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I'm writing this on the eve of the date that Stanford has traditionally notified applicants about their admissions decisions for the Master of Science in computer science course. I'm expecting to get rejected again this year - this is the second time I've applied for the program. However, what I thought might be interesting is to shed some light on what kind of candidate you have to be to get into this program. The obvious caveat being that I haven't navigated the process successfully - so this might not be accurate. Additionally, this is an external view of the process - so it's likely to be misinformed.
What value I can add though, is that I've read through a considerable number of profiles from applicants who have successfully been admitted to Stanford. I've also been in touch with several of these and learnt more about their background. I've applied twice and I've read just about everything that there could possibly be online about the process, and several actual books too. For a lot of the last year, it's all that's been on my mind (unhealthy, and unfortunate for my friends and family). I've also been in touch with a family friend who is a professor of a computer science graduate program at a state university. This advice will apply to many other graduate schools too - I picked Stanford since it's the only one of the big four that has an established and popular general computer science Master's program. (Carnegie Mellon started theirs only a couple of years ago, and Berkeley only offers a Master's of Engineering program. MIT only admits applicants with a PhD as their degree objective.)
This post isn't mean to put you off applying to Stanford - but it's mean to bring you down to the ground and help you understand the harsh and competitive reality of applying to the number 1 US Master's program in computer science so that you can make an informed decision about whether you want to spend your $125 there (and many hours of your time applying).
The first thing to note is that there are about 700 applications for approximately 120 offers (extrapolating based on data available here). Nearly everyone who gets an offer takes it. Rather than taking this as 6 people for every place, think about it as there being 580 other applicants who you must be better than in order to get admitted. This figure includes HCP applicants who, more often than not, will have taken NDO classes (see the next section) and hence will have a slight advantage over external applicants.
While this pool of applicants is reasonably self selecting (i.e. most will be incredibly competitive) - there do seem to be a large number of unqualified people who apply simply on the back of the Stanford name. This undoubtedly makes the admissions committee's job much harder and increases the chance of your application being a false negative - i.e. rejected despite being perfectly well qualified.
This is how I imagine the committee's evaluation process to be, based on what I've read around the interweb (and on this paper).
Firstly, applications are pre-screened for those that don't meet a minimum GRE and GPA threshold (see the next two sections).
Secondly, some (but not all) of the committee will look at each application and assign it a score. These scores are normalised between members so that the distribution of scores are roughly equivalent. These scores are then summed to give an overall score for the applicant. Based on specific thresholds, applications are either accepted or rejected. This threshold is different for different applications - it is higher to external applicants than for internal applicants who have previously studied at Stanford. For the Stanford MS CS program, HCP applicants (their part time option for people who work in the Bay Area) are considered together with full time applicants. Since their primary goal is to evaluate how well you'll do at Stanford level coursework, having taken NDO (non-degree option) classes and having scored well in them suggests you will cope and hence there is a lower threshold for these applicants. See this ancient email for more information.
An easy way to get ahead in the Stanford applications game is to take a handful of NDO classes online and do well in them. These are not cheap however, especially compared to the plethora of free MOOCs available online.
Stanford themselves state on their FAQ page that a strong application would include GRE scores in the 90th percentile. The first time I applied, my scores were in the 89th and 84th percentile - high but not high enough. Unless every other aspect of your application is stellar, I wouldn't bother applying with scores that aren't in the 90th percentile (a fact that I realised after my first rejection). This isn't an impossible score to achieve - it just requires a month or more of reasonable studying. Doing well on the GRE is all about practice - and if you're unable to do well on the GRE after a significant amount of practice, then perhaps graduate school isn't for you. Before applying for the second time, I studied a little harder and was able to bump my scores up to the 93rd and 96th percentile without much difficulty.
