<p>I never actually considered continuing my education after I received my bachelors because of my family's low finances. I wanted to be able to go straight to work after college so that I would be able to help them out while at the same time support myself.</p>
<p>However, now that I have been reading the Graduate School board, I am seeing that it may be possible.
I always associated graduate school with just more debt, but I see that some people here will actually be getting paid, in excess of tuition and housing, to go to a certain university.</p>
<p>Since my family is low income and due to merit scholarships, I will be going to college starting this year with no debt, and I will be getting some money back.</p>
<p>I will be attending the *University of Central Florida *to major in Computer Science. They have a strong CS program, and they also provide undergraduate research opportunities. They are ABET accredited, unlike the University of Florida (which is why I had to turn them down.) I decided to stay in FL, since tuition will be cheaper.</p>
<p>I would love to go on to a MS or PhD in Computer Science at a school that is well known for their CS program, such as MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley. I also would not mind a public state school that is strong in CS. As of now the only way I can see this happening is if I could get my tuition and housing covered, and possibly a stipend for living expenses. I am not trying to sound like a school must pay for me to go there, but right now this is the only option that I am aware of. I would love to hear what options I actually do have from those more experienced with the graduate school process.</p>
<p>I am only a high school senior, so I do have several years to get this all straightened out, but I would like to know how far I can take my education with as little debt as possible.</p>
<p>You’re a high school senior…Get through 2 years of college before you start asking these questions. You don’t even know if you’ll stay in CS as of yet.</p>
<p>Is anyone helping you with decisions? Low income means most financial aid, so don’t limit yourself.</p>
<p>I think it is important to go with the best school you can get into. I’m not that familiar with Florida schools, but isn’t UF a much better school?</p>
<p>PdD programs in the maths and sciences are generally funded, which means that you get tuition remission AND some funding for your living. Often you are a TA or an RA in exchange for that, but you are not expected to work otherwise, excepting summers. Masters, it is not usual, excepting some programs if you are a top candidate.</p>
<p>I have a student who is accepted into a few very good CS PdD programs for fall. She went to Brown, which is a pretty highly regarded school in general, and has a very strong CS dept, and I think it was the first school in the U.S. to have a designated CS dept.</p>
<p>She did not get accepted to PhD at MIT, Berkeley or Stanford. It is common, but difficult for her school to send people to those particular schools. You might ask your school or department how many students they are sending to those 3 programs each year. Those 3, plus CMU are the most difficult programs to get into. For example, CMU has 1,400 applicants for 26 positions this year.</p>
<p>The OP isn’t the first person I’ve seen on these boards to choose UCF over UF because of something like ABET; you’re absolutely right ABET is more of an engineering thing than a CS thing. It’s unfortunate that he would choose a school based on a decidedly superfluous factor.</p>
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<p>I would say that the CS competition is tougher than most STEM fields to get into a top school. You would have to be incredible even by the standards of those schools to get your expenses paid for an MS.</p>
<p>OP, if you are interested, here is a guide to getting into top CS PhD programs, written by a prof who has been on the admissions committees for three of the top 10:</p>
<p>A PhD in CS should be funded (i.e. you don’t pay tuition, and you get a small stipend). If not, it’s probably not worth going. An MS is less likely to be funded. However, if you’re willing to go part-time while working in the field, some companies will pay all or part of your tuition (and if you work for the university, many universities allow their employees to take classes part-time free/cheaply).</p>
<p>Is that because this is mainly for engineering students?</p>
<p>Also, since UCF is in Orlando I figured that there would be more job and internship opportunities. I am not sent on grad school either, so I thought that I would have more opportunities by living in Orlando. And undergrads can do reserach in CS at UCF.</p>
<p>The career councelor said at my school that for Computer Science, it really all depends where I want to live, in either Gainesville or Orlando, because both schools are strong in undergrad CS.</p>
<p>I got an email for UF today that said ABET accrediation is not given to Computer Science programs, but that made no sense, since there are a number of schools that have this accrediation for CS.</p>
<p>I have never heard anyone be concerned on this topic aside from you and actually never heard of ABET. My daughter just applied to schools (with the usual regional accreditation) that had a good track records for admitting students to graduate schools.</p>
<p>Most Ph.D. programs in computer science support their graduate students. If you are interested instead in an MS but don’t want to pay, I suggest getting a job with a company that pays for advanced degrees; most MS students are supported by their corporations or through parents/loans. I know one person who decided on a particular job because of the proximity to more than one university in case she wanted to earn a graduate degree while working.</p>
<p>This is getting way ahead of yourself, however. You haven’t even graduated high school yet. For all you know, you’ll end up a chemistry or a history major instead of a CS major.</p>
<p>I do hope knightforum keeps an open mind about majors. My daughter only ‘found’ her major through exploration in the first two years of schools. But she was a peer advisor to freshmen CS majors, and said that most of them are pretty set when going into college. Her job was to get them out of comfort zone and to try new things. As well as to advise about classes and such.</p>
<p>But grad school is about wanting to do deeper research in an area.</p>
<p>On the ABET thing - different schools place CS in different places. Some schools still place their CS programs in their engineering schools, and even place it under or together with Electrical or Computer Engineering. When it is linked like that I believe it falls under ABET’s certification process, but it means little as others have already noted.</p>
<p>I do plan on keeping an open mind BrownParent. Actually, yesterday I was exploring a Bioengineering minor at my school, which would cover the requirements for med school if I ever decide to go down that path.</p>
<p>I am glad though that my school will allow me to start on my major freshman year, which will enable me to take some programming classes early, instead of my junior year where it would be a little late to change majors.</p>
<p>This is why I am wanting to know about grad school early so that I can keep my options open.</p>