A trip back to college and a small vacation

Day 13- Refueled and ready to rock the speedometer needle

Before I start with any of my details over the past few days, let me start by sharing the roadmap right now:

Road-Map 

1. GRE   (done)
2. University Selections  (brainstorming at edulix and with peers and professors on…still to make a final selection of 10 universities where I would like to apply)
3. TOEFL (new item added)
4. SOP (1 small para done..lotss to be done yet)
5. LOR's
6. Transcripts (applied for 1 original at college right…will apply for more as per demand)
7. Financial Documents
8. Visa Interview

I totally forgot to add about the TOEFL bit in my last post. As per my discussions with people who have already taken the exam, it is not all that difficult and scoring above 100 is easily possible with a little amount of practice and preparation. A competitive university would want your score to be above 100 (out of 120) in order to consider your application.

Also, here are the new additions to my time-line.

Timeline

July 18th – Traveled from Delhi to Mumbai. Went to college and applied for transcript- phase 1 

July 19th- Application for transcript- phase 2 (completed). Left for Goa

July 20th-July 22nd- Attended the wedding of a close friend from college and chilled out with college folks.

July 23rd- Back in Mumbai for a couple of hours; then caught a flight back to Delhi on the same day in the afternoon.

This trip did indeed blow off some steam. I had gone with full intentions to forget about application and college admissions for a while (Though at the back of my mind I had all of it running like background processes). Well, the trip was fruitful also for the reason that I was able to apply for my 1st transcript. Then I got to interact and take opinions from a friend who has already completed his masters in US from one of the good universities (Georgia Tech). For periods when I was traveling alone, I had planned on adding bits and parts to my SOP and reading ‘The Gatekeepers’ by Jacques Steinberg to get an idea of the admission processes in universities abroad. Though I was able to flip through a few pages of the book, couldn’t squeeze out anything for the SOP.

Anyways, talks apart, I thought of highlighting two important things in this post:

1. Transcripts
2. TOEFL

Let’s start with the first one. For those of you who are not aware of what transcripts are, here is what you need to know. Transcripts are required to be sent to all universities/colleges where you want to apply. In order to get a ‘transcript’ made, you are supposed to go to the exam section of your college with your original mark-sheets of all semesters and convocation certificate (the convocation certificate is optional I guess). After this, follow these steps (these set of steps are specific to a college in Mumbai university…it can differ slightly for other universities):

• Take the Transcript form from the registrar and fill in the details. It is also possible to wind this step at the comfort of your house by requesting the registrar to email the form to you. You can get a print-out and fill it. It would save time.
• Once the form has been filled, you will need to buy letter heads of your college. One transcript application requires roughly 10 letterheads. So for instance if you are applying to 10 universities, make sure that you have at least 100 letter heads of your college. You might be required to write down a letter to the registrar requesting for the letterheads.
• Next, you are supposed to get a photocopy of your mark-sheets set. (you do not give your originals!)
• Once the letter-heads, form and photocopy is done, arrange it and approach the registrar, who might ask you to fill in a few details at the backside of each photocopy. After that you can submit the form, 1 photocopy set and around 12 letterheads to the registrar in order to receive one original transcript from the college. As per the revised prices, you would be asked for Rs 1000/- for 1 original transcript.

Do apply for only one original transcript first and make sure that it is error-free. After that, you can choose to apply for more depending on your needs in the same manner. Quite a lot of colleges expect you to send across the original transcript in the application stage. Some on the other hand require an original transcript at the time of admissions; before that, an attested true copy of the transcripts from the college would work. I would strongly advise you to keep one original transcript with you at all times. You may choose to send original transcript or true copy in the college application depending on the specification of the university.

Coming on to the second point, TOEFL, this is the second exam that has to be undertaken by a student who does not have English as his first language. The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) gives the college a fair idea about the proficiency of a student at the English language. It involves 4 sections, namely- Speaking, reading, writing, listening; each scored out of 30 marks. The best way to prepare for the test is to give a couple of practice tests initially to gauge the level of preparation. After that a student can prepare accordingly, working selectively on sections which require more attention. On an average, a 7-10 day preparation is considered adequate in order to score above 100. I intend to take mine by 10th August mostly. Also you can start off by going through the official guide for TOEFL by ETS.

I have been reading through quite a few online resources which provide info on the GRE, TOEFL and SOPs/LORs. One place that I would definitely recommend checking out is HappySchoolBlogs. I have subscribed to it and keep getting links to articles which are very informative in nature. I was searching for some feed on TOEFL, when I happened to find the following page on HappySchoolsBlog:

http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/toefl-test-experience

This contains links to pages, which contain answers to a lot many questions which were hovering in my head. TOEFL takers I would highly recommend you to check this out. Also do checkout forums on Edulix. Indeed you will have to search a lot, but you would surely find pertinent stuff if you put in efforts.

