Chance Me, Grad School

eyemgh
Thu, 06 May 2021 04:07:09 +0000

The approach should not be schools that want you, but rather schools you want, ESPECIALLY if you want a PhD. Of course they have to want you too, but you want to go where you’ll be doing what you want to do.

First and foremost, you need to decide, terminal MS or PhD.

If you decide terminal MS, then you need to decide Thesis or non-Thesis based. The latter is essentially a BS on steroids. I recommend a Thesis based MS. Funding in terminal based Masters programs is rare, but they are possible to find. My son was funded for a thesis based MS.

If you want a PhD then you do not pick a school per se. You pick professors doing research that interests you and that is aligned with research you’ve done. Depending on what you pick, schools like Wisconsin, A&M, Iowa State, etc. might be the very best of what you want, and MIT or Stanford could be bad. It all depends on who is doing what where. This is a very important point. You need to get along with that person. They’ll be controlling your life for multiple years. Don’t go in blind (if you even can) and find out that you hate your boss, hate your work, or heaven forbid, both.

So, put some thought into what you want to do. Then you can get the best advise.

I’ll part with a few random thoughts:

1. What year are you?

2. Why would you pick an Ivy for ME?

3. There many threads in the Engineering Forum that will counsel you not to take business classes in UG unless you’re an IE.

4. You’ll get all the CS you need in the classes you take, especially if you want to do mechatronics. The exception would be machine learning.

I’m also suggesting the moderators move this to the Engineering Forum. You’ll be better served there. Good luck!