I recently got an email from Mahesh Sharma, who is a Third Year student in Computer Engineering at Pune Institute of Computer Technology. Mahesh had a few questions about graduate education in the US. Every student who thinks about doing an MS in the US is apprehensive about things and i thought i would do good if i could put a few frequently asked questions together and answer them for everyone. Mahesh did a good job of asking pertinent questions. In trying to answer his questions, i think a lot of people will also find them useful (at least i hope!). Here goes,
1: Shall I give Subject GRE? How much is a descent score?
Answer: Subject GRE or AGRE as …

Indians the world over are making us (Indians) proud. They are now solving issues that concern the world at large, and not just trying to solve small issues restricted in their relevance to local realms. And this time, its students of engineering and management at Stanford who have shone. Rahul Alex Panicker and Naganand Murty are part of a 4 -member team at Stanford which formed a non-profit called Embrace. Embrace came out of a project based course at Stanford - Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability. The problem this team was thinking about was that in the developing world, where at least 20 million low-birth-weight babies are born every year, incubators are so expensive - they are totally out of …

In our last post, we covered a lot on the scholarships available for students wishing to pursue education abroad. But that route is not always open to all. In fact, scholarships for students who wish to study abroad are often hard to come by, and competition is stiff for the few scholarships that are out there. Sometimes, even after the announcements of scholarships, the decision on who would actually get the scholarship is not taken till very late. In those cases, students are often left in the lurch. And hence, the idea of taking student education loans is also in vogue. A lot of students from India take up loans from various banks. These loans are then paid off within …

So here’s a question - which many would think a little silly, but - How important to your career is going to study at an Ivy League University? Silly because many of you are thinking, of course its important! Ivy League universities are some of the biggest brands in education. These institutions and the brand value which comes along with it - are truly exceptional. These are, however, things that may be missing at other good institutes. So, definitely, you say, its a good idea to go to Ivy League. And i agree. Ivy League univs and others like them (MIT and Stanford are not Ivy League) are a must-have - if your aim is for example to build a …

We have already done a post on helping students decide between MS and other degrees as options for higher studies. We dealth with MIS vs MS. We thought this time we take a shot at MBA vs MS. Now, there are various ways of doing this. But here, we are basically talking about doing an MBA from India (or your country) versus doing an MS. These seem to the be the hot options among a lot of gen-X these days. A lot of students in colleges in India these just want to do an MBA because its what everyone seems to be doing. People have a tendency of following the herd. And the herd at this point in our economy …

Many student all over India and other countries are at this time slogging to meet the deadlines for graduate admissions at various US universities. Many have worked for over a year in trying to give the standardized tests, get the statement of purpose ready, get the recommendation letters ready, etc. It requires a lot of planning and thought. And success, in most cases, comes only to those who have been working ahead of time to achieve their goal. If you are in the second or third year of college and thinking about graduate school in the US - it would help to start early.
But you may ask, where do i start? What is required by the US universities? Where …

The New York based, Institute of International Education has released its annual report detailing the state of international admissions at US universities. In its Open Door’s report, they say that with 94,563 students coming from India, makes us the nation with the highest amount of talent coming to US universities to pursue higher education options. Here is a quick jist from their study.

Total foreign student numbers up 7%; New enrollments up 10%

Top three sending countries post double-digit increases

India up 13%, China up 20%, South Korea up 11%

USC is top host university; California is top host state; NYC is top host city;

Business and Management (20%) is top field of study followed closely by engineering (17%)

Here are some more graphs for …

Virginia Tech is among the top universities in the engineering and science research in the US. It has a very competitive program at the graduate level. Recently Prof. Mili was awarded $2 million grant for sustainable power, communications infrastructure research. At any such point when a professor gets a lot of grant money, it is usually the case that a number of RA positions would be opening up in his/her group. And hence it would seem that in the ECE department at VT, the funding scenario would be pretty good in the next few months to come. We spoke to Kshitija Deshpande, a PhD student in ECE, specializing in Radio Astronomy.
1) …

Wichita State University is among the finest in the country for higher education in Mechanical, Aerospace and related areas. The program from Mechanical dept. has some very nice course for FEA, CAE, Injury biomechanics, Stress analysis and Vibration. We spoke to Nilesh Dhole, who graduated from College of Engineering, Pune and is now pursuing a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Wichita State. Nilesh talks in detail about the kind of profile that is required to get in to Wichita State. And about the funding options at the university. Here is more from his interview:
1) Personal Details
a. Name : Nilesh Dhole
b. …

Two years ago, Minal Khodani was one of many students from Mumbai University who thought of going abroad for higher education and making it big. But Minal was one of the few who actually dared to dream big and worked towards it and lived it! Minal came to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for a MS in Wireless Networking. After doing well there, she was offered a job at Oracle Inc in Redwood Shores, California. We took the time to speak to Minal about her decision to pursue MS and how she went about the preparation. Minal gives a detailed outlook on things and mentions important pieces in the application process that people should take care of. Here is Minal her self…
1. …