One issue with transferring is the credit setback when things don’t transfer. The other big one is the economic issue of moving OOS since my tuition being lower has helped to save money for my brother’s future education.
Well, the CS dept. doesn’t actually post research positions per see, but I reached out to three of the professors accepting students as mentees and am awaiting a response. I will reach out to more if I don’t hear back, but the issue is that I want to research in machine learning and most professors have little or no experience in the area.
Just to add this to my previous comments, the biggest problem I’m facing in upper-division CS is that I’ve already done most of the things being covered (mostly during HS). Intro to AI, for example, covers A* search and reinforcement learning. A* is remedial content, and I have made tutorials explaining concepts like Q learning and just wholesale machine learning (with libraries and less mathematical depth than research-level, obviously, but still with the same depth as the course’s content); yet, I’m being forced into the course and will likely feel equally annoyed by a subject about which I’m actually passionate.
Hmmmm…I know several CS majors at OSU (mostly rising sophomores) and none of them have had a problem getting an internship. And the brighter ones are being asked by professors to get involved in research. All of them tell me they’ve really appreciated their advisors, too.
So, you do need someone to mentor you, for sure. I think you probably have a strong skill set which made your being a CS major someplace not strong in AI a bad choice. AI is just as much about statistical theory as writing code. You should understand that to help you find the right people at OSU to help you. That is up to you, I’m afraid. Initiative is important for success, too.
You are very busy finding excuses for not getting what you think you want. Enough of that. You’ve misjudged what makes transfer students attractive. Internship candidates. Research assistants. You’re missing a lot of ‘how the world really works’ information. Spend some of your free time getting better at that, since you have so much of it.
So it looks like you self-educated a substantial amount of CS while in high school, so that many CS courses in college contain significant amounts of material that is review for you.
There have to be some CS courses that contain material that is new to you. There should also be courses in many other subjects that contain material that is new to you. Since tOSU is a big university with a large course catalog, you should be able to find these courses there; transferring is unlikely to be worth the effort.
What you should probably do is plan your future semesters so that:
You avoid taking CS courses that are mostly review of things you know (or take the minimum number of these possible to fulfill requirements).
You choose in-major elective CS courses covering things that are new to you.
You choose courses in other subjects covering things that are new to you.
For 1 and 2 above, if you have been self-educating AI since high school, then focus your CS course choices on other areas of CS. Obviously, for 3 above, there is a huge course catalog of subjects that are new to you.
I’m now going to be a research assistant. Frankly, you’re quick to cast a lot of unfair judgments; I’ve reached out to numerous people each month the entire time I’ve been here and often gotten little in the way of a response. Also, the anecdotal experiences of a few people you know say little about the experiences of others.
Also, I know that those things are the selected for during transfer. I don’t currently have them and won’t be able to transfer without them. At the same time, I’ll have acquired them late enough into this process that that won’t be a good idea anymore.
Lastly, I’m in upper-division and graduate courses. I’m applying to lots of internships and thus far getting nothing but rejections.
Yes-- I did; however, I’ve equally taken lots of classes covering novel content. I just haven’t found them to be at all challenging.
OP- getting research opportunities isn’t like standing in line at Baskin Robbins and ordering an ice cream cone where someone yells “next” and it’s your turn.
You need to cultivate relationships with the faculty and grad students in your department; show them what you’re capable of doing, let them see how much you’d add to their lab or project; why they’d be idiots not to work with you.
If you keep emailing someone and they don’t respond- why would you keep on emailing them? Clearly another approach is required.
Take the time to stay after a lecture to ask a question, show up at office hours, ask for additional work/more reading/deeper projects to work on. That will solve the rigor problem AND position you for the next opening on a project.
And drop the attitude. You posted here looking for help and we are trying to help you. A professor who has money to hire interns/researchers on a project wants to work with people who are interesting and can contribute and won’t be prima donnas. So be that person.
@blossom sorry, all. You have to realize that I only ever come on places like this to vent; for the record, this isn’t how I act in-person. That aside, I’ve done some of what you described regarding talking to my professors, but online and hybrid classes have made that a bit more complicated.
When I say that I don’t get responses via email, I mean that I reach out semi-regularly when positions are posted, etc., and rarely if ever get any response. Mostly, though, the lack of response is from my academic advisor. Often, responses take weeks to come and don’t have enough detail or insight to really prove useful.
If you read the last post I made, I have found graduate classes and research. Even so, I wasn’t treating it like “standing in line.” I talked to numerous members of numerous departments asking how I ought to proceed and asked for further guidance when I wasn’t getting responses; it took just reaching out to a large volume of faculty to get success.
As I mentioned at the start, I only check/post on CC when I’m feeling down, so just realize that all of this is through the filter of my present emotions. I appreciate your feedback, and I hope to follow through on your recommendations during the coming years!