The successful applicants I've seen generally have a stellar GPA (there are exceptions of course, but I'll talk about that in a moment). Successful US applicants seem to mainly have GPAs greater than 3.6 / 4.0. International applicants tend to be in the top segment of their class. Be wary if you're an international student at a university like Oxford or Cambridge - your 1st class 70% mark in your papers will translate badly (even though the admissions committee are aware of the different grading scales) - a 70% in an American university translates, I'm told, to a C grade. This does not reflect well at all. Another caveat (which I failed at foreseeing) was that Stanford's FAQ page suggests putting in the minimum required GPA if your undergraduate university doesn't provide one. I left this blank which defaults to 0.0. If any sort of harsh automated filter is used - my application will probably go straight to the rejection pile.
A note on automated filters - from what I've read (and it's not clear whether Stanford has implemented these in their admissions workflow and in what form), filters will only discard your application if you fail on both the minimum required GPA and any minimum required GRE. Harsh but an easy way for the admissions committee to focus on the known top applicants. Yes, it's unfair - as we all know, many academically challenged applicants struggled at university and they've gone on to make millions or do world changing deeds - but computer science graduate schools can afford to be this selective.
There are just so many applicants that they don't need to take bets - they just want people who they know will cope with their courses, and so they use past performance as an indicator of future performance. Some universities are harsher than this than others - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is notorious for wanting incoming students to have a near 4.0 GPA, even for their professional MCS program. Of course this puts applicants from highly competitive universities at a disadvantage - while I struggled to maintain high exam marks at Cambridge, I could have studied at other universities where examinations aren't graded on a curve and done extremely well.
Additionally, note that university ranking has much less of an effect than you might hope. It matters less where you went than how well you did there. They won't take a mediocre applicant from a top 10 university over a great applicant from a top 50 university - all other things being equal.
Additionally, you may think - it's OK, I didn't do so well during my time at university but I have great extra-curriculars! That's perfect - if you're applying for an MBA program. I cycled for Cambridge University and across a frickin' continent - that's great, but Stanford probably doesn't really care. Sure, you may have made it to Everest Base Camp or the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro - but that has little bearing on how well you're going to do in their graduate level courses (although it will stead you well in all those future walking meetings that technology companies are beginning to love).
What Stanford and other top computer science graduate schools want to see, however, is that you are a great computer scientist. For instance - you've started technology companies in your spare time (which might explain low grades) or you're a programming competition fanatic. If you're going for a PhD program, they want to see that you're a good researcher - so you need to have published at least some good quality research. There's a certain irony in the fact that you need to have research experience in order to gain admission to a course where you effectively learn how to research but that's the changing shape of the world these days.
Research experience is extremely beneficial although not mandatory. Academics live mainly to publish papers, at least it seems that way in the US. If you've written a paper, you're effectively speaking their language. It's incredibly hard to publish a paper when you're not at university (unless you're lucky to be in a situation where you can do so through) - and still very hard to do so while an undergraduate student. It helps a lot though.
Another large pit ripe for falling into, especially applicable to international students - is that letters of recommendation are preferably written by a professor who knows you well. Admissions committees view the source of the letters in this order: professor they know > professor they don't know > general academic (lecturer, etc.) > graduate student > line manager > colleague. This is because a professor's academic reputation is at stake when they write a letter of recommendation - so logic dictates they are more likely to be honest. They also have a better understanding of what skills are required at graduate school.
This is incredibly difficult - at most British universities, lecturers have a hands off approach to teaching outside of lectures themselves. I know just a single professor well enough from Cambridge - who was an unreliable letter writer at best and a disastrous letter writer at worst (in the last application round he spent a total of 17 minutes on one of my letters). My strategy has been to solicit strong letters from less prestigious non-academic letter writers who know me well - such as my current and previous manager, both of whom had good things to say about me. I figure a very strong letter from someone less well known is better than a nondescript letter from a professor who barely knew you.
American letter writers are much more effusive in how they write about candidates - be aware of this when you brief your letter writers. For example, everything 'good' should be 'great' and so on. Furthermore, brief them on the sort of content that they might want to include - on the basis that the admissions committee want to know how well you will do at graduate school.
