My son is finishing his under-grad in UC Irvine (UCI) in Computer Science. He is thinking of doing his MS in computer science right after his final year in under-grad in 2024.
His credentials
He is an Honor student at UCI (got it for under-grad)
He got UC Regents scholarship for all four years, and UCI grant for first 2 years
He is pursuing double major in both CS and Mathematics (finished CS except for Honors project, which he is doing this year)
He has taken all req courses in AI and ML and did projects in same. And few other CS courses to meet requirements
Currently has 3.95 GPA
Currently involved in 3 projects/research in CS something related to ML I think
Did his 12 week internship after 2nd and 3rd year at Amazon Alexa division, Sunnyvale, CA
Got recall for internship at Amazon for summer 2024 but in Seattle Head office
Has GRE score - Verbal 168/170 (98th percentile), Quantitave 170/170 (94th percentile, Analytical writing 5.5/6 (98th percentile)
Has recommendation letter from 2 CS professors and 1 PHD student/his research advisor, and from his boss at Amazon internship
Not much extra-curricular except he plays intra-mural basketball and flag football at UCI
He definitely wants to go into the industry and as of now not leaning towards academia.
Any suggestion would help. He is planning to apply UCI, UCB, UCSD, UCLA, UC Davis, UT Austin, UC Urbana, Univ Ann-Arbor, Carnegie Mellon, Univ Washington, San Jose State Univ,
Any inputs of his chances of getting into any of these universities with above credentials will be helpful
I think he chose these colleges to apply based on his friends (peers or seniors) who are in those colleges. May be he has done some research about colleges. I know for sure he wants to pursue in ML and probably AI too. He took those course seriously. Doesn’t have time to discuss in detail with me, says he is busy always.
He was telling that he wants to do MS right from the time he came out of HS. One reason could be most of our relatives about 10-15 years older than him all have MS degrees. Myself I am Bachelors in Engineering only and wife, MA in English.
He was interested in academia all through, could be that reason too. Though he never talked about PhD anytime.
Then grad school probably isn’t the right next step for him. At least not right now.
The value of an MS in CS has fallen a lot in the past 15 years, IMO. Probably better for him to work in the industry and decide a couple of years later if a master’s still makes sense.
It’s nice that he’s ambitious. Generally an MS in computer science is reserved for someone who needs it to achieve something very specific, such as a particular skill an employer wants, or to pursue academia. It’s not needed to start a career. If it were my kid, I’d tell them to skip it for now. But it’s not my kid, and maybe it’s right for yours.
He should think hard about this decision. If he decides to do it, the following things are important:
He should do a fully-funded program. That means his tuition is covered, and he also gets a stipend via a research assistantship (preferred) or a teaching assistantship.
He identifies specific mentors for whom he would like to work and who are interested in having him as a student. He should seek out people who can tell him if these professors are actually good mentors.
Thanks for your advice. From what I have read on individual college websites I mentioned, most say that most RA/TA jobs are filled by PhD students or continuing MS students.
Is it possible to find out if he can avail those kind of positions before applying. Or it should be done after he is given an offer of admission.
If he wants to work in AI - as in developing code, then getting a masters is important, and for that reason, he may want to go straight to grad school. The “real AI” material is covered in grad programs, not undergrad. Depending on what school he is at now, he should explore opportunities for full-time employment where they may supplement his graduate studies ($). Masters in AI are usually 1 year full time but can be completed PT… Most schools have a network of companies and alumni who look to hire from the school.
If he is interested in machine learning/data analytics (business side -using the output of AI) then he may want a masters in data analytics. Getting that immediately is not a priority - he could work for a year or two.
As someone who approves graduate applications, I can tell you that everywhere I have worked, the most important parts of the application are the grades, courses he has already taken, letters of recommendation from professors, research/projects he has worked on, and his personal statement. We don’t pay a great deal of attention to anything else.
