NYCPHP Meetup

[Christopher R. Merlo]

On 2003-07-06 19:41 -0400, Nasir Zubair <nsr81 at ny-tech.net> wrote:

> I got Cs in 3 calculus courses I took.

That's not necessarily the end of the world.  After all, you passed
Calculus.  As long as Math was not a major or a minor, I wouldn't be
real concerned about that.

> Other than Mathematics, I did pretty good in almost every course,
> mostly Bs and some As. Can anyone tell me how will that affect me as far as
> my pursuit of an M.S. degree is concerned, in general? I'd also appreciate
> if you can give any advice at all on the subject. 

Grad programs are mostly going to be looking for your ability, or
perceived ability, to do research.  A lot of that comes from your
grades in your major, and a lot comes from any projects you may have
done in undergrad.  They also look at the GREs (I got my grad school
assistantships based almost solely on the GREs) and how much of a work
load you can handle, by looking at majors, minors, jobs, activities,
etc.  Grad school is probably the toughest thing you'll ever tackle,
and if you don't marry it, you'll never get through.  (Hence why I
stopped after the MS.)

The reason you take Calculus is that it helps you learn to think
logically and efficiently.  Those skills, along with your coding
skills, will get you through most, if not all, of your classwork at
the grad level.  The research part is a little more personal, and so
the best advice I can give you is to look up the faculty at 5 or so
schools you're considering.  If any of the listed faculty are studying
anything interesting, send them an e-mail and ask about it.  You want
your research advisor to be communicative, and to have a common
interest with you.  Don't pick a school for the nightlife, or the
surfing, or whatever, because you're not going to have time to enjoy
it much, anyway.  But if you pick by researchers, well, now you're on
the right track.

Good luck!
-c

-- 
cmerlo at turing.matcmp.ncc.edu        http://turing.matcmp.ncc.edu/~cmerlo

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