I am really in need for help! Thank you guys in advance!
So I am currently a computer science student at Georgia Institution of Technology. I am applying to its computer science master program.
My interest is system architecture and security. GIT provides 11 specialization for CS Master program, and I am going with "
Specialization in Computing Systems". I have take many relevant courses in my undergraduate years because my threads are “System architecture&Information Internetworks”. My GPA is 3.74 because I got an “C” from my psychology class. But I have aced almost every CS courses except for one networking class.
I have joined a program which was described as research project. We basically write simple codes under the guide of three professors. We meet once a week, discuss progresses for each team and do presentations once a while. The professor leading this program later had picked my to become his student assistant to write an android project.
It is a shame that these are probably the only outside class experiences I had. But to be honest, the codes I wrote were very straight forward and there is no really technically hard problem to research on. Yeah, I probably spent time checking out documentations and searching for beneficial plugins/APIs but that’s all. Any one has knowledge in programming could wrote these things given enough time. I feel that I did learn from it, but it is just not really something impressive. And I don’t really think it could be counted as research experience.
More importantly, even if these experiences do count as “something”, it is still irrelevant to the field (“System architecture & Security”) I want to research on for grad school. Relevant research experiences seems to be the most important part in the SOP. I am really struggling right now. Not sure if I should say in my SOP that my interest is in another field to make these experience little more relevant … Or should I talk more about what I learnt from all my system architecture classes? But I have a feeling that classes don’t really meaning anything and it just exposes the fact that I don’t really have any other experiences. If I stick with my actual interest, should I mention above experiences at all?
I guess the only good news is that the professor I am currently working for really think I am productive and offered to write me a strong letter of recommendation. But the bad news is that he is not a professor in computer science department. Another professor I have contacted, who is in computer science department, probably just knows me a little better than the way he knows his students in lecture class.
I am sorry for my English. And I am sorry for this long long post.
I would greatly appreciate any guide and suggestions!