Postgraduate Structural

bandraoi

Imperial or Cornell?

I've been accepted to both, which do I pick?

CathalMc

Wow. Thats great! I've absolutely no useful information about which one to choose, and I'm blatantly fishing for knowledge about the application process. :rolleyes: I intend applying for postgraduate studies in the US myself next year but all my research has been geared towards my own studies: microelectronics. I looked into Cornell and their electronics department didn't appeal to me so it'll be others I'll apply to. Any tips you can throw my way about the application process would be muchly appreciated.

bandraoi

Applications need to be in around Christmas, earlier for MIT which I assume is your number one choice. If it's not, and you have a first then APPLY.
Take your GRE's, buy the books from Amazon of from a second hand book shop.
you sit them in DCU. Get 800 on the maths, they'll be looking for it.

Write your essay at 4am as you're sobering up from a night out.
Start saving and start applying for scholarships now - this is where I went a bit wrong and didn't do it.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

CathalMc

I looked into the GRE before Christmas, I've given myself an extra year (till next christmas) to get a good application together, I'm doing a one year taught masters under a highly respected professor so its not a dodgey gap on the CV either. How much time, realistically, is there involved in mastering the GRE?

What kinda criteria did you use to choose your colleges? Did you break it down by professor or the college prestige or from recommendations by your current professors? I suppose from an outsiders perspective, I've heard alot about Cornell and not as much about Imperial, so I'd naturally side with Cornell, but maybe the situation is reversed among members of your speciality.

Daveirl is right, MIT doesn't have any of the big names in microelectronics and they've a poor showing in pure electronics journals the last few years (JSSC). I'm not sure what I'll do, I've had some pretty strong recommendations to go with the best college as determined by the strength of the professors there. For instance, UC Berkeley has Gray and Meyer who wrote the tome of analogue integrated circuits. However, another part of me says to apply for the best as determined by college prestige: Stanford, Caltech, MIT etc. for the MSc. and then, based on new knowledge and experience choose desired professors for the PhD. One person who followed this particular avenue is currently the president of UCC so I'm in good company in thinking this.

bandraoi

See I'm civil, so Imperial has the Civil prestige that MIT would have for Mech and Elec type engineering. I'm planning to do a taught masters so one individual professor isn't too worrying.

It's much easier to get funding for a research PHD then a research Masters and since you've already got the Masters I'd start looking for a PHD if I were you. ARe two masters degrees really necessary?

The GRE maths is honestly and truely a piece of piss if you've any sort of a maths background. A few hours here and there over the course of a month should be more than enough.

www.ratemyprofessors.com will let you check out different professors in different colleges in the US.
If you've a good vocablary then the english bit is straightforward enough, practice writing essays too and you're sorted.

bandraoi

I know too that UC Berkley is number one in the states for Civil/Structural engineering. The reason I didn't apply there is because the major specialty is Earthquakes and i've no interest in that.
Where one Eng department is well respected, they generally all are.

bandraoi

oh yeah and to pick a college in the states - look up the top ten in your field, they're generally ranked somewhere.
Then look up each college and faculty, narrow it down to the one or two that appeals to you from those.

places like campusdirt.com are good.
There are loads of sites that describe and discuss "Graduate school" - which is the search term to use in google.

CathalMc

apparently the taught masters I'm doing here won't carry enough weight to get into a PhD programme in the states. I'm not complaining about it though, I don't mind the extra year and it can only help my application. I'm well aware of the scholarship situation in the states, I don't envy you paying your way through a taught masters though, best of luck with that!

Cheers for the advice