Please let me know in case if you do have any doubts/questions. In case you feel that you want information on some other related areas, please do bring it to my notice. I will definitely try and provide you info to the best of my knowledge and on the basis of current trends. 

Feel free to leave your suggestions, comments here.

A brief overview and Status Check

Day 1- (Monthstone reading: 12 months)

I embarked on the journey to higher education quite some time back now, but my journey officially commences from today, on this blog here. For the clueless, this is the highway to education, and I am standing right next to the "monthstone" which reads '12 months'. Most of  the times the person on the driving seat is pretty clueless once he lands on this highway. Believe me you have no idea about how many people are out there, waiting to spot you and grip you with their claws, claiming that they would guide you to your dreams. So that's why this blog. This is where I honestly describe my journey as I drive on this road in order to pursue higher education. Ohh!! We didn't get formally introduced, did we?

So this is my story. I am a 25 year-old from India; an IT engineer by education, a music-lover and a photography enthusiast who wants to pursue his Master's in the field of 'Computer Science' (breaking it further- want to pursue the subjects  in 'image processing', 'information security', 'photography', 'computational photography' and 'Global Music') and pursue my Phd post that to study the security aspects in Computational photography. After having worked with a reputed IT firm for 3.5 years, I realized that the time was ripe to get my higher degree. I left my job in Chandigarh and came back to stay with my parent's in New Delhi. The weekend I reached Delhi, I had my GRE scheduled. Luckily I cracked the exam with a score of 325/340 and an AWA score of 5.0/6. Good start I thought, but trust me right now GRE score seems to be just equivalent to the amount of fuel that one has in their tank while on this highway. So suppose if your vehicle does not give a good average, you might just run out of fuel before you reach your destination. Anyways, there are a lot many parameters that seem to decide how feasibly you would be able to manage to the college of your choice. So for the past few weeks, I have been exploring these parameters. I have been visiting college websites, reading about professors I would really want to emulate and writing to them, shortlisting universities of my choice and taking counsel from the people who have already been through this phase and occasionally penning down a few words on my SOP. One more important thing happened in this duration. I was looking for internship opportunities with companies dealing with image processing, when I came across a start-up 'Uber-Labs' right here in Noida. I wrote to the guys and had an interview with them. These guys are really working with the cutting-edge algorithms in 'Feature-detection' and I totally could relate with the work. Being low on the technical know-how, I started reading books and material on image-processing alongside my regular rounds of university searching. Still there on the reading phase though, I intend to go full-throttle on this internship opportunity by October (till then I intend to wind up the application process, TOEFL...then September would also pass by in a jiffy, as my sister would get married in that month).

Just to give you a clear picture, let me share a rough timeline of events and a roadmap with you:

Timeline

May 14th- Left job atInfosys

May 25th- Back to Delhi

May 28th- GRE

June - Visiting University websites, shortlisting, talking to and writing to people and profs with my set of queries

July (up till now)- shortlisting to around 15 universities, brainstorming session with 'BrainGain Mag' team, finding about SOP, writing to admissions council, professors and students from universities.

Road-Map

GRE   (done)

University Selections  (in progress)

SOP 

LOR's 

Transcripts 

Financial Documents

Visa Interview

The road to education in India is relatively simple. You look around, see what the topper's in your class are pursuing from the very beginning and stick with trying your hand at that. So there is a bottle-neck situation which happens for the coveted fields of science, and then engineering and then, to quite an extent, management. Please do not misinterpret me if you are one who has been on this route, I only mean to share a picture with you that I see. I believe when it comes to making a choice on something that one is truly interested in, we start to weigh the consequences of our choice; something which is more to do with our conditioning since childhood. This makes it really difficult to be on the road solely meant for 'you'. I faced this predicament when I was working and it took a lot of effort to leave a comfortable good-paying job to opt for my dreams. This also meant letting go of a lot of things. I learnt that you would need to let go off a few things before you prepare to take more in your plate. However, despite the if's, but's and maybe's, the words from one of my favs ring inside "Here I am, on the road again"

Alright..enough said! I can go on endlessly about it so I better  hit the brakes for now. Hope I could give you a rough picture of how things are now from where I look.

Lot of things to come still. I would keep writing as I progress on this road. There won't be daily posts, but there would be posts coming in around every 2-4 weeks. I promise. People who have already been through this phase, please do share your insights and the things to watch out for and take care of to make sure one reaches their destination. Also, do give in helpful inputs which can guide a traveler on the highway. Others, keep reading and provide inputs; Also feel free to discuss and ask questions. I would also share information specifically related to the fields of image processing and computational photography .