any recommendations for professors to reach out to ?
for RA , TA EA , any professors you preferred ? warm and open to reach out to
Research scope for Computer networks and IoT at USC?
@Saurabh_Maydeo
Right now I am paying the rent of 510 dollars in addition to that the utilities come
around to 60 dollars so anywhere between 500 to 600 is a good range if you are not living a
luxurious life. The better range would be 500 to 700.
@Rupali_Talele
So around USC, I stay at Portland street which is a pretty safe area with the DPS all
around and Allendale is again a better option and obviously the university housing will be very
much safer, we have trial house, we have university housing named as Trial house apart from
that apartment like Mardi Gras Apartments and Allendale apartments are quite nice and quite
safe as well.
Yeah I was about to say the same thing, instead of the term rigorous, you would call it
a different approach to learning because as far as my experience is concerned, I always
had a theoretical learning experience so basically you study something, for example, letās take
algorithms, you just study algorithm and you just write those algorithms or programs based on
that algorithm in your exams in the university but in USC or basically in all US universities, it is
completely practical. You need to go deep in the core of the concept, understand it clearly and
only then you will be able to answer other questions which are based on the core of the concept.
So you need to under algorithm clearly and based on that the new problem which is at
an application level will be given in exams. So first exam, you might feel like no itās too tough I
canāt do it but then you get used to that.
I just want to add something to that, it is solely based on assignments, all your learning, major part of your learning comes from the assignments that you do in the university so they are just like individual projects that you do here so you have to write the complete code for the entire project from scratch that uses a lot of learning.
So a number of my, personally I didnāt do any other preparation apart from doing the
lead code and ā¦but a number of my friends have done courses in machine learning and data mining in websites like CourseEra before coming to USC and that really helps you a lot like it will be like a repetition of what you learnt but in addition it would also be like doing some awesome practical stuff so I suggest doing that if you are interested in taking
machine learning or data mining and also deep learning is a pretty good course.
@Thejaswini_Ad
So just like, the number of fall students joining in there would also be a number of spring students joining in, they will be going out by the end of the fall so obviously you will get housing options for spring for sure but the only trick is to like is to have is to constantly check different groups for housing either through Whatsapp or Facebook so that you get a cheaper house thatās it apart from that you donāt need to worry about housing options like you to need not worry like all the housing options would be covered by fall going students.
That really depends on the courses that you take, for example, right now I have taken the data mining course which has a class strength of about 40 people per class that on the other side I also have machine learning, computer science machine learning which has a class size of about 250 students, so that really depends on the course that you take especially courses like algorithms, artificial intelligence, database sometimes and machine learning and web technology will have a higher batch size but apart from that all the other courses will have very less batch size.
So the learning remains the same irrespective of the batch size of each course but the only part where the difference lies in the competition that you face, for example, if you are taking the algorithm class you would be competing against 300 other students because the grading is relative here but the learning remains the same.
@Saurabh_Maydeo
So there will be a test based on the course that you are taking. If you are planning to
take deep learning you will have to take up the test for that but there are no prerequisite tests for
machine learning or natural language processing course so I know a couple of my friends who have taken NLP in the first semester and know a couple of others who have taken MLA in the first semester as well, but in terms of allocating, for example, USC has this concept of deep clearance so that depends on a number of factors like your seniority level or GPA and sometimes the first come first serve basis. So all these three would be considered while allocating the deep clearance but there are no prerequisites tests for MLA or NLP.
Mostly you will not get research assistantship especially if you are pursuing MS you will not get RAs for MS courses only the PhD students get RAs for MS courses but you can still apply for research assistantship for undergrad courses so the process is like you need to get the email ID of the professor taking that course, you need a personal email to them with your resume and whatever work you have done before and based on that they will decide if they want to move ahead with you or not.
@Nikhil
So I was not aware of this 3150 dollars on-campus meal plan. Most of the students from India end up preparing their own food and if you ask me itās only my personal opinion, I feel like itās a bit more because per month because if you are preparing your own food the maximum it would come up per month is 200 to 250 dollars a month and per semester you will have three to four months so it would be 1000 dollars per semester but again itās like you would be preparing it so right now all my roommates and myself we manage it ourselves. I didnāt know any cooking before going to USC I learnt it the hard way. It was terrible for the first month but now I am better at it and Iām happy.
@Nikhil
Thatās a tradeoff that you need to think about if you ask me in my personal
experience, sometimes I have ended up not cooking for a day especially when I had taken my
Web technology and natural language processing but if you are fine with the meal plan again itās a tradeoff that you would have to think about.