The categories I asked my writers to mention were:
Additionally, if you have a low GPA - or some overt blip in your performance, it's very helpful to get a letter writer who knew at the time to acknowledge it.
The problem with my statement of purpose essay and those written by most other applicants is that it's less of a statement of purpose and more of a resume in prose form.
What I'm going to say next is painfully obvious, yet is something that nearly all of us mess up. Make your statement of purpose an actual statement of purpose! You need to say what you actually plan to do - why you applied, what you plan to do while enrolled (what courses? what research aims?) and what you plan to do after graduating.
You should aim to specialise each essay as much as possible (and SRSLY, if you copy and paste, make sure you check for errors). This means mentioning courses that you would like to study, professors that you would like to study or research with and why that particular program is perfect for you.
Start this early - the process of writing the essay may help you realise that you actually probably don't want to study there so much. This is helpful because it means you'll either save yourself the application fee or it will sting slightly less when/if you get rejected. Additionally, it's one of the few aspects of the application that is totally in your control so only a fool wouldn't make full use of this advantage.
One final tip - think of your essay as being similar to a cover letter. Instead of saying why you want a particular job and using examples from your resume to back it up, you're saying why you should be admitted to particular program and backing it up with examples from your life.
Try not to fixate too much on the US News graduate school rankings. It's not a bad place to start - but you need to actually look at the programs and departments in depth before applying. I see so many applicants who blindly pick the top 10 and apply to these - this is a recipe for failure. Look at the credits required for graduation and try to compose an actual program of courses for yourself (as best you can). I tried this with several universities and realised that actually they didn't offer anything I wanted to study.
A note on professional programs versus academic programs. Professional programs are definitely easier to get admission into than academic programs. Academic Master's are used by students with average to good profiles to get valuable (research) experience and brush up their GPA before applying for a PhD program. Generally admissions committees for top departments seem to only accept applicants with a PhD (or a career in academia) as their career objective to academic Master's programs - unless you have a particularly strong background or there is an otherwise compelling reason to admit you. I fell into this trap this year - and was quickly rejected by many of the academic programs I had applied to.
If you're going for a Master's program and you can't afford to - then reconsider strongly whether it's worth applying to many of the top programs. As I said, they are so oversubscribed that they don't need to offer financial aid to attract students and nearly always won't. Those that do, for example the University of Wisconsin at Madison - are considerably more oversubscribed. Last year they received 1220 applicants for both PhD and Master's programs - and fill fewer places than Stanford (about 70 Master's students graduate per year).
In order to stress the point about over-subscription - it will be extremely difficult to get a reply from the admissions office for many of the top universities during application season. They will not pick up the phone or reply to emails. You will have more luck outside of September to April, but they're still likely to be very brusque. If you're applying for a professional program, you'll have a better chance of talking to someone - since these programs are more profitable for the university and therefore they provide better support for applicants. If you get rejected from a top university, don't expect any feedback - and don't expect them to provide much in the way of useful advice if you do manage to talk to someone. Your best bet is one of the many graduate forums (see the resources section at the end of this post).
When it comes to decisions, universities send out their decisions at a similar date yearly. You should be aware that often universities will send out all of their acceptances first and often wait for up to six weeks before sending out rejections. This gives them the flexibility to offer any quickly rejected offers to other applicants - although this is rare, since most applicants will sit on offers until they all come in. If you see a rash of acceptances on one of the decisions trackers online and you haven't heard anything within a day or two - assume you've been rejected, it's better for your sanity. Some universities (such as UT Austin) are particularly evil - and don't send out rejections at all.
Finally, it's worth saying that you should consider what area you want to study carefully. I want to study artificial intelligence and I've always wanted to study this. There were a couple of courses taught at Cambridge but I didn't get to immerse myself in the way that I hoped and time constraints made it very difficult to devote enough attention to them. That said, my employment experience and extra-curriculars are unrelated to the field. This loops back to what I said earlier - in order to gain admission for a course to learn about AI (or any other specialization) - they want to see experience in AI. This matters less so for general computer science courses but if you're applying to say CMU's Robotics Institute (as I did) - you haven't got a chance without relevant experience.
