grad school shopping

[Talenos]

if you wanna go to grad school, make sure you have lots of money

Why would you need lots of money?

[Negatron]

well, you might get by with either teaching assistantships or research assistantships. but the problem is they don't last long, or shall I say long enough. So you gotta have a plan b to pay tuition in case you run out of funding from your department or prof. there are grad schools that'll tell you congrats you were admitted with a scolarship! and when you do the math you find out that only covers 40% or so of the overall expenses so you gotta cough up the rest.
seriously dudes, grad school is a bunch of horseshit, and I'm just glad I got done with all of it.

[Talenos]

I'm sorry you had a bad experience I guess. In my department they don't let you in without a professor willing to pay for you to do research so there is no financial problems that way.

[Negatron]

what's your department?

mine said he'll fund me but then backed off because he said I did not make enough progress in research.

[Talenos]

HCI

[Negatron]

ah!
you guys have a lot of funding. I knew Melinda Cerney.

[Halt! Hammerzeit.]

I have a current subscription, in case anyone is interested.

[Hi, I'm High Maintenance]

I'm trying to decide whether to apply to grad school or the school of public health. Either way, I'll be applying at: Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, U of Iowa, Emory, and possibly U of SC. Any thoughts on MPH (Masters in Public Health) vs MS?

[Pesto]

I would suggest a MRS over an MS, lol.

[Talenos]

I'm trying to decide whether to apply to grad school or the school of public health. Either way, I'll be applying at: Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, U of Iowa, Emory, and possibly U of SC. Any thoughts on MPH (Masters in Public Health) vs MS?

Any backups?

[Hi, I'm High Maintenance]

U of Iowa and U of SC are my backups.

[toilet hanako]

Whoa. You must have insane grades, research, and leadership experience.

[Talenos]

or suck a mean cock.

[grace]

I'm trying to decide whether to apply to grad school or the school of public health. Either way, I'll be applying at: Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, U of Iowa, Emory, and possibly U of SC. Any thoughts on MPH (Masters in Public Health) vs MS?

FWIW, one of my really good friends got her MPH at Hopkins, and is currently upper management for one of the HIV programs in sub-Sahara Africa. If your goals are to eventually get up into management (where you make serious bank, if you go abroad as upper management) in something like that, you pretty much NEED an MPH. And foreign language skillz

[Jeff Albertson]

If you come out to Hopkins, you will get to see the little guard towers on the street corners around the medical campus!

[Hi, I'm High Maintenance]

I'm trying to decide whether to apply to grad school or the school of public health. Either way, I'll be applying at: Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, U of Iowa, Emory, and possibly U of SC. Any thoughts on MPH (Masters in Public Health) vs MS?

FWIW, one of my really good friends got her MPH at Hopkins, and is currently upper management for one of the HIV programs in sub-Sahara Africa. If your goals are to eventually get up into management (where you make serious bank, if you go abroad as upper management) in something like that, you pretty much NEED an MPH. And foreign language skillz

I'd like to go into research but be pretty high up on the chain of command.

[Hi, I'm High Maintenance]

If you come out to Hopkins, you will get to see the little guard towers on the street corners around the medical campus!

tell me more!

[Jeff Albertson]

That's all I know. I've only been to the medical campus a few times.

Baltimore can be a dangerous city, but Hopkins works pretty hard to make sure it's students feel safe. The only thing I know about our MPH program is that it's really good, and it's really hard to get in.

Good luck!

[tate]

Whoa. Do you happen to have the rankings for Undergrad Industrial Engineering?
Thanks.

[ornryactor]

I know this has been dead for over two years, but maybe someone with a subscription will come back. If that happens, I'd love rankings for Educational Policy & Leadership Studies. (Probably won't be listed as that; lots of schools call it lots of things. Try Higher Education or something like that. Basically, it's working in student services or a department of residence.)

I don't necessarily trust those rankings, but I don't even know where to start looking for programs, so any kind of list would be useful.

[DunMiff/sys]

i'm headed to grad school in about five years. woohoo, right?

for art history.

[Lars]

I know this has been dead for over two years, but maybe someone with a subscription will come back. If that happens, I'd love rankings for Educational Policy & Leadership Studies. (Probably won't be listed as that; lots of schools call it lots of things. Try Higher Education or something like that. Basically, it's working in student services or a department of residence.)

