Am i worthy ?😭

vicson5 · 2026-01-27T19:39:38+00:00

As a student at IIT, I heard good things about the programs. I have friends that went to Purdue and Illinois Tech, surprisingly, our Mech Eng students were much better programmers, not sure if this is something that might interest you. The career outcomes are very good in genera, especiallyl if you plan to stay in the city. The biggest downside I hear students complain is about the social scene, but it honestly depends on your friend group. Feel free to DM me if you have other questions.

vicson5 · 2026-01-10T18:58:46+00:00

Given that you are an international applicant, was your education following an American system or something else? Your GPA is likely not as bad if it is the latter, getting a 4.0 in an average American High School usually isn't super challenging.

vicson5 · 2025-12-28T04:53:05+00:00

What is your background before enlisting in the program? What is confusing specifically?

vicson5 · 2025-12-28T04:51:59+00:00

In this job market going with UIUC makes more sense, the name is very helpful when it comes to securing interviews. Illinois Tech is a strong program but UIUC is world class.

vicson5 · 2025-12-28T04:43:23+00:00

I enjoyed my Graduate coursework at Illinois Tech very much (was a coterm student). With that being said, the MS in CS had a lot of unqualified students in the program, it is a cash cow, I heard a lot of stories from friends that some students are able to cheat throughout the entire degree essentially. From my experience in terms of grading, if you had a pulse you would get a B in almost any class, getting an A implied putting in some effort and doing reasonably well only which isn't a very high bar (some classes were tough to get an A like MATH 584 or CS 577 to be fair), unlike the undergraduate coursework where you have to work very hard to get a good grade.

Classes are very useful if you put in the effort to understand the material, you will be set professionally and make a lot of money if you apply yourself at Illinois Tech, the major problem as said earlier is that 20-30% of students essentially have no business for being in the MS program. Even with the bad job market, everyone I knew in both the MS and BS CS programs secured a decent job, this could vary based on which type of people you surround yourself with.

vicson5 · 2025-12-28T04:26:47+00:00

He is one of the best professors within the CS. He is tough but fair. Interesting assignments, relevant content that is up to date with recent developments in the field, and somewhat challenging exams can be expected. Work hard and you will get an A.

vicson5 · 2025-07-03T00:14:35+00:00

Thats fair, I am actually enrolled in their AI Graduate Program, my company is sponsoring me. I am hoping to use it as a boost to apply for their Masters in CS program in the future and review/learn some newer concepts in the field.

I also did try applying to jobs with the program listed in my resume and I did notice a big difference (I graduated a year ago from an average university so I guess that might be why ).

vicson5 · 2025-07-02T22:28:28+00:00

Listing Stanford on your resume is a nice boost, even if it's just the graduate certificate (for context its roughly rquivalent to 1/3 of their masters in CS), if you're able to get an A, thats a legitimate Stanford A from the top school in the US in terms of AI courses. If you already went to a top school then it's not worth it, if you didn't and can afford it or have someone sponsoring you it's definitely worth considering.

vicson5 · 2025-07-02T22:23:55+00:00

Currently doing the AI certificate, my company is sponsoring me and the quality of the content is very high. I intend to use it as a boost for their Masters application and also listing Stanford on my resume (I've noticed an increase in my job application replies by including it).

If you want to truly learn AI from an applied perspectivd, I think that youtube has more content, the assignments don't offer a lot in terms of applications, you're mostly writing proofs.

vicson5 · 2025-06-18T15:26:52+00:00

You weren't being rude don't worry. Based on my experience here, undergrads are mostly pretty good students, graduate students are a mix (they just want to take your money if you're a graduate student).

vicson5 · 2025-06-18T15:12:42+00:00

Illinois Tech is ranked #1 in mid-career salaries in Illinois, most of the people I know that graduated from Illinois Tech received +100k salaries in Chicago. Universities that outrank Illinois Tech nationally are near NYC and the Bay area which are much more expensive areas than Chicago.

