Last post, I mentioned that the University of Michigan had a nice admissions blog that included a contact email in case any prospective students had questions. I actually had a few questions, so I decided to send an email. I also figured that I should send emails to all of the institutions that I was thinking of applying to. I sent similar emails (though they each had specific questions about each program) to Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, UC Irvine, and Berkeley.

I received a very long and thoughtful response from Laura Elgas at Michigan. Her email really went above and beyond what I was expecting to receive. She answered all of my questions and even offered to set up a telephone appointment so I could speak with her directly! Suffice it to say, I have a very positive impression of the program at Michigan now. It really means a lot to me that a real human would reply and help me out with this difficult process.

I also got a personal reply from Virginia Tech. They simply stated that I seemed to be a good match with their program based on the info I told them (I also sent them the URL for Notecentric). Most of my questions were answered, though they skipped a few. They politely asked that I keep in touch once I’ve actually submitted my application. This is about on par with what I would expect to receive. I understand that most schools don’t have much time to respond personally to emails, so the reply I got very much appreciated.
Both UC Irvine and Berkeley sent me automatic replies. The UC Irvine one had a lot of general grad school information. It said that I should send the message again if my questions weren’t answered. I did. The Berkeley email just stated that I should be receiving a reply shortly. This was five days ago. Hopefully I’ll get something from both of them soon.

Georgia Tech sent me nothing. Incidentally, I had sent a message to them a month or so ago that didn’t get a reply either. I don’t know who’s running the recruiting over at Georgia Tech, but they haven’t impressed me. I really don’t expect to get a reply from them at all.

So in summary, Michigan is really awesome at recruiting, VT is good. UC Irvine and Berkeley still haven’t sent me anything, but it’s only been 5 days. Still a long turnaround time, I think. Georgia Tech doesn’t seem to care about its prospective students.

Some schools have made me feel very excited to apply, others have given me the cold shoulder. While the academic strength of a program is really important, I think that the people skills of a department really reflect a lot as well.

I found a few more schools that have good looking programs that I’d be interested in applying to. With these two, my school count would go up to 7. I’m not too sure that’s playing it too safe, or not safe enough. Here are the additional schools and my reasoning for wanting to apply:

Cornell

Degree: PhD in Information Science

Deadline: January 1, 2007

Notes: Cornell has a program similar to a few of the schools that I’m already planning on applying to. Right now, they only have a PhD program in Information Science, so I’d have to go that route.

I’m not really too opposed to applying as a PhD student; I’m just not completely sure about studying for another 4-5 years as opposed to 2 years. The program at Cornell seems fairly multidisciplinary, with courses in communication, cognition, and social aspects of information. It seems like a nice program, if I can get into it.

University of Michigan

Degree: Master of Science in Information

Deadline: February 5th, 2007.

Notes: The University of Michigan offers a Masters degree in Information. The program offers courses like “Design of Complex Web Sites” and “Computer-Supported Cooperative Work.”

One interesting thing I found was that the website had links to school blogs. There were a few from students, as well as an Admissions Blog. The admissions blog seems to have been set up specifically to help prospective students through the process. Very cool.

After taking quite a bit of time considering schools and departments, I’ve come up with a list of schools I’ll be applying to. I suppose they’re still subject to change, but here’s what I’ve got (in no particular order):

Georgia Tech

Degree: MS in Human-Computer Interaction

Deadline: February 1, 2007.

Notes: Georgia Tech seems to be one of the more, if not the most progressive schools in the nation when it comes to computer science. Their MS program in HCI has a bunch of interesting courses like Design of Online Communities and Collaborative Computing. In addition to the MS in HCI, the MS in CS also allows students to specialize in a field. The fields include intelligent systems, networking and communications, and HCI.

Virginia Tech

Degree: MS in Computer Science

Deadline: January 15, 2007.

Notes: Virginia Tech is one of the few schools that i found that has an HCI group. Virginia Tech is fairly well ranked in terms of Engineering schools. Another plus is that they seem to offer good funding to their MS thesis students.

