5 ms·

Random thoughts from my experience: 1) Doing a fifth year Masters at the same University is a waste. It is better to go to a different school. You get to meet

by iqster 16y ago

Random thoughts from my experience: 1) Doing a fifth year Masters at the same University is a waste. It is better to go to a different school. You get to meet new people, get exposed to different perspectives, and perhaps even live in a different part of the country. 2) If you are not rich and do not get into a top-10 school, taking on a 100K in debt for college is a bad idea. 3) Getting into a top-10 school is hard. If someone suggests the "transfer after 2-years" option, ask them for stats. Be aware of "self-selection" in that people who bother applying will likely have solid stats to begin with. 4) The key benefits of a top-10 school are networking/peers and the school's selectivity. When it comes to knowledge, classes are useless IMHO. You can get more complete information in books. If you are truly stuck with a concept, you can hop on a bus to the local elite school and convince a grad student or professor to explain something to you. Oh .. and don't forget about all those lectures online :-) 5) Not having a lot of school-related debt makes it less stressful to become a young entrepreneur. 6) If you did a solid but cheap undergrad program, doing a course-based Masters at a top school might be worth it. 7) If you want to go into academia, school matters. Top-20 is okay for undergrad. Top-10 (general or field specific) for grad is a must.

impendia 16y ago
"You can hop on a bus to the local elite school and convince a grad student or professor to explain something to you." Really. You've tried this? Because grad students and professors aren't busy at all...
- kd0amg 16y ago
  I might, probably just for the change of pace (though if you're looking for me, I'm more likely to be in the lab than in my office).
- lacker 16y ago
  I haven't tried it. But I've seen it done, and more. When I was a grad student at Berkeley, there was a computational biology class where another student (I'll call him SG) and I hung around afterwards to talk to the professor. I assumed that he, like me, was looking for an advisor. The reality was a bit different. SG wasn't a student at all. He worked from home as a programmer doing boring stuff and lived an hour away. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he drove to Berkeley, snuck into the CS department by coasting behind someone else who left the door open, and went to the graduate classes he thought were interesting. On day 1, SG asked the professor if he could sit in without formally registering for class. Sure, why not, the profs don't care about the administrivia. Halfway through the semester, SG explained his whole situation to the prof (and me, because I was waiting around too). How he was extremely motivated, hard working, and wanted to learn, and would work half-time for free indefinitely if someday there might be a job there for him. How could the prof say no? Over the next few months, SG gets a lot done. A lot more than your average Berkeley grad student with no real-world software engineering experience. So when the prof next gets some grant money, it's a no-brainer to hire him full time. Suddenly SG has an interesting job and a great resume. You can do a lot just with persistence....
larsberg 16y ago
re: #1, I'd like to hear some Stanford kids' feelings on that. When I was managed developers and doing a lot of new college interviewing/hiring at Microsoft, I honestly can't remember a single candidate from Stanford who didn't elect to do the "BS+MS in Computer Science over 5 years" option.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
1) Doing a fifth year Masters at the same University is a waste. It is better to go to a different school. ... 2) If you are not rich and do not get into a top-10 school, taking on a 100K in debt for college is a bad idea. One caveat to those two - if you are not rich, and do get into a top 10 school, doing the fifth year Masters is very compelling, if only for the tuition you'd save + starting earning income a year earlier.
deleted 16y ago
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andylei 16y ago
i agree with most of this, but i think that > When it comes to knowledge, classes are useless IMHO. i have to disagree. it's a pretty reasonable statement in intro and intermediate level classes, but in advanced classes, a lot of the material covered does not exist in textbooks yet. the info is possibly located in academic papers, or maybe the result of unpublished research. even if the information theoretically exist in papers, it is very nontrivial to find the papers (typically only universities have subscriptions to the journals they appear in), determine which ones to read (just because its published doesn't mean its good, or even true), and then assemble that into a reasonable narrative.

by iqster 16y ago

impendia 16y ago

"You can hop on a bus to the local elite school and convince a grad student or professor to explain something to you." Really. You've tried this? Because grad students and professors aren't busy at all...

kd0amg 16y ago
I might, probably just for the change of pace (though if you're looking for me, I'm more likely to be in the lab than in my office).
lacker 16y ago
I haven't tried it. But I've seen it done, and more. When I was a grad student at Berkeley, there was a computational biology class where another student (I'll call him SG) and I hung around afterwards to talk to the professor. I assumed that he, like me, was looking for an advisor. The reality was a bit different. SG wasn't a student at all. He worked from home as a programmer doing boring stuff and lived an hour away. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he drove to Berkeley, snuck into the CS department by coasting behind someone else who left the door open, and went to the graduate classes he thought were interesting. On day 1, SG asked the professor if he could sit in without formally registering for class. Sure, why not, the profs don't care about the administrivia. Halfway through the semester, SG explained his whole situation to the prof (and me, because I was waiting around too). How he was extremely motivated, hard working, and wanted to learn, and would work half-time for free indefinitely if someday there might be a job there for him. How could the prof say no? Over the next few months, SG gets a lot done. A lot more than your average Berkeley grad student with no real-world software engineering experience. So when the prof next gets some grant money, it's a no-brainer to hire him full time. Suddenly SG has an interesting job and a great resume. You can do a lot just with persistence....

larsberg 16y ago

re: #1, I'd like to hear some Stanford kids' feelings on that. When I was managed developers and doing a lot of new college interviewing/hiring at Microsoft, I honestly can't remember a single candidate from Stanford who didn't elect to do the "BS+MS in Computer Science over 5 years" option.

SkyMarshal 16y ago

1) Doing a fifth year Masters at the same University is a waste. It is better to go to a different school. ... 2) If you are not rich and do not get into a top-10 school, taking on a 100K in debt for college is a bad idea. One caveat to those two - if you are not rich, and do get into a top 10 school, doing the fifth year Masters is very compelling, if only for the tuition you'd save + starting earning income a year earlier.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

andylei 16y ago

i agree with most of this, but i think that > When it comes to knowledge, classes are useless IMHO. i have to disagree. it's a pretty reasonable statement in intro and intermediate level classes, but in advanced classes, a lot of the material covered does not exist in textbooks yet. the info is possibly located in academic papers, or maybe the result of unpublished research. even if the information theoretically exist in papers, it is very nontrivial to find the papers (typically only universities have subscriptions to the journals they appear in), determine which ones to read (just because its published doesn't mean its good, or even true), and then assemble that into a reasonable narrative.