For me, it makes sense to cook my own food rather than paying 3150 per semester but
for someone who really wants to concentrate on studies, maybe it might make sense.
@Gayatri_Atale
So Iād say if you have an internship already, donāt have two minds in going to the internship, itās always better to have something to put up on your resume but if you donāt have an internship donāt worry about it. Be happy, learn new courses ultimately what matters most is your knowledge nothing else matters as to what is on your resume or which company you are
from. Nothing matters here, ultimately the way you perform in the matter of the interview so the more knowledge you have, basically you could start preparing for the interviews maybe doing some late code and hacking in addition to that you could also learn some online courses just like the once that I mentioned earlier. Does it answer her question or?
So since the number of students at USC is more compared to other universities obviously you will have a little bit of difficulty with on-campus job especially in the very first semester but if you have good referrals or if you have some seniors working on-campus jobs then, it is easier to get an on-campus job so the referrals play a crucial role in getting an on-campus job here.
Iām not sure about the percentage but to quote my personal experience I didnāt have
any on-campus job in my first semester and to be frank it was a blessing in disguise because the course structure and the learning method was completely different from what I had experienced in India and the courses that I had taken was algorithms and artificial intelligence which are assignment hectic and which have a lot of learning so in a way it was helpful for me for not having an on-campus job but if you want an on-campus job donāt worry about it, you will get it in the second semester
@Akansha_Bansal
yeah I got your question, So if you are joining in spring you will not have an
opportunity to do an internship in the very next summer so you would have to wait one more
year. It has some advantages like you will get extra time for preparation compared to fall
students, but you would have to get an internship next summer for sure otherwise, youād
be applying for full time and usually the opportunities in June are more as compared to the
full-time joining opportunities during Jan or Feb but I have a number of friends who joined in Spring and most of them got an internship in summer, most of them did an internship with me and they got their internship converted to full-time.
So as I told you the full-time opportunities in June are a bit more compared to Jan and Feb but say you get an internship, it should not be a big matter and provided more compared that you get a lot of preparation time compared to fall students. Basically you will have four semesters to prepare for internship: spring, summer and fall basically three and fall students get only one semester for preparation.
Thanks Praveen for the response.
@Archit_Patel1
Yeah so when it comes to the matter of GPA, yes GPA plays a major and a crucial role as I told you, your GPA and your GRE score matters and also sometimes your SOP and the question of someone having 7.5 GPA with a GRE score of 320 I really havenāt come across any student with that profile to answer your profile.
@Nikhil
So for the application part you should start applying as soon as you get in the
University, for the fall students you should start applying by August, August is the best time and September is not late too. I applied by the end of August. Some companies work based on referrals while some companies work based on just applying on their career page, for example, Amazon and Google will give you a call irrespective of whether you are applying through referrals or not. Amazon you will get a number of other seniors who can refer you and Google gives you a call no matter if you have a referral or not. All that matters is whether you can crack their interview or not. Facebook, yes it requires some referral. Also to add one more point there you also need to make sure you have a pretty good resume which makes the reader go through it for two to three minutes at least so for that as soon as you get into the university, talk to your seniors and get contacts and ask them for their opinion and after that go to the career service department in USC only. All the universities will have career service departments so go there, get your resume reviewed and they will tell you the changes that will help you and after that, you can start applying even if you take one week or two weeks doing this, you should immediately start applying after that.
No, there is no difference.
I would like to elaborate a bit more on Nikhilās question he asked, contrary to what happens in India, you donāt have placement offices in universities there. Yes, you will have career fair but itās just like giving your resume and presenting yourself the interviewer to give you a callback just a callback. There wonāt be technical interviews in the university so mostly you will end up applying on the career page of each company so thatās the question, will be there on the career page, yes and internal call or mailing list, mostly no and campus fairs plays some role not a major role mostly your referrals play the most crucial role here.
So USC has a very clear list of all the professors both for masters and undergrad
studies so you would have to go to the list of professors for each course and then decide upon which professor you should be contacting. So USC would have a list of professors that could be taking the course in the next semester and also basically the course and the professor that would be taking the course based on that you could reach out to the professor asking him if you could assist him in the upcoming semester and if you are asking me about really good courses in USC to lookup that we should take up such as algorithms, it is a compulsory course so you would take it for sure and other courses such as operating systems is really one of the top courses in the US and machine learning is also good.
@Akansha_Bansal
So the process of reaching out to the professors is the same irrespective of that professor and I donāt have any personal preference on any of the professors that I reached out to for RA-ship or TA-ship, it was the stride process of going through the professorās list and sending the email, especially since itās about certain professors itās a bit hard for me to answer that.