Applying to PhD and personal tips regarding finding research opportunities

Disclaimer

First, I want to disclaim that this blog is based on my personal opinion. I am a 4-th year PhD of computer science in systems, so you have to factor that in if you are not doing systems research. I have also only served on the PhD application reviewing so just think of my opinion as one of the reviewers. Intro

If you are reading this, I assume at least you are interested in doing a PhD in CS and have some rough idea about doing research and grad school. If you are only seeking research opportunities, you might want to skip to the last section :)

In general, the university/department will require 3 to 4 recommendation letters, a research statement (sometime called statement of purpose or personal statement), a diversity statement (places in California mandate this, so I suggest do this as early as possible), a CV, transcripts, and some questions you have to fill out. I will mostly focus on the research statement and rec letters since doing research is what really grad school is about.

What I want to see in a research statement

Generally speaking, the research statement is the bread and butter of your application. Diversity statement matters to the diversity committee (if they are doing some fellowship for it) and you have to match the qualification (usually means you are first gen PhD applicant from a minority group and a US citizen). The reviewing committee is likely to use the CV to find information (who you worked with and where you worked), and the transcript for GPA of certain courses. I am 99% sure that anyone who reviewed your application have read your research statement --- so please spend enough time on it!

There is probably no template for writing a research statement for PhD application. But you can likely find so many examples online nowadays. If you have read a couple of them (the good ones, I mean), you can see they share the same essence --- you can understand, from a very direct way, why the applicant wants to do a PhD and how he or she has prepared for it.

How to write a bad research statement

1. Write about key things without providing evidence

2. Write about experience that is not really connected to your PhD application

3. Write your statement is a poorly connected way

4. Write your statement is a poorly connected way

5. XXX

How to write a good research statement

Obviously, to write a good research statement you would want to avoid all the bad commandments. Additionaly, here a list of things that can improve you statement.

1. grammer check

2. think more about phd, this is benefitial not only for your statement but also for your thinking about phd

3. there are so many thing reserach papers you have read so far, what inspired you? What do you think are good research? can you show that it is something you want to do? are you excited abiout research

Rec letters

As I said earlier, rec letters and research statement are the most important items in your application. However, you can't really control what people will say in their letters (as these are usually confidential), which is why you really need to spend your time on your research statement --- it is the only part that you have complete control.

Everything else other than your research statement and rec letter

Diversity statement

Tips on seeking research opportunities