Additionally, some areas are vastly more popular than others. I'd assume that admissions committees want to balance their classes as much as possible, so if you apply for AI/Machine Learning/Robotics or some similarly oversubscribed area - BE WARY! Competition within that area will be tougher (on an absolute numbers basis). Bear in mind that you can always choose courses from a different specialisation to the one you apply for.
To conclude - I apologise if I sound overly cynical - I just want to be realistic about your chances (and mine!). With the economy pushing graduates onto higher education across all subjects and the considerable salary differential (or, the perception of one) between technology jobs in the United States and elsewhere, there are more applicants than ever before. It's even harder if you're an international applicant as most of us are. There's some great advice on the internet but much of it was written a few years ago, and as any good technologist knows, things change so very quickly.
Good luck with your application, I wish you all the best. If you have any questions or feedback, please message me on The Grad Cafe. I can't promise to reply but I will try.
I've also written about the economics of getting a Master's degree here, as well as about adequate preparation for incoming robotics Master's students. Finally, another post about employability with a Master of Engineering degree.
This post is published under the Creative Commmons BY-NC-SA license. Please feel free to share it along with with a link back to this page.
On Google+ here.
What value I can add though, is that I've read through a considerable number of profiles from applicants who have successfully been admitted to Stanford. I've also been in touch with several of these and learnt more about their background. I've applied twice and I've read just about everything that there could possibly be online about the process, and several actual books too. For a lot of the last year, it's all that's been on my mind (unhealthy, and unfortunate for my friends and family). I've also been in touch with a family friend who is a professor of a computer science graduate program at a state university. This advice will apply to many other graduate schools too - I picked Stanford since it's the only one of the big four that has an established and popular general computer science Master's program. (Carnegie Mellon started theirs only a couple of years ago, and Berkeley only offers a Master's of Engineering program. MIT only admits applicants with a PhD as their degree objective.)
This post isn't mean to put you off applying to Stanford - but it's mean to bring you down to the ground and help you understand the harsh and competitive reality of applying to the number 1 US Master's program in computer science so that you can make an informed decision about whether you want to spend your $125 there (and many hours of your time applying).
The Competition
The first thing to note is that there are about 700 applications for approximately 120 offers (extrapolating based on data available here). Nearly everyone who gets an offer takes it. Rather than taking this as 6 people for every place, think about it as there being 580 other applicants who you must be better than in order to get admitted. This figure includes HCP applicants who, more often than not, will have taken NDO classes (see the next section) and hence will have a slight advantage over external applicants.
While this pool of applicants is reasonably self selecting (i.e. most will be incredibly competitive) - there do seem to be a large number of unqualified people who apply simply on the back of the Stanford name. This undoubtedly makes the admissions committee's job much harder and increases the chance of your application being a false negative - i.e. rejected despite being perfectly well qualified.
The Process
This is how I imagine the committee's evaluation process to be, based on what I've read around the interweb (and on this paper).
Firstly, applications are pre-screened for those that don't meet a minimum GRE and GPA threshold (see the next two sections).
Secondly, some (but not all) of the committee will look at each application and assign it a score. These scores are normalised between members so that the distribution of scores are roughly equivalent. These scores are then summed to give an overall score for the applicant. Based on specific thresholds, applications are either accepted or rejected. This threshold is different for different applications - it is higher to external applicants than for internal applicants who have previously studied at Stanford. For the Stanford MS CS program, HCP applicants (their part time option for people who work in the Bay Area) are considered together with full time applicants. Since their primary goal is to evaluate how well you'll do at Stanford level coursework, having taken NDO (non-degree option) classes and having scored well in them suggests you will cope and hence there is a lower threshold for these applicants. See this ancient email for more information.
