I expected this to be a light semester. I knew it might get busy from time to time, but I certainly could not have foreseen the constant, unremitting load of work that I have borne like an overworked pack mule for the entire semester.
In previous semesters, I have been fortunate to have at most two major projects going at any one time. They might overlap for a week or two, but overall, I have had periodic bursts of heavy work separated by lighter—but certainly not empty—spells. This semester has been different. This semester I had three major projects spanning the entire three and a half months since summer ended.
It has been tough, but all three projects are complete, turned in, and/or demoed. I plan to write about each of them in the order they concluded, starting with...
Project One: Graduate School Applications
I have heard it said that applying to medical school is the equivalent of a three credit hour college course. If that is the case, then applying for a Computer Science graduate degree counts for at least a two credit hour seminar. I wish I could have hired a secretary to handle all the papers, requirements, forms, and pages and pages of thorough yet misleading instructions.
Of the three projects, this has lasted the longest. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school around sophomore year. Much of my CS work—such as undergraduate research and the CS honors program—has been to prepare for further study in addition to a career. Last summer I seriously started looking at schools and began researching what I would have to do to apply. I started the online applications about a month into the semester, and I took the GRE in October.
The GRE is a computer-adaptive test, meaning that the questions get harder as one progresses. The increase in difficulty was very noticeable because I started having to guess a lot about halfway through each section of the test. The adaptive nature of the test also makes it very short—only about three hours total—so time plays a large factor in completing the sections. These two things made the test much more stressful than a normal multiple choice test. Taking the test on the computer was beneficial, however, because I got my verbal and math scores as soon as I finished. I did reasonably well.
The application process sped up after I took the GRE. I completed my statement of purpose in an afternoon, and three current and former course instructors agreed to write letters of recommendations around that time.
I applied to the following six schools:
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
- Carnegie Mellon University
- University of Texas, Austin
- University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Purdue
All are top-20 computer science graduate schools, and I am sure I would be happy wherever I end up. I plan to get my master's degree in computer science, but at the advice of several people, I am applying as a PhD. student. This will help my chances of getting accepted and will probably open up opportunities for working on more interesting projects. It will also make it easier to continue for four years if I decide to get my doctorate.
It was interesting to note the similarities and differences between the schools' application processes. I was pleased to find that every school had an online application. I only had to send my paper transcripts to each school and a paper application to the computer science department at UT.
Purdue and UIUC both used the same software for their applications. This is interesting because the schools are so similar in other respects: both are highly-respected, technological, Midwestern schools. Fittingly, the software was equally bad in both cases.
MIT had the best application. It was easy to use, it gave clear instructions, it did not use popups (UIUC's was three popups deep at one point), and it worked in Firefox. The only downside was that I had to manually type in every CS, math, and science course I have taken as an undergrad.
I submitted each of the applications and mailed the final paperwork about two weeks ago. Now I must leave it up to the faceless application machinery to decide what I am going to do with myself for the next two or more years.