Yes, he will have to take the time to really dig into each school of interest. If he decides to do it, he should be able to find a fully-funded master’s position with the kind of resume that he has. He should do this before applying. He might also get offers after he’s admitted, but he should not commit to a school without a guarantee of full tuition + stipend.
ETA: if there’s a program that really has a unique way to meet his goals, I suppose he could consider paying for it. Such as a part-time online program that he does while working or something. But for full-time in person I think he should hold out for funding.
Another thing to add, with the little research on college websites I did, most of them categorically mention that they don’t provide scholarship for MS students, unless some extra-ordinary circumstance (which I seriously doubt my son qualifies). Unless they are really impressed with his credentials and want him to get admission.
If you google “fully funded masters cs” you’ll find that there are a few schools that do guarantee funding. Some don’t guarantee it to everyone, but might give it to the best applicants. I’m not in CS, but from what you’ve written, he sounds like a strong applicant.
I see that your son has had an internship at Amazon. This can be very helpful. For graduate school I would not be concerned about any ECs other than those which are major-related. CS and mathematics is IMHO a very good combination.
Regarding getting a full time job first or a master’s degree first, I think that he could do it either way. I am generally a fan of getting a bit of work experience prior to graduate school. However, it works the other way around also.
I am assuming that you mean the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Your son is definitely applying to some very good universities. With a 3.95 undergrad GPA plus good internship experience, I almost wonder if it would be worth also applying to Stanford (I do not recall what the deadline is – EDIT: December 5.)
My family members have mostly chosen the “work a bit then grad school path”. However, the fact that your son has had a good internship experience will help. Reasons why I might usually go with the work a bit first path will not necessarily apply to all students.
One issue is that someone with a bachelor’s degree might not know what they want to do for a career. For example when I got my bachelor’s degree (in mathematics with quite a bit of CS course work) I thought that I wanted to do AI. After working for a couple of years and looking more closely at AI, I instead chose to get a master’s degree in Operations Research (a sub-field of applied math). AI and OR do seem to overlap a bit, but the focus is not quite the same.
Similarly both daughters got a bit more clarity what they wanted to do having worked for a couple of years after getting a bachelor’s degree. One then went back to university to get a DVM (Veterinary medicine). The other has now focused on a particularly sub-field of cellular biology that she wants to study (and is just now applying to PhD programs). Both had some clues as an undergraduate student what major they wanted to pursue in graduate school, but have focused in a bit more over two years of working (which might become three or four by the time that my youngest starts graduate school).
Some students become stronger students after a bit of working for a living. However, some are already fully focused on studies and very good students before they get to university in the first place. Personally I was a stronger student after working for a couple of years. This includes things like starting my homework very early and keeping way ahead in everything if it is at all possible.
I had not realized that there might be fully funded master’s degrees in the US. I was aware of them in Canada for students with Canadian citizenship.
The best source of information is his academic advisor and the Department Dean.
Grad school is a big deal- whether it’s funded or not, the opportunity cost of being out of the workforce is real.
So he should talk to the experts on campus. This isn’t something to be crowdsourced with a bunch of strangers.
I will say from my experience that getting a Master’s degree because all your relatives have one is a weak reason. Not as weak as “I had no idea what else to do, so I ended up in grad school” but pretty close.
I didn’t mean to imply work experience helps get into grad school. I meant, if he’s unsure about grad school right now, he may want to wait and decide.
An MS helps if he’s looking to specialize in a research heavy specialization (like AI, computer vision, quantum computing, etc) or if he wants to learn interdisciplinary skills (for example, via a Masters in Financial Engineering, Computational Biology, or Computational Linguistics). If he doesn’t have specific goals like these, an MS won’t provide much benefit career wise.
Thanks for all of your inputs. Pretty much all have the same opinion of Industry experience first and then MS program as per the field of interest later.
Please keep giving me inputs. I will be calling my son today. He had plans of starting to apply this weekend. I am not sure how much time he has to do any more research, since most deadlines end by Dec 15th, with Stanford the earliest at Dec 5th