An easy way to get ahead in the Stanford applications game is to take a handful of NDO classes online and do well in them. These are not cheap however, especially compared to the plethora of free MOOCs available online.
GRE
Stanford themselves state on their FAQ page that a strong application would include GRE scores in the 90th percentile. The first time I applied, my scores were in the 89th and 84th percentile - high but not high enough. Unless every other aspect of your application is stellar, I wouldn't bother applying with scores that aren't in the 90th percentile (a fact that I realised after my first rejection). This isn't an impossible score to achieve - it just requires a month or more of reasonable studying. Doing well on the GRE is all about practice - and if you're unable to do well on the GRE after a significant amount of practice, then perhaps graduate school isn't for you. Before applying for the second time, I studied a little harder and was able to bump my scores up to the 93rd and 96th percentile without much difficulty.
Grade Point Average
The successful applicants I've seen generally have a stellar GPA (there are exceptions of course, but I'll talk about that in a moment). Successful US applicants seem to mainly have GPAs greater than 3.6 / 4.0. International applicants tend to be in the top segment of their class. Be wary if you're an international student at a university like Oxford or Cambridge - your 1st class 70% mark in your papers will translate badly (even though the admissions committee are aware of the different grading scales) - a 70% in an American university translates, I'm told, to a C grade. This does not reflect well at all. Another caveat (which I failed at foreseeing) was that Stanford's FAQ page suggests putting in the minimum required GPA if your undergraduate university doesn't provide one. I left this blank which defaults to 0.0. If any sort of harsh automated filter is used - my application will probably go straight to the rejection pile.
A note on automated filters - from what I've read (and it's not clear whether Stanford has implemented these in their admissions workflow and in what form), filters will only discard your application if you fail on both the minimum required GPA and any minimum required GRE. Harsh but an easy way for the admissions committee to focus on the known top applicants. Yes, it's unfair - as we all know, many academically challenged applicants struggled at university and they've gone on to make millions or do world changing deeds - but computer science graduate schools can afford to be this selective.
There are just so many applicants that they don't need to take bets - they just want people who they know will cope with their courses, and so they use past performance as an indicator of future performance. Some universities are harsher than this than others - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is notorious for wanting incoming students to have a near 4.0 GPA, even for their professional MCS program. Of course this puts applicants from highly competitive universities at a disadvantage - while I struggled to maintain high exam marks at Cambridge, I could have studied at other universities where examinations aren't graded on a curve and done extremely well.
Additionally, note that university ranking has much less of an effect than you might hope. It matters less where you went than how well you did there. They won't take a mediocre applicant from a top 10 university over a great applicant from a top 50 university - all other things being equal.
Extra-Curricular
Additionally, you may think - it's OK, I didn't do so well during my time at university but I have great extra-curriculars! That's perfect - if you're applying for an MBA program. I cycled for Cambridge University and across a frickin' continent - that's great, but Stanford probably doesn't really care. Sure, you may have made it to Everest Base Camp or the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro - but that has little bearing on how well you're going to do in their graduate level courses (although it will stead you well in all those future walking meetings that technology companies are beginning to love).
What Stanford and other top computer science graduate schools want to see, however, is that you are a great computer scientist. For instance - you've started technology companies in your spare time (which might explain low grades) or you're a programming competition fanatic. If you're going for a PhD program, they want to see that you're a good researcher - so you need to have published at least some good quality research. There's a certain irony in the fact that you need to have research experience in order to gain admission to a course where you effectively learn how to research but that's the changing shape of the world these days.
Research experience is extremely beneficial although not mandatory. Academics live mainly to publish papers, at least it seems that way in the US. If you've written a paper, you're effectively speaking their language. It's incredibly hard to publish a paper when you're not at university (unless you're lucky to be in a situation where you can do so through) - and still very hard to do so while an undergraduate student. It helps a lot though.
