<p>I am going to apply for an MS program pretty soon.
I have these options for letter of recommendation:</p>
<p>1) My manager at IBM where I did a 5 month technical internship
2) My manager at Intel where I did a 7 month technical internship
3) A professor of EE where I did research for just one quarter. I think he barely even knew my name and I didn't work with him directly. I didn't do anything spectacular but got the job done. Not sure if he even remembers me now...
4) A professor of education (not ee) who I did a project for who knows me and was very happy with my work. Doesn't know anything about EE though.
5) An EE professor who I took a 2 classes with and did good but not great. May or may not remember me.</p>
<p>So....who should I get the LOR's from? Thanks!</p>
<p>Grab 2 professors and either Intel or IBM (whichever will write the best recommendation). A good rule of thumb is to have all professors if you can, and never more than one LoR from industry. It would probably be good if the LoR from industry came from someone with a graduate degree so they can say “Based on my own experience in grad school, fatpig5544 has great potential to succeed” or something of that ilk.</p>
<p>I know this is off the board but I have to say it, boneh3ad I DO like the objective remarks on this forum. Very helpful. Thanks for being around. </p>
<p>As for the OP, I have no experience of the admission process for grad school whatsoever but as boneh3ad said, I was told your professors recs will be more meaningful than I guess one from industry.</p>
<p>I agree, but don’t you think
“pig worked in my team for 7 months and did x, y, z” sounds better than “pig took my class last year and got a 3.6 he’s a nice guy.?” </p>
<p>I assume the recommendation from the non-ee professor is not very useful, correct?
That leaves me two ee-professors who barely know me, vs two managers who will know me very well and can attest to my good work ethic, etc</p>
<p>I would agree with bonehead about sticking with professors. There are going to be a lot of professors sitting around the table deciding whether or not you should get in, and they don’t want to read things from people with BS degrees. MS is pushing it. They want experienced, preferably tenured, faculty.</p>
<p>What kind of research did you do with the Education professor? Regardless, I think a stunning letter from that professor would trump either industry thing. Ask the professor to focus on things like… your maturity, your resourcefulness, the success of the project, your work ethic, etc. Research skills are largely transferable across the board… this would demonstrate an aptitude for and a predisposition to research.</p>
<p>Naturally, include the other research you did in EE to show that you have academic interests in that field, as well. Together, these recommendations will show you are a potentially good researcher.</p>
<p>Throw on the professor thing, too. Maybe some of the professors where you are applying will have heard of the professor’s name, if nothing else, and if he even says “sure, why not, give him a shot” they will probably take that more seriously than a dripping letter from some “guy” in industry.</p>
<p>The admissions committees will greatly value the opinion of another professor, and how much they value the opinion of someone in the work force will depend on what degree they hold. If one of those people from your internships holds a Ph.D., then you may be able to get a similar reaction from adcoms to a professor letter, but not necessarily. The fact that someone is a professor will likely at least make up for the fact that they don’t know you as well as the random manager from industry. Again, if the manager holds a grad degree, that will help somewhat, but I would still strongly suggest only having one of the three letters come from industry.</p>
<p>On another note, you still have time to try and get to know some more professors and maybe get onto a project with one (or get to know the EE guy you worked with before a little better). You may want to consider doing that so that you can get a better letter out of the professor(s).</p>
<p>Thanks a lot guys, about your very helpful posts.</p>
<p>I’m going to be out of state at the intel internship for 7 months so I can’t really work with any professors in the meantime.</p>
<p>To be honest i’m EMBARRASSED to ask that EE professor for a recommendation. I thought maybe he would have the expectation that I would do undergraduate research in his lab for 1 year or more, then get a good recommendation. Can I even ask him if I spent one lousy quarter there and he probably didn’t even know what the heck I was doing? Do you think it would be inappropriate to ask?</p>
1 rec from the school of education professor who will surely have nice things to say about me
1 rec from intel (provided things go well)
1 rec from either my ee professor who I did 2 classes with and did ok in, or from the ee professor who I did research with for one quarter who probably doesn’t remember me.</p>
<p>I guess i’m just not sure who to ask about #3.</p>
<p>If you think the EE professor might feel slighted by your leaving after so short a time, it’s probably a good idea not to ask him for a LOR. I’d ask the teacher, the education researcher, and personally, I would look for another professor. I would not get a non-professor to write a recommendation… to me, it’s like throwing away a recommendation. I may be wrong.</p>
<p>I used one letter from industry, but it was from a boss I had who had a graduate degree, so that helped. I consulted with various professors before applying and they said that generally one industrial reference is fine but absolutely no more. All professors is still better though.</p>
<p>You guys are great, thats exactly what i’ll do.
Bonehead- you do NOT live up to your name.</p>
<p>And AuburnMathTutor- Whoever said you’re not good for anything besides clarifying the difference between computer science and computer engineering is dead wrong!</p>