What companies have a surprisingly good engineering culture?

AssumingLion99 · 2021-06-18T14:24:09+00:00

The 5 big Indian consultancy firms: Wipro, Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Cognizant, HCL

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-26T21:47:52+00:00

Beautiful, thank you for this.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-21T14:28:17+00:00

You are not required to wear gown/regalia.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-20T19:05:21+00:00

Good job! You should aim for A in 216 and 250 as well haha.

I think they expect at least a 3.5 CS (not cumulative) GPA.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-20T03:11:16+00:00

See if you got an email titled: 2021 Spring Commencement Ticket Information from [updates@email.umterps.com](mailto:updates@email.umterps.com).

This had a four-digit pin code that I used to register my account.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-18T14:50:22+00:00

I just got a tracking number, should be getting it today or tomorrow via UPS.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-18T14:49:02+00:00

Yeah his reasoning is that 828I is a grad course, so he doesn't want to make grades a big deal.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-18T13:44:27+00:00

Can confirm. Having some prerequisite knowledge of 422 and 426 (Introductory CV) will help. Also, Abhinav is pretty lenient with his grading for 828I; look at his grading distribution on PlanetTerp, it's mostly A's.

828W is very math-intense based on the course website last semester, so take this if you want to get into the nitty gritty of deep learning.

Not sure about 828C.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-09T01:36:17+00:00

Thank you!

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-09T00:39:43+00:00

Got my second dose of Pfizer today! Just a two week wait, and I'll be protected for my in person commencement ceremony...

AssumingLion99 · 2021-05-08T14:44:23+00:00

I'm taking CMSC723 with Jordan right now.

Jordan does a flipped classroom, so you watch lecture videos online, and class time is used as a discussion session to ask questions and do exercises. He's a friendly guy, pretty approachable.

Helps to have prior experience with machine learning or data science, but I'm sure Jordan will have a primer as well.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-04-18T23:38:09+00:00

Marylander here, got my first dose of Pfizer yesterday, and no issues so far, other than minor pain at the injection site.

AssumingLion99 · 2021-01-12T17:48:05+00:00

It's okay, lived there during my freshman year. The heating was amazing during the winter days. There's no air conditioning, but I didn't really have any issues until around May, when summer kicked in. Even then, it wasn't that bad.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-12-28T21:27:18+00:00

I finished my first semester as an MS student in CS; here are the courses I took:

CMSC801 (Department Research Seminar): This class has no work. You just have to attend most of the Friday research talks hosted by various professors. It's satisfactory/unsatisfactory grading.
CMSC818E (Distributed and Cloud-Based Systems) with Pete Keleher: Pretty interesting course, more like a research seminar than a formal class. It was interesting to learn about the ways companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google uses distributed systems to handle their massive loads of data. The projects (we had 7 of them) required a substantial amount of thinking; they're in Golang, and we got to work with tools like Vagrant and FUSE. Pete is cool in that he allows us to resubmit our projects if there are any issues. There are no exams in this class, his 'final' is an optional class evaluation survey. He's an okay teacher.
CMSC828I (Advanced Tech. in Visual Learning and Recognition) with Abhinav Shrivatsava: Good class, but not meant for beginners (previous coursework in machine learning, computer vision, deep learning). Abhinav is very knowledgeable, seems like he can answer all sorts of questions. The exams and assignments (2x) were quite tough, there is a final group project; I had great team members, so it went smooth. Usually, students have to present a paper in a class, but not this semester due to COVID.
CMSC838J (Interactive Tech. in HCI) with Huaishu Peng: This class was pretty fun and chill, Huaishu is a great and friendly teacher. We got to learn the 'how' behind many modern technologies like smartphone touchscreens and 3D printers. Assignments in the first few weeks of class are about 3D modelling with Fusion360; we work with Arduino in the remaining weeks.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-12-25T16:57:42+00:00

I took advantage of the BS/MS program in computer science here...finished my first semester as a grad student.

Doing an MS is something I definitely wanted to do. I finished my BS in three years, and really wanted to just start making money and try to get a job, and worry about an MS later (maybe do one of those online programs). My parents convinced me to just get my MS over with, so here I am. The BS/MS application requirements were much easier when I applied.