Letters of Recommendation
Another large pit ripe for falling into, especially applicable to international students - is that letters of recommendation are preferably written by a professor who knows you well. Admissions committees view the source of the letters in this order: professor they know > professor they don't know > general academic (lecturer, etc.) > graduate student > line manager > colleague. This is because a professor's academic reputation is at stake when they write a letter of recommendation - so logic dictates they are more likely to be honest. They also have a better understanding of what skills are required at graduate school.
This is incredibly difficult - at most British universities, lecturers have a hands off approach to teaching outside of lectures themselves. I know just a single professor well enough from Cambridge - who was an unreliable letter writer at best and a disastrous letter writer at worst (in the last application round he spent a total of 17 minutes on one of my letters). My strategy has been to solicit strong letters from less prestigious non-academic letter writers who know me well - such as my current and previous manager, both of whom had good things to say about me. I figure a very strong letter from someone less well known is better than a nondescript letter from a professor who barely knew you.
American letter writers are much more effusive in how they write about candidates - be aware of this when you brief your letter writers. For example, everything 'good' should be 'great' and so on. Furthermore, brief them on the sort of content that they might want to include - on the basis that the admissions committee want to know how well you will do at graduate school.
The categories I asked my writers to mention were:
- Research ability / ability to succeed at graduate level
- Comparison against peers of a similar experience level
- Hard examples of projects I've done (well)
- Leadership skills, passion, work habits, character, social skills, writing skills, presentation skills and other accomplishments
Additionally, if you have a low GPA - or some overt blip in your performance, it's very helpful to get a letter writer who knew at the time to acknowledge it.
Statement of Purpose
The problem with my statement of purpose essay and those written by most other applicants is that it's less of a statement of purpose and more of a resume in prose form.
What I'm going to say next is painfully obvious, yet is something that nearly all of us mess up. Make your statement of purpose an actual statement of purpose! You need to say what you actually plan to do - why you applied, what you plan to do while enrolled (what courses? what research aims?) and what you plan to do after graduating.
You should aim to specialise each essay as much as possible (and SRSLY, if you copy and paste, make sure you check for errors). This means mentioning courses that you would like to study, professors that you would like to study or research with and why that particular program is perfect for you.
Start this early - the process of writing the essay may help you realise that you actually probably don't want to study there so much. This is helpful because it means you'll either save yourself the application fee or it will sting slightly less when/if you get rejected. Additionally, it's one of the few aspects of the application that is totally in your control so only a fool wouldn't make full use of this advantage.
One final tip - think of your essay as being similar to a cover letter. Instead of saying why you want a particular job and using examples from your resume to back it up, you're saying why you should be admitted to particular program and backing it up with examples from your life.
Rankings
Try not to fixate too much on the US News graduate school rankings. It's not a bad place to start - but you need to actually look at the programs and departments in depth before applying. I see so many applicants who blindly pick the top 10 and apply to these - this is a recipe for failure. Look at the credits required for graduation and try to compose an actual program of courses for yourself (as best you can). I tried this with several universities and realised that actually they didn't offer anything I wanted to study.
Professional versus Academic Programs
A note on professional programs versus academic programs. Professional programs are definitely easier to get admission into than academic programs. Academic Master's are used by students with average to good profiles to get valuable (research) experience and brush up their GPA before applying for a PhD program. Generally admissions committees for top departments seem to only accept applicants with a PhD (or a career in academia) as their career objective to academic Master's programs - unless you have a particularly strong background or there is an otherwise compelling reason to admit you. I fell into this trap this year - and was quickly rejected by many of the academic programs I had applied to.
Finances
If you're going for a Master's program and you can't afford to - then reconsider strongly whether it's worth applying to many of the top programs. As I said, they are so oversubscribed that they don't need to offer financial aid to attract students and nearly always won't. Those that do, for example the University of Wisconsin at Madison - are considerably more oversubscribed. Last year they received 1220 applicants for both PhD and Master's programs - and fill fewer places than Stanford (about 70 Master's students graduate per year).
