Carnegie Mellon University

Salil_Singh

This webinar session will be hosted by Hardik Gupta, who has completed his Masters of Information Systems Management from Carnegie Mellon University. He will volunteer an hour of his time to answer your queries. Before Carnegie Mellon, Hardik completed his BTech in Information Technology from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai. He has worked as Software Development Intern for Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd. (Times Group) and then as Business Technology Analyst for Deloitte India. During his masters, Hardik secured a summer research internship with Living Analytics Research Centre (LARC) and also worked as a TA and RA at Carnegie Mellon University. Currently, he is working as a Data Scientist at Meltwater.

Here is how the Senior AMA works:

Ask Qs now: You can start asking your questions right away right here.

Answers via video: On Friday, October 4th, at 7 PM, Hardik will answer your Qs via a webinar, which you can join here.

Answers transcribed for future reference: We will transcribe Hardik’s answers and post them in response to your questions on this page.

Tanu_Rana

Hi,

So can I post my questions here?

Thanks.

Salil_Singh

@Tanu_Rana

Yes.

Tanu_Rana

Okay thanks. Listing some questions:

How wise is the decision of choosing location over university reputation for masters in US?

In CMU (or anywhere else) have you come across any students from non-tech backgrounds (i.e. Bioinfo) studying in CS related fields? If yes, how difficult would you consider the acceptance rates of such students if they don’t have relevant educational backgrounds but relevant work exp (>3 yrs).

Can you please broadly describe some aspects of your SOP/Personal Statement, what you think were the best parts that led to your acceptance.

Is the market headed towards a recession, how difficult was it for you to land internships/jobs? Could you briefly delineate the process.

If someone applies for masters in two slightly separate domains and they get accepted into the second preferred course, would it be advised to take admission in that domain if they are hoping to transfer credits and take courses from the first preferred domain afterwards?

How much did you spend overall for your masters excluding any internship or financial aid?

Jib_Ran

You got an admit, in which program?

Drishti_Megalmani

What are the different career growth opportunities(or job roles) for MS in CS graduates in comparison to MS in Information Management graduates? What are the evident differences in the two courses?

Vasu_Sharma

1.Is getting job in Data Science tough as its a specialized branch?

2. Since Data Science is still an emerging branch should one go for 12-16 months course or a 2 yr course?Also does it make any difference?

3.I want to pursue MS in DataScience but I have workex of 2yrs as software developer in finance domain…should I go for MS in CSE only as I have prior experience and BTECH in CSE only?

4.Also can you share how you prepared your LOR and SOP.

Thanks.

Rahul_Balan

What are the differences between MS in CS and Info Management in terms of courses and job opportunities?

Salil_Singh

Posting it on Attendee’s behalf

I have a background in electrical engineering and have interest in computer vision. I have two research papers. How would my chances in CMU computer vision be

Jib_Ran

A technical question about prodigy Finance. Let say my parents are able to afford my living expenses on a monthly basis but do not have a huge savings amount that they can show to Prodigy finance as ‘Proof of Savings’. Have you faced this scenario, if so, what did you do about it?

Aryaa

Do you have any idea if how good is Engineering & Technology Innovation Management program offered by CMU as per the industry requirements? CMU offers dual Masters degree combining CS and ETIM.

Rahul_Balan

I have 324 in GRE with 166 in Quants and 2 years Work Experience as a Software engineer… What do you think my chances are in MS CS and Info Systems?

Jib_Ran

What is your opinion of the robotics program from wpi? How does its program compare with that of cmu? If you do know about it.

AMOGHA_R.B

What are the job opportunities in east coast compared to west coast in Computer Engineering course?

AMOGHA_R.B

How does choosing descent university near to west coast over a reputed university near east coast will effect the job opportunities in Computer Engineering (Embedded systems)?

Jib_Ran

Is it possible or advisable to drop one semester(spring/fall) in between to get an internship, say after a year of doing MS? Have you seen people doing it?

Jib_Ran

Does taking an educational loan basically close the doors for any possibility of doing PhD after completing MS?

Jib_Ran

Are employers generally reluctant to hire international students seeing as they have to invest some time and resources to keep you in the company?

Hardik

@Tanu_Rana

Lets have as the reputation of the university as the quality of education at the university. I would pick the quality of the education of the university than the location. Just to give you 2 examples, there’s a college in Bahria which has very low tuition,and great location. And then there may be CMU, which is in Pittsburgh that is not a great location which is an upcoming hub. But the quality of education is much much much better. And I take a very idealistic standpoint on this and I would say that your primary motivation or primary purpose of going abroad is to have a superior learning experience. If you manage to get that then everything will follow. And I would definitely pick the quality of education of an institution over its location.

Hardik

@Tanu_Rana

Yes. Of Course there are students from different backgrounds who are studying computer science with you and I think the whole purpose of information system is to allow students from different backgrounds to enter computer science. Along with me, I had people from biotech, I had people from financial background as well. It does make entering the school difficult because you need to really prove that you are motivated to apply for degree which is kind of tangential from what you have studied so far. But if you do have work experience in the field that reincrease your point, why do you want to do computer science. It is definitely not difficult but if you have ways and means to justify in your case, work experience it does hike your case. Unfortunately I don’t have any statistical ratio on that.