I don't necessarily trust those rankings, but I don't even know where to start looking for programs, so any kind of list would be useful.

"Fields" like this one are hilarious. I can't see rankings mattering at all.

[lolcat]

OK. It was suggested I find a school for correspondence work for Jul09-Jun10.
Assuming no major changes happen, I should be able to take a full class load while at Cupcake.

[lolcat]

OK. It was suggested I find a school for correspondence work for Jul09-Jun10.
Assuming no major changes happen, I should be able to take a full class load while at Cupcake.

Any thoughts on University of Phoenix programs for grad school?
My thinking is to take University of Phoenix online while gone and then get into a real program at a real university.

[Lars]

What do you want to do with your life? I don't think anyone here has a clue where you are or what you're really doing.

[lolcat]

Right now I'm in the Pac NW.
In a few months I'll be at Cupcake for a year.
I want to get back to history/polsci/teaching.

[Talenos]

grad school doesn't work the same way undergrad does. There are no general classes you could really take online and know they would apply to your degree. Especially if you don't even know where you're going. You'd most likely have to start from scratch. Your best bet would be to find some kind of teaching program that offered online classes, and try to do a few of those while you're gone and then finish the ones that aren't when you get back.

[lolcat]

No, but I figured even if there is an overlap btwn UnivPhoenix and with UP or PSU, then so be it. Plus I have coursework to complete to add endorsements to my license.
I'm going to be getting in touch with admissions at PSU to see what they say. Worse case I deal with OSU or Oregon.

And who said I dont know where I'm going?
Pac NW for now, then at Cupcake for a year, then back in the Pac NW. Seems I know where I'm going and you're lacking reading comprehension.

[Lars]

Figure out a program first and talk to the people there. They will tell you what can transfer in. It probably won't be much, but if you can do 2 classes, that's probably worth it.

Cupcake means nothing to me. Sounds gay.

[lolcat]

Yeah, I'll be checking. I'll at least be able to get the endorsement coursework done.

Cupcake means nothing to me. Sounds gay.

Well, it was named by USMC, so yeah. gay.

[Lars]

I thought you had done that already. Weren't you teaching at some point? Or was it Teach for America?

[lolcat]

I only have 2 endorsements. Would be nice to have 6 by the next time I teach.

[Lars]

You're talking about subject endorsements?

[Pesto]

I'm seriously considering grad school. I've been running through the practice Comp Sci GRE.

How would I go about choosing a masters program? I'm told it's important to find the right professor, but how do you go about doing that?

[Talenos]

Well, do you want to work and go to school? Or quit and go full time? What school's do you want to go to? Most of the time you can e-mail a professor and get a response from them.

[MarcusAurelius]

I'm seriously considering grad school. I've been running through the practice Comp Sci GRE.

How would I go about choosing a masters program? I'm told it's important to find the right professor, but how do you go about doing that?

I started by basically looking at a list of around 20 schools I'd consider, based on ranking or geography or whatever, and look at the faculty list in every department. Find profs with research you find interesting, browse some of their papers, and email them. And don't get discouraged when they dontrespond. I think I had around a 50% response rate.

[bith]

i'd say there's probably 3 different things that make a professor the "right" professor.

1. funding. unless you are gonna foot the bill all on your own, this matters a lot. some won't take you on unless they can pay for you. in my opinion, research assistantship >>> teaching assitantship.

2. research. you probably want to care about kind of projects the professor does. if you know professors who publish work you are interested in, look them up. otherwise, cruise around departmental websites looking at bios, research interests, etc...

3. personal/work attitude. some professors have assloads of money and good research but are total wanks who either can't manage students well or are complete fucking slavedrivers/micromanagers. really, the only way to figure this out is to meet with them.

[MarcusAurelius]

yeah, pretty much. though i'd modify a little...

i'd say there's probably 3 different things that make a professor the "right" professor.

1. funding. unless you are gonna foot the bill all on your own, this matters a lot. some won't take you on unless they can pay for you. in my opinion, research assistantship >>> teaching assitantship.

i like that TA'ing gave me freedom to initially pursue a research path my prof had no clue about. that's a double edged sword though... and it definitely hurt my ability to research, having to put in 20+ hours a week to teaching.