Contacting Graduate Schools
In order to stress the point about over-subscription - it will be extremely difficult to get a reply from the admissions office for many of the top universities during application season. They will not pick up the phone or reply to emails. You will have more luck outside of September to April, but they're still likely to be very brusque. If you're applying for a professional program, you'll have a better chance of talking to someone - since these programs are more profitable for the university and therefore they provide better support for applicants. If you get rejected from a top university, don't expect any feedback - and don't expect them to provide much in the way of useful advice if you do manage to talk to someone. Your best bet is one of the many graduate forums (see the resources section at the end of this post).
Decisions
When it comes to decisions, universities send out their decisions at a similar date yearly. You should be aware that often universities will send out all of their acceptances first and often wait for up to six weeks before sending out rejections. This gives them the flexibility to offer any quickly rejected offers to other applicants - although this is rare, since most applicants will sit on offers until they all come in. If you see a rash of acceptances on one of the decisions trackers online and you haven't heard anything within a day or two - assume you've been rejected, it's better for your sanity. Some universities (such as UT Austin) are particularly evil - and don't send out rejections at all.
Area of Concentration
Finally, it's worth saying that you should consider what area you want to study carefully. I want to study artificial intelligence and I've always wanted to study this. There were a couple of courses taught at Cambridge but I didn't get to immerse myself in the way that I hoped and time constraints made it very difficult to devote enough attention to them. That said, my employment experience and extra-curriculars are unrelated to the field. This loops back to what I said earlier - in order to gain admission for a course to learn about AI (or any other specialization) - they want to see experience in AI. This matters less so for general computer science courses but if you're applying to say CMU's Robotics Institute (as I did) - you haven't got a chance without relevant experience.
Additionally, some areas are vastly more popular than others. I'd assume that admissions committees want to balance their classes as much as possible, so if you apply for AI/Machine Learning/Robotics or some similarly oversubscribed area - BE WARY! Competition within that area will be tougher (on an absolute numbers basis). Bear in mind that you can always choose courses from a different specialisation to the one you apply for.
Conclusion
To conclude - I apologise if I sound overly cynical - I just want to be realistic about your chances (and mine!). With the economy pushing graduates onto higher education across all subjects and the considerable salary differential (or, the perception of one) between technology jobs in the United States and elsewhere, there are more applicants than ever before. It's even harder if you're an international applicant as most of us are. There's some great advice on the internet but much of it was written a few years ago, and as any good technologist knows, things change so very quickly.
Good luck with your application, I wish you all the best. If you have any questions or feedback, please message me on The Grad Cafe. I can't promise to reply but I will try.
I've also written about the economics of getting a Master's degree here, as well as about adequate preparation for incoming robotics Master's students. Finally, another post about employability with a Master of Engineering degree.
A Note on Copyright
This post is published under the Creative Commmons BY-NC-SA license. Please feel free to share it along with with a link back to this page.
Resources
GRE Preparation
- Nova's GRE Math Prep Course - Full of harder and more comprehensive examples than the official GRE book.
- Essential Words for the GRE - A short book that was very helpful when learning vocabulary.
- GRE The Official Guide to the Revised General Test - The official ETS GRE book. A must have.
- Painless GRE - An Android application that was extremely helpful to brush on vocabulary while commuting to work.
On Letters of Recommendation
- Advice from UW's Michael Ernst
- Advice from Brown's Shriram Krishnamurthi
- A Sample Letter
- Some Advice on About.com
Books
- Graduate Admissions Essays, Fourth Edition - Donald Asher - An extremely well written collection of essays along with analysis.
Forums
- Edulix - Edulix is an Indian graduate programs forum. It has a trove of data through their 'uniSearch' on who's been admitted where. The uniSearch is incredibly clunky but is a valuable resource to see how competitive you might need to be.
- The Grad Cafe - My favourite grad applicants forum. They have a great results tracker and users are very helpful.
Internet
- Graduate Study in the Computer and Mathematical Sciences - A Survival Manual - useful advice on all aspects of graduate life.
