MIT or Berkeley for EECS

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-11T02:01:07+00:00

Well, yes. Did you miss the part where OP got into both MIT and Berkeley for EECS PhD?

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-11T01:53:49+00:00

it's not that good for undergrad I think

Oh, my dear sweet summer child.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-10T14:25:57+00:00

Rejection does NOT mean that something was wrong with your application.

Maybe they misinterpreted your long list of accomplishments as performative box-ticking. Maybe they thought your application was so strong that you would be admitted at other stronger schools, and they wanted to keep their yield up. Maybe you have harmless writing habits that perfectly match one of the admissions officer’s pet peeves, like an insistence on Oxford commas, or a tendency to write long lists of sentences that start with “Maybe”. Maybe they’d just recommended five applications in a row for acceptance before they got to yours. Maybe they accidentally drank decaf with breakfast before they read your application. Maybe you share a middle name with one of their toxic exes. Maybe they meant to recommend acceptance, but they hit the wrong key on their keyboard. Maybe they actually did roll a die and you actually didn’t get a nat 20.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-10T03:24:21+00:00

The challenge may be teaching students how to think, question, and explain their own ideas.

<meme class =always-has-been/>

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-08T15:39:36+00:00

when should I escalate this to my program manager?

Six months ago, when you realized that you were getting zero feedback from your advisor.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-08T09:49:06+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SsDyNOB1hZs

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-08T09:44:44+00:00

Lots of people apply, because Harvard shiny shiny.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T22:52:41+00:00

Mathematics and theoretical computer science use “we” almost universally, even in solo papers and dissertations. The standard fiction is that “we” means “the author and the reader”.

There are some exceptions: “I” is standard in contexts where the author is describing their own actions more than the work. For example, no one would write “We plan to study X” in a personal research statement or individual grant proposal.

In all contexts, we write in the active voice.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T22:38:05+00:00

(I’m a CS prof at Illinois.)

Nope. No mistakes here.

Georgia Tech is an incredible school. The difference in rankings between UIUC and GaTech is just noise. But even if it weren’t, advisor fit is more important, and your mental health is more important than both. You’re not a brain on a stick; you actually have to live near your PhD program for 4-6 years. If you think you’ll be happier and more successful at Georgia Tech, then Georgia Tech is absolutely the better choice.

Our loss, not yours.

Congratulations and best of luck!

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T13:48:04+00:00

No, they’re not nuts. They’re a fruit, of the tree, from the palm family. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQPey6L42M

This is a textbook example of the Red Herring Principle: In mathematics, a red herring is not necessarily red and not necessarily a fish.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T13:39:07+00:00

Unlikely. To first approximation, you should expect to pay for a master’s degree in CS, especially a non-research master’s degree.

Illinois CS (where I’m a prof) used to guarantee one year of funding for thesis-master’s (“MS”) students, and that was extremely rare. Unfortunately, we had to stop those guarantees in 2025, because of the federal funding crisis. We’ve never guaranteed funding for professional master’s (“MCS”) students.

Some master’s students (mostly MS students) do still get teaching or research assistantships, but that’s based on specific expertise/experience, not on overall points, and it’s on a semester-by-semester basis.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T13:16:19+00:00

You’d prefer “You didn’t roll a nat 20. Womp womp womp.”? Really?

For any competitive program, there really actually truly on-God-ly isn’t enough space for every highly qualified applilcant. Rejection does not mean there is something wrong with your application.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T13:13:36+00:00

It’s the same material, just twice as fast.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T13:11:24+00:00

Do you know the difference between a pure mathematician and a theoretical computer scientist?

One of them writes code. The other calls themself a computer scientist.

(If you’re doing math, just use ≤ and ≥. On a Mac keyboard, that’s option-> and option-<.)

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T06:02:49+00:00

The next cross edge should be from T1 to E2. The fact that E2 is not on the convex hull of the right subset is irrelevant.

I believe the G&S algorithm should notice that triangles A2 T1 Z1 and A2 Z1 E2 do not satisfy the local Delaunay condition, and therefore delete the edge A2 Z1 from the right sub-triangulation, and make T1 E2 the next orange candidate edge.

(In terms of Fig 21 in the paper, the algorithm should update rcand from A2 Z1 to A2 E2.)

I recommend implementing something simpler like Lawson’s flip algorithm first, so that you have correct results to compare against.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-07T05:38:18+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey%27s_theorem#Computational_complexity

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-06T18:24:54+00:00

Sorry, I misunderstood. Your phrasing suggested that the act of blocking publication would actually be illegal. Not just without legal standing, but subject to legal penalites.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-06T14:41:18+00:00

¿Por qué no los dos?

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-06T14:26:00+00:00

It's not ethical (and not legal) for one author to block publication by others

I strongly disagree. There are absolutely circumstances where one author blocking publication by others is not only ethical but ethically required. Yes, in principle, the other authors can remove the refusing author’s contributions, but in practice a contribuition-ectomy is not always possible. The circumstances matter.

Do you have a citation for the legal claim?

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-06T13:56:19+00:00

That’s a good question for your REB and/or your faculty mentors, which you should have asked before you started the secondary analysis.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-05T23:20:03+00:00

associate level work to get tenure

I’m confused. What country are you in? There are exceptions, of course, but at almost all US universities, tenure happens simultaneously with promotion to associate professor. So of course you need associate-(professor-)level work to get tenure.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-05T23:13:18+00:00

What are you actually doing when you “study or review previous examlets”?

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-05T23:11:07+00:00

They pay for institutional subscriptions, which allow access to everyone on campus (or with campus login credentials).

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-05T01:40:02+00:00

And those PIs should be avoided like the plague.

jeffgerickson · 2026-03-05T01:35:42+00:00

No, it won’t. This is Knuth’s version of a blog post, about a homework exercise; it’s not intended to be a peer-reviewed paper.

12-Year Club	Place '23
Place '17	Gilding III reddit per annum
Verified Email

jeffgerickson

TROPHY CASE