<p>So, given the opportunities to do internship (software development) at Microsoft and research at my school over the summer, which one should I pick that would help more with respect to graduate school admission? I am a computer science major looking to apply for grad schools in CS or applied math in the future. According to CC, it seems research is more preferable to internship, but content wise, I find the work I will be doing at Microsoft to be more engaging. That is, I won't be really writing any academic research paper at Microsoft, but I will be solving some interesting problems while designing software with impact. So, I am in a dilemma here, as I prefer in my case, the internship over the research at my school, but then, most people believe research is considered more helpful than internship for grad school admission.</p>
<p>Well, “Design a better GUI” sounds more like a development problem (especially in software engineering). A CS research I think, should be scientific and investigative in nature. For instance, the research I could be doing the following summer is related to cryptography, something with a more well-defined problem and requires long term experimentation and problem solving. On the other hand, at MS, I probably will just be coding up solutions all the time, to problems that are pretty implementation based. That is, using existing technology plus problem solving.</p>
<p>Personally, I would prefer the MS position. However, I hope such experience won’t be neglected by grad school, because it’s not research at all, which is what many people claim here.</p>
<p>Do what you think will be a more enjoyable experience. If you havent’ already, ask the research PI and the MS manager about what exactly you will be doing over the summer. In my experience, PIs and managers make the project description sound a lot more interesting than what it actually is.</p>
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<p>it doesn’t sound like you will be doing random mundane tasks.</p>
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I like how you just tell OP to take the position so confidently. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I think you should take the MS position. It will make you stand out a lot more than just a quarter of dinky research. You will also learn more…!</p>
<p>To GrassBandit, I am certainly aware of that famous pdf that talks about CS grad school admission. It places a strong emphasis on the importance of prior research experience. This is exactly what makes me wavering between these two summer options, as the one that I like is strictly not a research, and also I am pretty much determined to attend grad school after college.</p>
<p>I mean, in the pure math field, I know internships usually aren’t as useful as research in the grad school admission committee’s eye. Maybe CS is different?</p>
<p>If for no other reason, The msft program should get you out of current school’s environment, could even get you out of the country. DS did 3 consecutive internships, post masters at Redmond, Bangalore, and followed his Msft PI to Berlin. CMU BS ME '06, Toronto mS CS '07. </p>
<p>its not what you will be doing in either choice, but gaining a network.</p>
<p>If the kind of research really interests you and you think you’d contribute well enough to get a publishable paper, then pursue it. Otherwise, it won’t really contribute to your grad school application.</p>
<p>Interning at MS gives you a great backup plan if you don’t end up getting into the grad program you want, and you’ll be paid well. If you do well you’ll probably get an offer from MS down the road.</p>