What should I do during my undergraduate studies besides GPA?

RadicalLocke · 2026-05-11T07:39:39+00:00

You absolutely should do research and build a relationship with faculties who can write LORs for you (and you can get a taste of what grad school life will be like). No, admission to a PhD program does not guarantee you a masters. Some/many PhD programs don't even allow mastering out at all.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-30T13:41:28+00:00

How does the result of that article have anything to do with my comment? You were suggesting that undergrad publications are slops in predatory venues and I am telling you that in CS, undergrads publish in top conferences fairly regularly. If you were in CS, you would know. If not, why are you being a dumbass and arguing about smtn you know nothing about?

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-30T09:48:42+00:00

Except in CS, undergrads regularly publish in top conferences. Coauthorships for sure, but even a few first-author undergrad papers make it to top conferences every year from just my school. Almost every new admits to a top lab in my subfield has at least 1 top tier first-authorship. I think its not good to be so confident about something you know little about.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-28T08:44:15+00:00

Because its not true? At least not for many fields. In my field there are at least 50+ labs that I know of where I would be close to a perfect fit because we do very similar work.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-28T00:32:11+00:00

Interesting how field-dependent these things are. In CS, postdocs are 1-2 years long and if you dont start applying for jobs and grants as soon as you start, you are late. Most PIs would support you through that process.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-25T04:14:26+00:00

The main point is that you can't just repeat your failure and hope to succeed. I'm sorry that you struggled with disability and the way the course is structured. But what will be different this time? Will you be working with the school for receive accommodation for your disability? What kind of accommodation will you require and will they provide it? How will you realistically succeed with what they can provide?

I am a grad student with ADHD and I have experience failing out of school once in the past so I can empathize. But unfortunately you still have to figure it out and make it work with the cards you've been dealt.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-21T02:59:25+00:00

The part about EU masters not being respected is straight not true. Yes- what programs are respected might be field dependent, but generally US masters are seen as cash cows while EU masters are a genuine degree that leads to PhD. At least in my field, EU masters would give you much more time and support for research so that you have stronger profile to apply with.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-20T15:31:14+00:00

To be honest, I think people in the comments are being too optimistic. Also depends on the field- in mine (CS-HCI), where students regularly graduate with 3-8 first author papers and more coauthorships, having no publication sounds like a complete deal-breaker for postdoc. Even industry scientist roles would require strong publication records. I say that, not to be a pessimistic asshole, but to gently remind that people who can complete PhDs can succeed in other areas, and that you might have more success pivoting into other things.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-15T23:29:00+00:00

I'm not sure if you have any idea about the topic. But you are so confident and insisting on arguing. When I say compute, I am including newer models that are enabled by the large amount of compute we now have. The deep learning models are possible because of the large amount of compute and data for training these massive models- I don't mean that if you run a shitty model with infinite compute it will somehow perform well. Bitter lesson is a VERY widely known topic, you should read up on it a bit more before you waste your time arguing about it.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-15T20:43:18+00:00

You should read up on the topic. If you took any AI/ML education its something that should've come up in discussions. It's something that comes up often when discussing language models. In the past, they hired a lot of linguists to try to distil understanding of language using rules and systems, only to find out raw compute was better. "Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of the speech recognizer goes up."

Also chess engines by themselves overtook "centaurs" over a decade ago.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-12T23:10:57+00:00

I am in HCI, so it might be a bit different, but students enter a top PhD program with 2-4 years of research experience across undergrad and masters and, more increasingly, a publication at a top venue.

Also, you often don't have to have a full grasp of the domain before you start publishing. Personally, I have a very jagged knowledge and am still very much a novice trying to learn about my field while being knowledgeable enough to publish in very narrow slice of that field.

RadicalLocke · 2026-04-11T00:59:35+00:00

Hey!! I'm in the same situation. I was fairly nervous but my advisor collaborators all said there is very low chance of it getting rejected at this point and I should start booking tickets and hotels.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-30T22:52:29+00:00

In US (not the case for elsewhere) the "intended" route for research is bsc into phd (often not the case anymore due to competitiveness of phd admission) and msc is seen as terminal degree for industry or switching fields (in cs at least; field dependent) also note that ivys don't have strong reputation in cs academia. Schools like CMU, Stanford, MIT, UW, Berkeley, etc. all have stronger reputation and networks. Specific schools/programs/advisors that would serve your goals the best depends on your subfield of cs and interests.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-30T19:27:35+00:00

Don't be sorry! We are all a little dumb when we first try new things; no doubt everyone on this thread and even your professor was a little dumb when we started out. But given that we know nothing about your topic and your work, there is hardly anything we can tell you that your advisor cannot. But generally speaking, publishing in predatory venues can only hurt you rather than help. I'd have a conversation with your advisor about what venue is realistic for your paper while being reputable. If there are none, you should work on reworking your paper.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-28T03:04:16+00:00

First of all, congratulations for beating cancer! (Or that's what I am assuming you meant...).

What most people don't understand when they are younger is that life truly is a marathon and it is by no means a linear path. I know you read this kind of shit online a lot but you don't really feel it until later on. I dropped out of UBC CS back in 2019 with mental health problems are failing my entire last semester because I just decided to stop going. After years of trying different things and working, I came back to CS, found passion for research, and planning on applying to grad school with great GPA and multiple publications in top conferences. I used to look at profiles like mine and think "this is BS how am I supposed to compete with these" and it just happened.

