Making Your CV

First of all in America (and I think elsewhere too!) there is a difference between a Resume and a CV. A resume is generally demamded in industries and companies and is supposedly smaller than a CV. CV is extensive and consists of details of the projects, publications, awards, honours, affiliations etc and is genrally what the academic institutions are looking for. The soul purpose of asking a CV is looking at your past 'academic' excellences which includes any academic honours, academic projects, professional courses etc. Yes you should donate one small portion to your extra-curriculats and its better if you could show by that - that you take initiatives and have the ability to work independently as well as in a team. That is why sports can be a good point if you have been playing at some level. But do not blab about the 'volley' position you took in Antaragni at IITK and help you provided the girls in finding thier way at IIT, or some inter-college contest that you won in singing. Yes! they are important to build one's personality and the university wants all round development of the student but not when its paying money for your education.

Oh! so you have two sisters and an elder brother. And your brother is in MIT - well the university does not need to know that. Keep your personal details at the minimum - this is not a matrimonial biodata. A general segmentation could be (not in any order)

1. Personal Information
2. Academic Interests
3. Education Background
4. Academic Projects
5. Professional/Other Projects/Publications
6. Relevant Courses
7. Technical Skills
8. Awards and Honours
9. Initiatives and Other Activities
10. References (if required)

Mention your academic interests, your skills and Oh! dont forget to write that you know Windows and MS office. And that you have worked in MS-DOS and you can write codes in GWBASIC. That you have used oscilloscopes in your first year. If you still need to show your skills you can also write that you know how to use a mouse and can type with multiple fingers and use both hands. For those who are perpetually confused wether to write all that or not - counsult your friends in class 10th or simply dont cus the information content in all that is ZERO. You are expected to know all that so think what elements of your skills would count as information to the university and mention only those.

One last thing after you write your CV is to get it proofread by your friends and your seniors.

GRE and TOEFL

This is probably the most demanding of the whole process (if you ~invested yourself in masti all the time and did not ~waste it in cultivating a habbit of reading :-). By this I mean GRE, Toefl is a child's play once you prepare for GRE.

GRE: Start with Norman Lewis Word Power to get you cell activated on learning new words, and then keep two months for mugging up Barrons. Thats it! Sounds Simple eh! Wait till you actually go through the process. Read how to mug up the world list from barron's guide. It will suggest you to make flash cards - which I too believe is the best way. Another thing can be that you record your voice in a cassette or on computer and play it at night before sleeping.

If you get:
<1100: paye lagun! Are you serious about grad school in top 50?
1100 - 1200: Err! Does your father has another 6k to shell out?
1200 - 1300: Cant Say you decide. Depends on what colleges you are targetting.
1300 - 1400: Chalega! par thoda aur nahi pad sakta tha kya?
1400 - 1500: do mahine ke mehnat rang layi!
1500 - 1550: You Rock Dude!
1550 - 1590: Sir! You are genius (must be true!)
1600: Paye Lagun! Do you really want to do engineering?

Toefl: If you are from IIT Kanpur and have to go to Allahbad the only suggestiong is SLEEP WELL before going. You should do a couple of practice test for it to know the framework.

If you get:
<250: Really?
250-275: Cant say! Check with the universities.
275-285: You did'nt sleep or what?
285-295: Good work! Keep it up.
295 - 300: Really?

Most of the places have GRE/Toefl as their cutoff. They might also use it when they have to make a chioce between two similar candidates - not sure if they really do.

How to read this blog.

Its better to start from the last article and then moving up - else you can just choose by topic. Pls note its in its draft stage so pls ignore the spellings and grammar. Also it will be a nice idea to read/write comments if you support some point or have a differnt view from what i have written.

