate goal is still a PhD (aka will be poor but okay if I am not in debt).

 

Any suggestions is welcome.

 

P. S. I know going for less competitive programs is also an option, but I rather not do that for a variety of reasons.

[DeleteMePlease]

Just curious and really don't want to be mean or anything. But I wonder how people without research experience just decide to go to graduate school...
It took me a long time in college to realise that I love research. I spend weeks working on projects and endless seession discussing topics with my adviser until I realized I want to do this for the rest of my life. 

I can only advise to work at least on one project before making such a decision. 

 

On your topic: Would it be an option to work part-time and be a research intern at the same time? Without research experience you will have as small chances getting into a research related job as into a Ph.D. program.

 

Alternatively, if you can afford the debt. Maybe really consider pursuing a research focused Masters degree. Maybe even at one of the institutions you want to go to? If you have personal contact with a POI and already collaborated with her/him in a project, it would be a huge plus on your application.

Edited February 18, 2014 by GermanStudent

[tz636]

Dude, I'm in the exact same boat. Top 5 school for UG, high GPA, good GRE, but no publications when I applied back in December (only had a year of part-time research then). I've received 3 rejections out of the 7 schools (all top 20) I've applied to already, and the rest isn't looking too good either. Not really sure what I should do now other than find a job somewhere. Seems like PhD dreams are all but over .

[cicada2014]

I was in a similar boat. Few options.

 

1) enroll in a master's program, preferably with a thesis component. Yes it will cost you an extra 30~40K, but this is the price you might have to pay for not pursuing research.

2) if you have a strong interest in an area, try doing some rudimentary research on your own. obviously you won't be publishing groundbreaking results, but if you get a publication out of personal research it will help somewhat. I was able to publish at a decent workshop through this method.

3) research position at a company that allows publishing. Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc. Obviously they are very competitive, but if you can get a software engineer position and worm your way into a research group, you will be set.

 

Good luck!

[bsharpe269]

Just curious and really don't want to be mean or anything. But I wonder how people without research experience just decide to go to graduate school...

It took me a long time in college to realise that I love research. I spend weeks working on projects and endless seession discussing topics with my adviser until I realized I want to do this for the rest of my life. 

I can only advise to work at least on one project before making such a decision. 

 

On your topic: Would it be an option to work part-time and be a research intern at the same time? Without research experience you will have as small chances getting into a research related job as into a Ph.D. program.

 

Alternatively, if you can afford the debt. Maybe really consider pursuing a research focused Masters degree. Maybe even at one of the institutions you want to go to? If you have personal contact with a POI and already collaborated with her/him in a project, it would be a huge plus on your application.

 

I do completely agree with you here. I am not trying to insult anyone who has chosen to get a phd for a different reason but id be interested in hearing how you know you want a phd. I joined a research group freshman year of college and fell in love. I felt butterflys in my stomach on the way to my lab and meetings every week. I have changed and focused in my research efforts since then to an even better fit but reserch has long been my passion. This is how I know I want to get a phd. I dont understand how people who havent done research know that they want to do it forever.

 

I also dont get the whole "only top X schools are good enough for me" mindset. If you love research then that really shouldnt matter. Also, I doubt that all of the top professors in your subfield are working at top 20 schools. Many of the top ones in my field are at schools ranked around 30-50. They are who I dream of working with.

[Icydubloon]

I'm getting a PhD and I'm not that interested in research. Why? Because in CS, the Bachelor degree is becoming the new high school diploma - everyone has it. I also want to work on machine learning problems in industry which a BS is generally not good enough. Many people (including myself) apply only to top 10/20 schools because of the prestige and "stamp of approval" they provide for whatever route you choose whether it be industry or academia.

[exe163]

I do completely agree with you here. I am not trying to insult anyone who has chosen to get a phd for a different reason but id be interested in hearing how you know you want a phd. I joined a research group freshman year of college and fell in love. I felt butterflys in my stomach on the way to my lab and meetings every week. I have changed and focused in my research efforts since then to an even better fit but reserch has long been my passion. This is how I know I want to get a phd. I dont understand how people who havent done research know that they want to do it forever.

 

I also dont get the whole "only top X schools are good enough for me" mindset. If you love research then that really shouldnt matter. Also, I doubt that all of the top professors in your subfield are working at top 20 schools. Many of the top ones in my field are at schools ranked around 30-50. They are who I dream of working with.

 

I am not sure how we got off on this tangent  because everyone here has at least some experience in research, some more than others. My worked in a robotics lab over the summer and now continue doing it. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate applying for graduate school when I first started college like most competitive applicants did. I want to make up for my lack of research experience by doing some post-undergrad research. Regardless of reasons I don't think it's that bad to look for ways to get research opportunities after college. So I am a bit confused why there's a sudden stream of disapproval and discouragement against getting a PhD or applying for top programs.

 

Back to the topic at hand, I like the idea of working for a company that focuses on research. Correct me if I am wrong, but I feel like they are more incline to hire proven researchers since they are, after all, for profit companies. Which makes it even more challenging to get into that graduate schools. What are some other private entities that hire post-undergrads?

[tchaikovsky]

If this helps, I know LANL offers 'past-bacc' research positions: http://www.lanl.gov/careers/career-options/student-internships/undergraduate/index.php

[DSA]

Just wanted to mention that it is possible (though perhaps unlikely) to get accepted to CS PhD programs to top 20 schools without research experience. I've received one such acceptance (funded) so far. I did no research while in undergrad and only knew that I wanted to get involved in research once I entered industry and found that the problems I was working on were not as cutting-edge as I had hoped. In addition, my GPA was moderately good but nothing to really brag about (~3.6) and I was below 90th percentile on my quantitative GRE score. 

 

The acceptance I had gotten so far was probably due to a particular connection between my interests and the interests of my POI, combined with his desire to do specific project-based research very soon. From this, I think that industry experience and demonstrating that you can get things done is very helpful.

 

Probably the most helpful thing for me (and so maybe helpful for you) is that I worked on an independent computer science project outside of work. This project is coordinated with some current students and alumni of my undergrad school, where we're participating in a competition for building engineering solutions to medical problems. By developing a system that's directly related to my research interests (computer graphics), part of which is already released and open-source on GitHub, I'd like to think that helped me demonstrate my passion for the field.

 

I also took like a dozen MOOCs from Coursera and other sites while I was out of school, some of which were directly connected with my field. I don't know if that helped at all, but I mentioned them in my SOP and included a link to my website where I display the certificates I got from those MOOCs. Maybe not so useful, but maybe it could be.

[bsharpe269]

Since you want to go the industry route, another option would be to go with a masters program since you can probably get a great industry job with the masters degree. You can get involved with research there, see how much you like it see whether you'd be interested in doing it full time for a few years. If you decide you enjoy it and want to do a phd then you'd have lots of research experience to apply with.

[PhDerp]

For the record, I started compsci 2 years ago and decided I want a PhD before getting research experience. I wanted the experience so I could get a PhD, not the other way around! And my "research" was just a job, really... I did some process modeling in a visual language. Big whoop. I know for sure I don't want to do anything like that for grad school! Clearly this was not the selling point for me.

Other life experiences helped me reach the conclusion that a PhD is right for me. Who knows, it might not work out... But with a 50% attrition rate (or so I read on this forum), I'd imagine it's sometimes hard to tell before attending whether or not graduate school is right for you!