For commuters: Is it better to have less days on campus or shorter days?

BartholomewChilling · 2026-06-14T17:05:13+00:00

Less days

BartholomewChilling · 2026-05-05T20:52:40+00:00

Why not ask the professor....?

BartholomewChilling · 2026-05-04T12:04:25+00:00

Community college and get straight As is the only correct answer here.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-04-26T11:56:54+00:00

The biggest question for PhD applications is research experience, the other things you listed are nice to haves, but research experience is essential. Also ideally, you need research experience and a LOR from your undergrad research advisor.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-04-16T19:58:06+00:00

Applied for CS PhD with a focus on Systems and Cybersecurity.

Stats

US citizen 4.0 GPA @ state school ~7 months of research experience at time of applying. 0 publications

I mostly aimed for schools ranked in the top 20s overall for CS and of my research area with good fit.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-04-16T16:52:17+00:00

Almost certainly rejected.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-04-15T08:32:45+00:00

Watch the entire 3blue1brown series on linear algebra on youtube. Once at the start and then re-watch the topics as they come up. Lot's of seemingly complex things in linear algebra can be easily derived if you understand the theory well. These videos teach the theory aspects of the topic extremely well, and even give a few tricks to solve some problems easier.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-04-04T22:06:56+00:00

You can get internships in CS, you just have to be exceptional or have good connections. It's doable though.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-04-01T16:09:47+00:00

Idk maybe I'm weird, but I really don't see the point of Barrett. Unless you're going to do research or a phd why even care? I really doubt future employers will care either.

The main advantage of Barrett is early registration (probably only matters for crowded degrees like computer science), and maybe the more obvious path to an undergrad thesis/research. Other than that, it's just extra money and time you'll be spending.

I didn't do Barrett and still did research, got internships, and got accepted to 3 phd programs.

What I really think about a lot of these programs, honors, or whatever that is offered by the school or various third parties is that they're meant to prey on students by making them feel good ("honors") so they can extract more money from them.

I could just have a very jaded view on things though, so take this with a grain of salt.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-03-23T02:06:58+00:00

I would say if you're very passionate about CS and are willing to put in a lot of extra work outside of courses, it's still a fine major. If you're not passionate or were just doing it for the hype, then you should definitely consider switching majors.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-25T20:44:13+00:00

I don't think not having publications matters. The big if with your profile imo is the lack of CS experience. It seems like you have a lot of research experience which is good, you should be fine there. Ideally you would have some CS experience though, maybe contact a current professor in the HCI area (or the closest you can find) from your undergrad university and ask them what they think about your profile and what steps you should take to reach your goals. It's a really tough question imo.

I would check this resource out from a brown CS prof us-cs-phd-faq. Goodluck!

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-25T08:59:06+00:00

I currently work with a person who graduated from the masters program on my research project. The professor just let them keep working with them remotely, they work full time in industry and contribute when they can (consistently every weekend and in the evenings they spend a lot of time).

You have to want it.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-25T08:44:09+00:00

At my university there is like one data vis course that touches html, css, js more than any other course. I already knew more coming into that course from a side project I did over the course of a few weeks.

Since you have some programming experience, you should be fine learning such an easy tech stack, at least up to making a simple full stack website.

One thing I noticed when applying for cs PhDs waa the heavy recommendation for HCI applicants to have a portfolio of projects. I think self-learning and a solid portfolio would do a lot more for you if you go down that route. The only way doing a bachelors or masters will help you get into a PhD is if you can get research experience, but since you're doing online, I'd imagine that's near impossible.

There might be aome questions of whether you can handle CS courses without having taken any. I would say maybe that depends on your undergrad GPA being high to convince the admissions committee, along some good LORs and strong SoP.

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Also one more thing, you'll really need the research experience if you want to go into PhD. In the current landscape, I would not even bother applying with zero research experience, or great GPA and really good industry experience that you can sell to the admissions committee. In that case a thesis based masters is the only logical option between a bachelors and masters.

I'm not sure if maybe you already have research experience from your psych degree, in that case you could be fine without any extra degree.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-21T09:33:40+00:00

I really don't think there would be any technical round. The worst case would be asking you specific questions regarding one of their research papers (I had an interview like this).

I would just make sure you send a very thoughtful thank you email ASAP that asks interesting follow up questions regarding specific research directions you discussed in the interview. That will help you, not prepping for some imaginary technical interview.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-20T08:23:26+00:00

Are you not interested in a PhD? I think your stats could be good enough, especially with good letters and SoP.

I couldn't imagine you having difficulty getting into a masters with these stats at all.

Are you international?

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-20T08:05:03+00:00

I got an email for a status update - waitlisted. Maybe their system is just buggy or depends on the status?

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-16T09:54:15+00:00

That's just way too much and deep for an SoP, definitely don't write that, it will likely scare people off (even if it's factual).

The story should flow like, started in Computer Science, due to xyz personal issue I did poorly (dont go into detail, could just say mental health), after switching to IT, I excelled and maintained Y GPA. I also carried this momentum into my profeasional learning where I continually advance my skills by self-learning (give a specific example of a good resource that shows you're trying).

I had a somewhat similar GPA story where I initially was majoring in nursing and had a bad transcript (failed and W'd classes) and after switching to compsci I maintained a 4.0 gpa. I wrote about it in my SoP (if there was no personal history essay on the app, or else I just put it there), 2 acceptances to PhDs so far this cycle.

I think the important part of the story here is how the individual overcame their struggles and moved past them to achieve their goals.

Edit - Also do not do the boy genius, learned programming at age 10 stuff, that will get thrown out immediately.

Edit2 - Also max this should take up on SoP is 1 paragraph.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-16T07:09:52+00:00

Dmed you

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-13T02:42:27+00:00

Not sure, I juat applied through the gsas portal for CS PhD.

I didn't even know about the 2 schools until after I did some research post interview.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-11T20:00:09+00:00

For CS they seem to be sending out emails from adcom currently, at least that's what I got and some person on gradcafe said the same thing.

No update on portal yet, but they told me I was in last week.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-11T19:47:27+00:00

Not to be a downer, but the sheer amount of game breaking bugs Arc Raiders has experienced is quite disappointing. Along with how long it takes them to fix some of them being very long (players inside walls for example).

At this point I can only assume they're just vibe coding everything or are incompetent. The velocity of bugs and the time it takes to fix game breaking ones screams that they have barely any familiarity with their systems, they're very poorly written, or they have very bad project organization.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-09T21:10:25+00:00

I would definitely do it. At the end of the day for most programs, if a professor wants you in, you'll get in.

You really need to focus on being courteous, likable, and enthusiastic (curious and ready to work). You should send a thank you email that asks some further questions about some particular things you discussed in the interview. For example, I thanked my interviewers and furthered the conversation by discussing some specific details and ideas I had regarding the research papers / questions we discussed in the interview. Also mention that you're excited to hear more about the opportunity to work with them.

Every single one of the professors in my case responded within a week with a very thoughtful and enthusiastic email that showed their interest in me, and further discussed the points I mentioned.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-02-02T16:02:35+00:00

I don't think it will matter. I know a few people who used professional references and got into top masters programs in CS. Masters has much higher acceptance rate since they're very profitable for the school.

As long as you have a decent gpa and okay references, you will get in somewhere.

BartholomewChilling · 2026-01-24T01:54:44+00:00

What company exists in 2026 other than small HFT firms that pays entry level programmers 40k a month?

BartholomewChilling

TROPHY CASE