Basic Time Lines

I got drifted away the last time talking about sucking. Well this is a general time line for the process.
*Assuming you are appin in the year 2005 for the Fall 2006 Session.
1. Give you GRE and TOEFL - ASAP. (some ppl do it in their third year, the lazy ones drag it till end of sept the year he is applying which in my opinion is just too late. The best time is August. The trick is take the date and be mentally prepared you will not change it come what may).
2. Make your Resume - Aug 06.
3. Start searching universities and suck professors - Sept06 to Oct06
4. Wait for response, second talks, finalize the universities - max by end of nov - infact some universities have deadlines on 1's Dec - also discuss it with other who are applying to reduce the clashes.
5. Finalize and Talk to Professors for Recos - Oct06 - Nov06. - Try to simultaneously check out the universities that accept online recommendation as it will be easier for the prof to send and online recommendation and some of them now only accept for the online one.
6. Prepare your SOP - oct06 - nov06 - so that you have some time to get it rectified from others - remember the aim is to plan so that the final packages that are to be send is ready by Dec 5. (Execpt for univs with earlier deadlines).
7. Post the documents - atleast 5 days in advance, and 10 days to be safe. Some universities take the date of posting and the deadline and not the date of receipt but be sure if you take that chance.
8. Pray to god.
9. Enjoy the New years - may be the next year you get to experience it 12 hrs later than the your fellows back in India. :-)

have i missed anything?

Start a Thinking Process - Sucking

So you think you should apply for higher studies?
Or are you sure that you want to just go for it?

Well this is the first question you need to answer. Nothing else - dont think that you want to do a MS and not Phd, dont think about what process to follow, dont start taking suggestions before you answer the above question. The process one chooses (well there are no two processes but for the sake of simplicity) shall depend on how much commitment he has to go for higher studies.

Having said that if you are among those who are not sure that they should apply or not, then please dont think twice about it and follow the process as you are really wanting to go for it and there is no second option. You MUST keep your options open as there is a very high probability that you WILL choose the path of intelectual satisfaction :-) or atleast since you are not sure right now you never know. So give your 100% at the time of application.

The basic process in application for higher studies are:
1. Decide you field of interest (FOI) - Not necessary a precise field but something like - 'signal processing' in Electrical Engineering would do.
2. Suck Professors ;-) - Now this is one think that many people are confused as to what is to be done. Ideally you should have knowledge about whats going on in your FOI - atleast read some papers in that area and can recall the names of some famous journals and conferences in your FOI. Now if you are among the lucky ones who also know the specifics of their FOI, it will be easier for you to go to the professors pages(I am gonna tell you in short time how to find profs) and try to find a match between his interests and yours. (Caveat: Undergraduate education is too early to really pin down your FOI so be sure that you are really interested if you are wanting to do research in a very specific area). If his interests matches with yours, browse some of his current projects and mail him *short(try to keep it as short as possible though it might be difficult - if the prof responds with a +ve note then you can add more details)* paragraph about your work and that you are interested to work with him and his research group and would appreciate if he could asses and tell you the chances of a RA/TA/fellowship.

For those who can not be that specific, dont go into his project details - try to gauge him by your general field of interest - if you find it attractive just write that you went by his webpage and found out his work to be interesting and that you are a able person to carry out reseach in the area and would love to work with him. Ask his about your chances.

Attach a pdf resume for his reference and its also good to send an online link of your html resume so that he can just click on it and does not need to open acrobat and waste his precious minute :-).

Must Avoid: Mailing professors without checking out their field of interest. I have seen people interested in communications sucking to a microelectronics professor.

2.a Finding Professors to suck - This is one of the most essential part and can be THE factor in the sucess of your application process.
i) Talk to your seniors in the same field. They have gone thru the same process and being 1 year in the system have more knowledge about the professors in your FOI.
ii) Try to enqurie from the professors at your institute (maybe the ones you are taking recos from) and ask them about ranking of/good research groups in FOI.
iii) If you have read some papers on your FOI and are experiences enough to extract names of professors and universitites from the authours, it gives you another path.
iv) Go to the conferences webpages and find the names of chair persons and organizers - they are in most of the cases the professors who are working in that area.
v) Go to the departmental websites of the universities and browse through their faculty pages.

It is a tedious task but if done correctly can do wonders in your application process.

Disclaimer - READ THIS FIRST

Whatever I write in the guide is just my inferences from the experiences I had during my time of applying for higher studies. Please do not take/use/apply the suggestion blindly.

This is just a draft version so please bear with the spelling mistakes. Also go through the comments which might come from time to time as they would be from experienced seniors and will act as an addendum to the articles.

Nikhil