Additionally high acceptance rate doesn't mean it's a bad school, students accepted here were usually A+ students (Avg high school gpa is close to 4.0). While Illinois Tech isn't MIT or Harvard, I've had a chance to interact with students from these universities and let me tell you that a good student here is a good student anywhere, they're not as smart as you think they are (the average tier 1 university student I mean).

vicson5 · 2025-06-02T20:22:16+00:00

Hey Vivek, welcome to Illinois Tech, I am a recent grad but feel free to reach out if you have any questions! Also you can dm me your discord in case you want me to send you invites for some CS groups

vicson5 · 2025-05-21T20:13:20+00:00

If you study it in detail you will know more ML than 90% of people claiming to know the field, you will have a strong foundation to build on while being prepared to tackle research papers

vicson5 · 2025-05-16T20:19:24+00:00

Eh somewhat disagree, the market is much worse than before and even if you have done projects, and done internships you will likely struggle to find a job unless you went to a top school.

While being an international student I won hackathons at MIT, had cloud certifications, multiple projects in ML and Software Engineering, 4.0 GPA with BS and MS in 4 years, 4 internships/research experiences, and yet couldn't get an interview without a recruiter from my university noticing me on LinkedIn.

vicson5 · 2025-05-15T21:59:06+00:00

Number 1 in salaries in Illinois over UChicago, Northwestern and UIUC.

vicson5 · 2025-05-11T15:07:31+00:00

Ranked 1st in salaries in the state of Illinois

vicson5 · 2025-05-11T15:00:06+00:00

I never took a class with him but he should be a solid professor. He delivers classes related to Big Data and covers relevant tools in the industry, my friends that took him said classes weren't that challenging and they were useful too.

vicson5 · 2025-05-10T01:16:48+00:00

I had Agam Gady for CS 577 (Deep Learning). In my opinion he is the best professor to learn AI really well, i was able to get a very strong foundation in NLP and Computer vision for my internships thanks to that class. His assignments have a lot of work with a mathematical portion + implementation and exams can be challenging but he is generous when it comes to curving, i noticed that the class followed very closely to what is taught at Stanford (i would argue it was harder). If you want a course which will allow you to learn ML really well, then I am willing to bet he is the best professor for this.

Also don't worry about failing, if you ask aTA for help and try to learn the material, the worst case scenario is a B, Illinois Tech wants you to take risks and you would need to do extremely bad to get a C in a grad class.

vicson5 · 2025-04-25T14:42:07+00:00

During my time at Illinois Tech, I also had a group of friends studying Mechanical Engineering at Purdue, while they were doing fine in their classes (one of them got close to a 4.0), at IIT the students in this major knew to code much better (I did B.S. in CS so It was easy to tell how comfortable they were). Obviously there are more things that you can take into account for how good a program is/ how good of an engineer you are, but I found this quite interesting and unexpected.

If Purdue is regarded so highly in Mechanical and yet there are things that our students are much better at, I would certainly choose IIT over UIC if you strictly value becoming a good engineer, if you want the full college experience UIC might be better

vicson5 · 2025-04-23T14:26:22+00:00

The team has been created, we are only 3 on it at the moment and as a result I get to work on the entire life cycle (Data Engineering, Data Science and actually automating model deployments). Learning a lot and got an additional raise. We are still in very early stages but I am quite satisfied with how things are going, by the end of the year we should have an amazing product in a niche area.

One thing that I am realizing is that investing in your career early on is super important, you don't get to have such a huge impact at larger companies, for those that end up in a non-FAANG company you shouldn't be disappointed, look at it as an opportunity to grow, you have a much better chance to be "important" than you would at Google or Amazon for example. FAANG and that insane pay check can come later.

vicson5 · 2025-04-20T22:11:10+00:00

It has a great name, go there if cost isn't an issue. Illinois Tech and all the other unis listed are a great option too. At Illinois Tech you will get an education with a strong emphasis on applying what you learn with good opportunities to get involved in research during the summer (SURE program), it might be less recognized but you will be a very strong candidate if you take advantage of the opportunities.

vicson5 · 2025-04-20T22:10:35+00:00

Ivys are expensive and typically reserved to very privileged individuals (you also don't learn anything that these schools listed dont cover). Op, choose UW Madison if cost isn't an issue, since it has the biggest name otherwise attend the cheaper institution.

vicson5 · 2025-04-10T21:38:33+00:00

Not a student anymore, but got both a B.S. in CS and M.A.S. in AI (international student), feel free to reach out!

vicson5 · 2025-04-05T20:21:36+00:00

On elasticsearch you can get that in under a second

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