Hardik

@Tanu_Rana

To answer the first part, no I don’t think it is leading towards session, assuming the job market referring to is for computer science or machine learning or related roles. And how difficult it was, I would say it does require some effort but if you have the skillset and if you have learnt it when your at school,you can prove that during your interview process, it will be pretty seamless. But it requires effort in terms of being able to get that interview. To describe the process little bit there are many avenues, one is on campus job fairs, they are not helpful. I would say to the contrary I had 4 offers at the end of graduation, in that 3 offers was from CMU’s on campus job fairs. It wasn’t like I got the offer at the job fair but it started from there. Second is, building up your personal network. You don’t need to go above and beyond to build a network, just if you keep doing your best at work and at school, people will notice it and they will always be ready to help you whenever you need anything. Whether you need a plan for an internship, or just approach in that perspective. Third avenue is linden. When I say linden, I specifically refer to your alumni from the school you are in , because they tend to be very helpful in the whole process. So these are the 3 main avenues for looking internships or jobs.

Hardik

@Tanu_Rana

I don’t fully understand what is meant by separate domains, if your referring to two separate specializations within the same program or if your referring to two separate programs within the same school. Switching between specializations is very easy. And you can transfer credits as well but I don’t know whether you can transfer from one program to another and how easy that would be. But one important consideration is that when you apply to a program do see the program structure, how many units are allowed to be taken from mandatory or predetermined and how many units of courses can be taken as optional and left up to you. CMU does a great job of affording flexibility to you to take more than 50% of the units, im talking about the MIS program from any of the other schools and that allows me to take courses from departments from the public policy school, humanities school which is something that really helped me to learn different aspects that I wanted to do so.

Hardik

@Tanu_Rana

Since I started my degree in fall of 2016, and of course now the fee structure have been restructured, typically for CMU’s information system’s pack, the tuition was 80000 US dollars and I would say another 10-15 thousand dollars for your personal expenses would be the total out of pocket expense.

Hardik

@Tanu_Rana

Each application is read by the admissions committee and I personally don’t know what made them pick my application or the statement of purpose. I would definitely say not only SOP/ not only your academics, it’s a combination of everything. Your entire profile put together. Just one thing I would like to retell which I said at the beginning, especially when it comes to the SOP/ personal statement make sure that its unique to you, don’t take help from any of the outsource. Do realise that, they are also helping thousands of other students and there bias tends to come in and at the end of the day just be honest with your statement of purpose. It really helps to be true and honest about what you want and what you have done so far. And anyone can look especially the admission committee as they get so many applications everyday and they can look right through your statement of purpose. So just keep that in mind.

Hardik

@Drishti_Megalmani

That was a good question. I myself was pretty confused between those two when I started off, just to differentiate between the two programs briefly, cs will always be focussed on fundamentals of computer science , will be very technical but you will also have schools that offer cs programs with lots of flexibility that allows you to take courses from different schools. On the other hand, information systems is a broad introduction to a variety of courses and domains like finance, computer science, economics, and its important to realise that it depends whether your information system program is offered from the school of business or from school of computer science. It tends to be more technical if its from the school of computer science or technical schools and more lenient if its from the business schools. It’s good to always have in mind and check the curriculum , check what courses are mandated as a part of the program and what courses are optional, how much flexibility it offers you. Now coming to the career growth opportunities, based on how you decide to telemake your program and what courses you decide to take during your degree. You can decide what to choose after you graduate. So since the time you get in, try to explore courses, try to figure out what you really want to do. Because I have seen people who did information systems and are in pure software engineering and people who did cs working in something like financial modelling. So it’s completely up to you. I would say, just try to explore your interest and figure out what you want.

Hardik

@Vasu_Sharma

Given with the recent years of the advent of this field, of course there are a lot of opening but there are also too many people who are looking for jobs. But it’s easy to differentiate between someone who knows the fundamentals and coming from a very strong technical background vs someone who has just picked up a professional degree in the field. His / her understanding will be very superficial. It’s not tough if your good at it. Try to focus on the fundamentals.

If you ask me that question I would say even 2 years is less. Because the learning experience that you have been studying at a good institution is incredible and honestly I felt that 2 years is also not enough so I would recommend you to go for a 2 year course because 12 months or 16 months is a very short time for you to move to a new country, settle in, start learning and understand what it’s like.so I would say typically go for a 2 year course. If you emphasis on a strong learning experience, of course other benefits like it gives you more time to settle in, to look for a job, to look for an internship. And so I would definitely recommend a 2 year program.

I would say that shouldn’t be your deciding factor. Although you have done your bachelors in computer science, it is a strong base for someone to enter into sciences.so keep that option open, don’t decide against applying for something that you really want to do. Because your bachelors is in computer science, I think it’s a perfect match.

Speaking about SOP, I initially wrote the first draft after that I got feedback on it from my friends who were already studying abroad. And whoever I think the right person to get feedback from. And I just kept reediting my SOP until I was happy with that, until the proof reads, the feedback is close to zero. It’s always good to have a generic sort of version of your SOP and for every school you apply and try to always kind of match your motivation and purpose to the school , why you want to choose that school particularly. Again try to be as honest as possible. And for LOR’s again I wrote the first draft, got sent to all my recommenders went back and forth a couple of times before I had the final approval and signatures and endorsements on those letters.

Salil_Singh

Thank you for the responses Hardik

Hardik

@Rahul_Balan

I would say it often depends on the schools that offers the program, for information management and CS as well. For CS, how much flexibility the program offers. Job opportunities depends again on what you make of your time value there.

Hardik

CMU’s computer vision program is offered through robotics institute which is a part of the school of computer science. It’s a very competitive program I would say. It has great faculties in fact. To get a better idea about what your prospects are I would say try to look up profiles of alumni from the same program, even try to reach out to alumni to get an idea of where you stand. When you say 2 research papers, that’s not enough information for me to give suggestions to you. I think you should reach out to alumni.

Hardik

@Jib_Ran

I don’t fully recollect what were the documents I showed as a proof of savings for Prodigy.

I’m sorry I don’t recollect what I showed as proof of savings and what was the amount they expect you to show.