Phd programs in CS admitting students with a 3.0-3.2 in Msc

[ecy5maa]

Hi,

 

So let me get straight to the point. I am currently studying for my Msc in Computer Science at a uni that is 110th in the world. However, my grades suffered in my first semester due to some emotional trouble i faced and now I can only reasonably achieve abt 3.0 to 3.2 GPA. So I was wondering if anyone knew of any Phd programs that accept students in with a 3.0-3.2 GPA but with funding? I corresponded with a few (IIT(US) and HKPU(Hong Kong)) and they all said the MINIMUM requirement is 3.0 but said nothing specific abt funding.

 

I dont really need to get into a top tier uni, ill be fine with middle tier unis as well as long as I get funding to do Phd.

 

My Career goals are to become a professor in my Home Country(Pakistan) and there they, at the moment, are fine with a Phd as long as our education commission can verify it, i.e. its not fake.

 

 

Secondly, I talked to some of my professors and they said that my chances will improve if i can get 1-2 papers published. So I was wondering if anyone knew of peer review journals that I should target and what exactly is the procedure of submitting your paper. For instance, i want to write a paper on Security policy for E-voting. So which journals will accept a submission on this topic?

 

 

Thank You in advance.

[timo]

I can't imagine hat "having a paper published" is supposed to mean that you should sit down for yourself, write and publish one. That would be a rather ridiculous assumption and would not exactly speak for whoever told you about your chances being improved if you had a publication. An undergrad does not have the necessary overview over current research to know what has been done before and what is interesting. What it supposedly means is that you should do some research supervised by a professional (as part of a groups research project or as an individual project within the frame of some research group) and show off that you did this "internship" successfully by coming out of it with a publication with your name on it. The group leader will take care about questions like "how to write it" and "which journal should we submit to".

 

Or as the short mainstream answer: Submit to one of the journals that you read regularly. If there is no such journal, submit to none.

 

I am afraid I cannot help you with the question about a PhD program. One thing that was not clear and that you may want to clarify, though: Does "with funding" mean that you have funding or that you need funding?

[ecy5maa]

Thanks for your reply but i am not in Undergrad. I am a post grad student as I have mentioned. And I dont think asking for names of peer reviewed journals is ridiculous as you have implied. Let me clarify what I meant one more time.

 

 

I am a post grad student doing my Masters in Computer Science. When I say I want to publish a paper, that does not mean that I am fresh out of undergrad and want to cut/copy and paste something I read on the internet and have it published. Obviously, the fact that I am a post graduate student I do have the 'necessary' research training but the only difference is that everything that I have done so far is primarily university centric. What my professor meant was that if I am able to get a paper published in addition to the necessary research 'experience' that I gain in my university during the course of my Msc..then this improves my chance of getting admission into Phd.

 

You are right that I need to be a part of a team, but the other option that came to my mind was that I work on a topic, under supervision of my professor. Can that not work?

 

As far as asking for journal submission procedures and which journals I should submit too I meant something like this: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/assourav/jrank.htm . Sure I can ask my professor too, but I can also ask you or others in this forum, as it is a rather generic question.

 

 

As far as the Phd question is concerned, with funding obviously mean that the university gives funding.

 

Thanks again for your reply

[timo]

I guess I could indeed have read your OP a bit more carefully. Two comments, still: 1) By an undergrad being too inexperienced to perform research on his or her own I pretty much meant any academic level below a PhD. 2) My point about doing work in a research group indeed was not the "group" aspect but the professional supervision. So if you were working for a professor who has a project for you that he thinks may be publishable (e.g. you get a publication out of your thesis), then that is totally fine, too.

 

Disclaimer: Note also that I am in a different academic field (physics) and country (Germany). Things may be a bit different in computer science and whatever country you are currently living in.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Thanks for your reply but i am not in Undergrad. I am a post grad student as I have mentioned. And I dont think asking for names of peer reviewed journals is ridiculous as you have implied. Let me clarify what I meant one more time.

 

If you are doing an MSc you should, I would think, already be fairly familiar with journals in your area of research. Most people become familiar with them during their BSc, since a majority of courses are structured to incorporate and facilitate student learning through researching current literature. Not being well versed in computer science, I don't have any names for you, but a quick Google search should give you a fairly comprehensive list.

 

I am a post grad student doing my Masters in Computer Science. When I say I want to publish a paper, that does not mean that I am fresh out of undergrad and want to cut/copy and paste something I read on the internet and have it published. Obviously, the fact that I am a post graduate student I do have the 'necessary' research training but the only difference is that everything that I have done so far is primarily university centric. What my professor meant was that if I am able to get a paper published in addition to the necessary research 'experience' that I gain in my university during the course of my Msc..then this improves my chance of getting admission into Phd.