UC Irvine

Degree: MS in Interactive and Collaborative Technology

Deadline: January 15, 2007.

Notes: UC Irvine is one of the schools I wrote about earlier with a specialized degree program. In this case, the field is referred to as “Informatics.” They have their own ICT group which is a huge plus in terms of research capability. “Interactive and Collaborative Technology” is exactly what I’d like to do research in, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be accepted into the program. Apparently, their MS students have a chance to get financial assistance through teaching assistantships and whatnot, so I’ll apply for the MS.

Lehigh University

Degree: MS in Computer Science

Deadline: January 15, 2007.

Notes: I had never heard of Lehigh University until I saw the name on multiple top engineering school lists. After doing some research, it seems like Lehigh is a good fit for me, since it includes a Web Understanding, Modeling, and Evaluation Lab. It appears that Lehigh is preparing to branch its Computer Engineering program into an Intelligent Information Systems Engineering and Software Systems Engineering as well, so it might be a good time for me to apply to their program.

UC Berkeley

Degree: MS in Information Sciences

Deadline: January 5, 2007.

Notes: The iSchool at Berkeley is relatively new: the school was created in 1994. The school is also very small. Only 40 of 200 master’s students are accepted each year. I have a feeling that the projects that I’ve done might make me interesting to the school, though.

I’ll try using the iSchool as my “long shot” school and just apply to see if I can make it. The courses all seem very cool, with names like “XML Foundations” and “The Quality of Information.” I would really love to get into this school, as it seems like they’re on the forefront of this field.

So getting a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science was a pretty easy decision for me to make. There’s not a “Computer Engineering” degree at my school, and “Electrical Engineering” is too circuity for my tastes.

I want to do research in stuff like social computing and computational linguistics. While looking for departments with research in these fields, it’s become evident this kind of research doesn’t typically fall in the Computer Science field.

The computational linguistics stuff falls under the linguistics departments for a lot of schools. While I like the idea of researching more linguistics, I don’t know if I want to get a graduate level degree in it. It would make more sense to me to get a MD or PhD in Computer Science.

The social computing field is actually fairly new. It seems like more and more schools are starting “Information Technology” departments that are separate from their Computer Science ones.

One such school is the Rochester Institute of Technology. RIT even has a section of its website dedicated to explaining the differences between Information Technology, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering and Information Systems by likening it to the development of a video game:

The computer engineer would design the actual game platform, the hardware and low-level software. The software engineer would design the software architecture in which specific games would be developed and facilitate on-time development of reliable components. The computer scientist would develop efficient underlying algorithms for the game engines. The IT professional would focus on specific games from the player’s perspective.

In many ways, I’d see myself as either a software engineer, computer scientist, or IT person. When it’s described like this, none of the degrees seem “bad.” I think, however, that there’s a sort of stigma when talking about “IT” people. Mainly the idea that they’re the “tech support guy” who fixes dumb peoples’ computers.

I found yet another “new” degree at UC Irvine called the “Concentration in Informatics Track in Interactive and Collaborative Technology.” This one really seems to fit the bill in terms of the type of research and learning that I want to do. UC Irvine even has an ICT (Interactive and Collaborative Technologies) group with a bunch of people I’d probably like working with.

Once again, I think the only reservation I’d have is getting into a relatively “new” degree program, and the perceived “illegitimacy” when compared to a PhD in the almighty “Computer Science!” Then again, it might be time for the monolithic Computer Science degree to be broken into smaller, more specialized fields of study…

The last “alternative” graduate program that I’ll mention is at Georgia Tech. They offer an MS in “Human-Computer Interaction” and a PhD in “Human-Centered Computing.” Georgia Tech really seems to be one of the more progressive schools when it comes to computing degrees, and I’d be really happy to go there.

The more I read about these alternative graduate programs, the more I think that a standard graduate degree in Computer Science is becoming less relevant in a quickly changing world.

So what do you think? Is the traditional Computer Science track the way to go? Are these new fangled degrees nothing but semantic sugar? Please let me know in the comments, as I’m not quite decided on this myself.