3. personal/work attitude. some professors have assloads of money and good research but are total wanks who either can't manage students well or are complete fucking slavedrivers/micromanagers. really, the only way to figure this out is to meet with them.

definitely, but you're better off meeting their students to get a real idea of that. i've come across a horror story of someone doing a summer research internship and loving the prof, then when they were an actual RA, hated him.

but yeah, finding a good prof you can mesh with is by far the most important factor. they can provide you with connections that can make a whole career, or make your life a living hell for a few years.

[Pesto]

if you know professors who publish work you are interested in, look them up.

This is the thing I'm most clueless about. I have a couple areas of interest in mind, but I have no idea where to look for active areas of research.

Edit: My boss has a Ph.D. and told me to look at who's presenting at conferences, but I don't know where to look for that info, either.

[bith]

if you know professors who publish work you are interested in, look them up.

This is the thing I'm most clueless about. I have a couple areas of interest in mind, but I have no idea where to look for active areas of research.

not that you are necessarily looking at grad school at isu, but do you have a relationship with any professors in your department? when i was an undergrad looking to get started in grad school, i went to one of my professors with questions about how to best get started. now, as it turned out, that professor offered me a great position here at isu. not that it's what you're looking for, but at the very least he/she could help point you in the right direction. ask about the conferences and journals they publish in/read. then look at that stuff yourself (surfing from any isu IP address usually gets you access to a lot of published content). ask if they know any good professors elsewhere who may be looking for students, or if they know of any good programs to investigate.

[bith]

ok, didn't see your edit.

not sure exactly what you're looking to do in CS. some of that might overlap with stuff i am involved with. i'd start with IEEE. they have a wide range of conferences and journal tracks. something should seem interesting.

[Pesto]

but do you have a relationship with any professors in your department?

Nope, and I don't know that I want to go back to ISU. If there was someone who was doing exactly the right stuff, sure, I'd go back, but I'm not going to give ISU special consideration because I went there for undergrad. I want to shoot higher (no offense).

[Talenos]

Well, professors often know other professors, and that's better than cold calling.

[bith]

Well, professors often know other professors, and that's better than cold calling.

this^

get started talking to professors who you at least may know from class. you don't have to approach them as if you are planning on staying here or wanting to join their group. i sure as hell wasn't planning on staying in ames this long. still got good advice from my boss back when he was just some professor that seemed friendly enough and willing to help with general grad school questions.

[Pesto]

Except I really don't have any connections to any of the faculty.

The best lead I may have is Jacobson, who ran the CprE learning team, which I was in as a freshman.

[bith]

Except I really don't have any connections to any of the faculty.

The best lead I may have is Jacobson, who ran the CprE learning team, which I was in as a freshman.

what i'm saying is that you have to create a connection. you do take courses right? it's not like my prof was a friend of the family or anything. i went into office hours one time/scheduled a meeting to see if he could answer any of my questions and sure enough he did.

[MarcusAurelius]

your number one priority right now needs to be getting familiar with the current state of research and figuring out what you want to go into. it'll definitely give you a much better idea whether or not you really do want to do CS grad school. skim those IEEE journals or whatever else is relevant in the field.

i wouldn't sweat not having ISU contacts. cast a wide net and do some cold-emails when you figure out what you want to do. a lot of profs will ask outright on their web pages for people to contact them regarding research work (in my area, anyway).

every offer i got was from profs i had no direct networks to, except for one that had a pretty distant network.

[Talenos]

Except I really don't have any connections to any of the faculty.

The best lead I may have is Jacobson, who ran the CprE learning team, which I was in as a freshman.

It's like you're looking for every excuse not to talk to someone. You have common sense, any link you have is better than nothing. You can figure it out.

Even if you say, hey I was in your class 5 years ago about "X", I'm interested in "X" for grad school, what can you tell me?

[Pesto]

It's like you're looking for every excuse not to talk to someone.

No, it's just I'm not there yet. Since I don't have any actual connections, cold calls is where it's going to be at for me, once I get there. I'm still at the point of getting current on research, and finding out who is doing that research. That's what I need help with.

Edit: I suppose there's Aluru, who I had for parallel algorithms. Even so, I still don't know what I want to study.

i wouldn't sweat not having ISU contacts.

Yeah, not too worried about that.