 

Publishing papers is very much a 'unversity-centric' thing. I'm struggling to see how someone doing their masters isn't already aware or at least vaguely familiar with what publications encompass or have a vague inclination as to how they get published. The papers you publish are a culmination of your research and really, your supervisor is the person you should be talking to about it.

 

You are right that I need to be a part of a team, but the other option that came to my mind was that I work on a topic, under supervision of my professor. Can that not work?

 

Though I am not sure if it is the same for CS, most professors teaching science have their own research groups and if you were to do something under their supervision it would be within that group; essentially what you are suggesting is the same thing.

 

As far as asking for journal submission procedures and which journals I should submit too I meant something like this: http://www.ntu.edu.s...ourav/jrank.htm . Sure I can ask my professor too, but I can also ask you or others in this forum, as it is a rather generic question.

 

The question of which journal you submit to really isn't one that can be answered here. It requires a good knowledge of your project, your results and a comparison of current literature, which is not something you can really expect members here to have. Speak to your supervisor. They will be able to tell you if you have enough for a paper or what you need to do to get there and where you should aim for publications.

 

As for the process of submission, I myself am not familiar with all the intricacies. I begin preparing my first and (hopefully) second publication this year, so I've not had much of a chance to know how it all works just yet. Each journal will have its own formatting requirements, which are available through their website. They will also have guidelines for submission, which you can download (I think) for free. If you follow those in conjunction with whatever your supervisor suggests, you should be fine, although it's no guarantee you'll get published.

 

As far as the Phd question is concerned, with funding obviously mean that the university gives funding.

 

It's not that obvious and it's often better to ask for clarification rather than making assumptions. As well, you could just as likely mean external or industry based scholarships.

[ecy5maa]

Thank you for your reply.

 

I have understood your points, but let me just clarify one last thing. University centric meant that, all research projects were marked/reviewed inside the University itself in the context of what other students also did in there projects. This doesnt mean that the academic standards itself were poor, but rather that my work is judged based on the work of 25 others in my Post grad class, as compared to prob 100s in case of a paper submission. I apologize for not elucidating on this point earlier.

 

Thanks for your response once again.

[Arete]

I did my MSc and PhD is Australia in evolutionary biology.

 

I managed to publish 3 papers from my MSc (Two taxonomic revisions and a phylogenetic paper). The requirement for entry to a PhD program in Australia is (or at least was) a first class honors undergraduate degree or equivalent - publications can be used as an equivalent, so can a research MSc.

 

Because I had a strong publication record, I had pretty good options when I went shopping for a PhD - I managed to find an adviser with a ready to go project and didn't have to find a stipend or research budget of my own. I finished my PhD and have managed to get ~ 8 additional publications from it (at least the ones in various submission stages). Again, my publication record came into play in negotiating both my wife (who is also in the same field of science) and me dual postdoctoral positions at a good R1 school in the US, which is where I am now.

 

At least in my field and experience, your publication record is your benchmark as a scientist and the most important bit of your CV. Maximizing the impact and number of publications is something I have thought about a lot - I won't partake in a project that is unlikely to result in a publication and most of the projects are broken into blocks defined by the paper that will result from it.

 

Advice on writing a paper:

1) Read, read and read some more. Get a good sense of how papers in your field are structured, what is topical, the methodological benchmarks and current knowledge.

2) Have an idea - look at your data and think about what it tells you and how to package that into a paper. I'd discuss your ideas with your adviser and get an idea of good/bad/feasible ideas for a paper.

3) Pick a journal - your adviser should definitely be helping you here. How high up the totem pole can you go? How good is the data, how topical is the idea? Do you want to aim high or be relatively sure of acceptance, etc. Once you've picked out a journal to aim for, print out the author guidelines and keep them next to you while you write the paper.

4) Write the paper. Easier said than done - make sure you do a bit every day, even if it's just a sentence to keep your head in the game.

5) Submit! Drink beer and wait...

6) More papers get rejected than accepted, so be prepared for a rejection. it doesn't mean your work is necessarily bad, it's a competitive world out there. You can always repackage your work and submit elsewhere.

7) Resubmit and wait.

8) Accepted! Drink Beer again!

 

 

So in short, I think with decent guidance and motivation a MSc student should be more than capable of producing a publication and strongly agree that at least in the places I have worked, it would make a significant difference to how competitive you are for PhD programs and later positions.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Arete

[ecy5maa]

thanks arete!!! best advice so far!