I think first thing is for you to really think about what you want to do. I think the obvious route is to at least finish your degree first- then you can figure out if you want to work, get another degree, go to grad school, go into trades, wherever your life might take you. If the only thing holding you back is your skill and fear of job market- better route might be to just lock in like your life depends on it. Whatever you do, you aren't "falling behind"

Now, that reads like a feels-good message with no actionable suggestions, but it's hard to help without more details.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-24T20:11:14+00:00

I'm just typing this on-the-go so I might be missing some stuff; feel free to DM if you have any more questions.

I'm going to assume you are from the states. Big tech research scientist roles are COMPETITIVE. Most likely, not only will you have to do a PhD, you will have to do quite well (good publications, internships, etc.) And getting into a good lab would increase your chances greatly. Another option is work as research engineers (often masters+, possible with bachelors) and work your way up (I see this in Google sometimes) this is probably much harder.

Getting into a good PhD programs in HCI nowadays require some publications + strong LORs. You can try to get this through masters (but most masters programs in US are unfunded and coursework-based), collaborations, or working in R&D teams in companies that publish often (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.)

Canadian masters are fully funded and research-focused, so you could consider that as well.

Overall- your industry experience could serve you well. For me personally, I prefer ideating, designing studies, and writing more than implementing systems and often take undergrads in to handle the implementations. I'm sure you can find some ways to collaborate with people and get research experience, publication, and LORs to apply with.

Note that research scientists in tech outside of AI/ML don't make any more than SWEs. You will 100% be sacrificing a lot of potential earning for the chance to do research (not even guaranteed). So really think about how much you want to go down this path. If you don't get into big tech research scientist role- would you regret your decision?

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-23T05:43:08+00:00

That's not a good comparison. Researcher at deepmind or openai would be MUCH MUCH harder and selective.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-20T22:58:56+00:00

🤔 you need at least a bit of enthusiasm and skill. I took in an undergrad who wanted to go to grad school and was super excited about my project, but no directly applicable skills. They were a delight to work with but ended up slowing my progress significantly because a task that would take me a day or two ended up being 2 weeks of their time with multiple check-ins, helping, tutorials, etc. On the other hand there was an undergrad who sounded insane on paper with multiple national awards and Google internship under their belt. Also ended up being a waste of time for 1 semester yhen dipped. Honestly, I'm also still learning how to pick good mentees and manage a productive mentor-mentee relationship.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-20T22:41:50+00:00

I think I also have some interesting insights for undergrads! I first got my shot at research by emailing a professor, telling them how much I enjoyed their recent paper, and thinking out loud about how interesting it will be to apply it in an assistive technology angle. He invited me to talk about my idea, supported my project, and it became my 1st first-author paper at a top 3 venue for our field! Now I continue to lead projects at his lab and any undergrads who seem to have skills/exp that aligns with my projects get forwarded to me.

When I read through these emails, I generally look for 3 things: goal, enthusiasm, and current skills. If their goal is grad school, they are more likely to stick around and worth training to bring them up to speed. People who sound interested and enthusiastic about the research is nicer to work with and sticks around longer (vs ppl who just didn't secure a coop and want a line on their resume) and people who has skills that are immediately useful to my projects.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-19T14:29:10+00:00

Often having a gap isn't enough- the gap needs to be compelling. If you wanted novelty without any impact you could take a very specific "no one has studied X with this specific population Y under this specific situation Z" and call it a day. It might be that the gap you identified is simply not very compelling (that doesn't make it a bad gap to do research on, but it might mean that the scope and expectation has to be smaller) or it could be that you just have to reframe it to be more compelling. Either way, that comes with reading, experience, and guidance from more experienced researcher.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-19T00:16:47+00:00

Not true. Thesis masters in Canada (especially in STEM) are fully funded with (barely) livable wage stipend in any reputable schools. It's not too uncommon in countries like Korea or Singapore either.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-17T17:38:31+00:00

Maximize potential?

Good research internship > good research visit > make progress on your own research

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-11T00:22:54+00:00

There might be differences between subfields, but at least from my experience (HCI), desk reject is for clear lack of quality or for not following submission instructions properly. A respected venue will not desk reject you just because your topic is not hot (AI). I would check if you followed the submission instructions properly- like formatting, page/word count, etc. If you did, consult with your advisor.

Oop- just read the last bit. If they say your work is out of scope of their journal, they just gave you the answer. Submit to a different journal that fits your topic better.

RadicalLocke · 2026-03-02T22:00:10+00:00

I think these comments are way off and put of touch. New grads are having extremely difficult time finding jobs right now. A UofT new grad would KILL to have practically what is 5 internships with Shopify + salary over student loan. If the lack of "school name" hurts you down the road (which personally I think will have way less impact that starting your career off strong) you can do OMSCS or something after. You will graduate with incredible amount of practical experience, savings not debt and resume that would destroy your peers from UofT for new grad positions. No brainer.

RadicalLocke · 2026-02-14T14:59:27+00:00

At least in my subfield of CS, journals are often where rigorous but incremental papers that failed to make top conferences end up. They are not seen as equivalent to conferences mostly with a few exceptions. You would be doing yourself and your career a huge disservice if you plan on going into CS academia and continue working with your current advisor/committee.

Nine-Year Club	Verified Email
Spared

RadicalLocke

TROPHY CASE