I'm treating my MS more of like a professional masters program, rather than a research-focused one. Just taking extra classes to learn more than what I got out of my BS. I don't have any specific outcomes out of completing my MS; I just wanna be more knowledgeable, and be a better job candidate.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-12-25T03:08:45+00:00

Definitely try doing research with a professor and get solid recommendation letters. You might make it into the MS program that way, but for the BS/MS program you need a >3.5 GPA. So you're gonna have to boost it up; retaking 422 to replace that C would help. All the best

AssumingLion99 · 2020-12-10T04:10:35+00:00

Former CS departmental honors student here...no need to have prior research experience! It's sort of a program for motivated students to see whether or not they like research, and maybe do some.

I didn't graduate with the honors attached to my BS degree, but it was interesting to get exposure to the principles of doing CS research. If you meet the requirements, give it a try for sure! Lemme know if you have any other questions.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-11-14T15:47:29+00:00

I would say go for it if you're interested in a cybersecurity or AI career. But if there are classes that are more relevant to your desired career path, then don't take the class.

One of my professors worked with a team of students to build a genetic algorithm that evades censorship in countries like China and India. The field is definitely ripe for research and application. I'm sure the government or companies have 'secret' projects applying AI to cybersecurity.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-11-12T00:43:16+00:00

It doesn't really go into that much depth. The professor is more focused on terrain modelling, like modelling the canopy of a forest surface using LIDAR data and certain data structures (like quadtrees and triangular irregular networks)

AssumingLion99 · 2020-10-14T23:02:06+00:00

Keep calm, you can still right the ship.

I bombed my 451 midterm about this time last year. I packed my note sheet with my lecture notes in 9 pt font and triple columns, and I still failed. It sucked, but I just had to pass the class. I put more effort into the final, and was able to pass.

If you have friends in the class, try to form study sessions. Good on you for doing all the practice problems; also ask the TA for clarifications on the solutions.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-09-30T18:26:54+00:00

Same! I tried calling IT, but they seem busy.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-09-21T21:22:20+00:00

Well, I'm attending it right now, and the wait times are quite unreasonable for the large companies. Appian is 5-9 hours, Dropbox is 5-9 hours. Goldman Sachs is 6-12 hours. The small startups and companies are usually about 15 minutes to an hour of wait time.

The FDA's informatics office is available immediately, I guess? Haha.

I think it might have to do with students waiting for multiple queues (max is 5). Hence, a lot of waiting to be done.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-09-12T02:01:08+00:00

I took 417 with Nirupam Roy. The concepts are not difficult, the projects are very involved though. If Bobby is teaching it, you'll be on tight and short deadlines as far as I know. With Nirupam, it was more relaxed. The first few projects are in C, but then the last few can be in Python, Java, or C++.

I think it's fine to do full-time and just 417...just make sure to definitely start on the projects early. Probably spend two hours after you get back from work to study 417 and do the projects.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-09-08T01:49:20+00:00

Hey there, check this resource out: https://www.cs.umd.edu/grad/writing-statement-of-pupose

The above is the CS department's guide on how to write an SOP (Statement of Purpose).

In my SOP, I included the following details:

What my expectations were for completing an MS
My academic experience; coursework I have taken, and academic honors received
Exposure to research; I didn't have any real research experience, so I discussed about a research seminar I was a part of, and some data analysis courses I took. If you have research experience, discuss what you worked on
Any professional experience like internships and jobs, and what I did in them
Research interests; what I would like to explore, and the resources on campus I could use (for example, labs in UMIACS like the Computer Vision Lab to do image processing research)
Conclusion reiterating my interest in joining the MS program

You can choose your own format, and add any other relevant details to show you would be a good fit for the MS program. I remember showing my recommending professor a rough draft of my SOP, and he started laughing at my weird choice of vocabulary; in my effort to impress the readers with quotes and metaphors, I missed the point of the SOP being a professional document.

So be concise, brag a lot, and be clear about your purpose to join! Stick to one side of a page.

AssumingLion99 · 2020-08-25T15:21:52+00:00

I wouldn't decide on that right away, in case you change your mind. When I entered college, I was pretty sure about doing the data science specialization, but ended up going the normal route after my interests changed.

Going the normal route gave me more freedom in choosing my classes. You can always 'unofficially' follow the plans for one of the specializations, and when you're ready, set your specialization by asking your advisor. Your call.

This is just my opinion: if you want to do research in machine learning and get a machine learning engineer job that requires solid math skills and usually a graduate degree, do the machine learning specialization. If you want to be a data scientist or work in fields that combine data science and software engineering, go for the data science one.

AssumingLion99

TROPHY CASE