- Mike Gleicher's Graduate School FAQ
- HOWTO: Get into grad school for science, engineering, math and computer science
- Advice for researchers and students
- Why Go to Graduate School and How to Get into the Program of your Dreams
- Applying to Graduate School in Computer Science (A U.S. Perspective)
- Jason I. Hong's collection of hyperlinks
- GradDecision - supposedly authored by Stanford's Andrew Ng
- Getting into CS Graduate School in the USA
- Demystifying the American Graduate Admissions Process - a paper written by Karthik Ragunathan, a Master's student from Stanford who was part of their MS admissions committee. Perhaps the most useful single document you will read.
- Ktik's Two Cents - a blog of admissions advice by Karthik
A Collection of Rejection Letters
On Google+ here.
anon wrote at 6:20 pm on Fri 5th Apr -
"if you're unable to do well on the GRE after a significant amount of parctice, then perhaps graduate school isn't for you."
If you're unable to spell properly, then perhaps graduate school isn't for you.
If you're unable to spell properly, then perhaps graduate school isn't for you.
hm wrote at 10:28 pm on Fri 5th Apr -
I would disagree with the statement that "almost everyone who gets an offer takes it." I would assume about 50% (the yield for the PhD program) actually take the offer, with the other 50% going to various programs at MIT, CMU, UCBerkeley, or WashU.
Otherwise, thanks for taking the time to write this all up!
Otherwise, thanks for taking the time to write this all up!
SS wrote at 8:36 pm on Sun 28th Apr -
@anon - thank you for finding that :-).
@hm - that's a fair point. I was considering mainly the Master's program - although I guess with PhD applications funding also comes into consideration - as well as fit. Since Master's students are rarely funded and we have less direct contact with professors, perhaps people are more swayed by the reputation of a department such as Stanford's. Thank you for reading!
@hm - that's a fair point. I was considering mainly the Master's program - although I guess with PhD applications funding also comes into consideration - as well as fit. Since Master's students are rarely funded and we have less direct contact with professors, perhaps people are more swayed by the reputation of a department such as Stanford's. Thank you for reading!
jr wrote at 5:10 am on Fri 9th Aug -
@ano it must have been a typo
@sunil very nice article
@sunil very nice article
jkim wrote at 4:03 am on Wed 14th Aug -
thanks for sharing such valuable information and your experience. I am trying out my luck this year for Stanford this year, and tho i don't know what your current status is, i just wanted to say good luck to you as well!
Dammy wrote at 5:45 pm on Wed 25th Sep -
Helpful, Thanks, got a GPA of 3.49/4 from a non us school. Think i stand a chance?
JoshO wrote at 2:44 am on Sat 2nd Nov -
Thank you, this was very informative. Best of luck with your own application
curious wrote at 2:46 am on Fri 13th Jun -
So did you get admitted or not? Have you been in Stanford's MSCS for almost a year now? Let us know
Anonymous wrote at 2:46 am on Sun 13th Jul -
Did you get accepted? Curious for an update.
dan wrote at 11:32 pm on Thu 20th Nov -
I got 164/170/4.5 on the Verbal/Quant/Writing of the GRE. The V/Q are well above 93/98 percentile, but 4.5 is 80 (while a 5, the next score up, is 93). Do you think they give more weight to the first two scores?
Also, I just graduated and started a job in the Bay Area that will pay for my MS, so I'm seriously considering the HCP. Would your recommendation be to take some NDO classes and kick butt and then apply next year? My undergrad GPA is 3.8 in Computer Engineering.
Thanks!
Also, I just graduated and started a job in the Bay Area that will pay for my MS, so I'm seriously considering the HCP. Would your recommendation be to take some NDO classes and kick butt and then apply next year? My undergrad GPA is 3.8 in Computer Engineering.
Thanks!
Nee wrote at 4:19 pm on Mon 4th May -
I did my uundergrad in India, and I was wondering what you meant by 'minimum required GPA'.
Sid wrote at 11:01 pm on Sun 30th Aug -
Great Info Sir I really appreciate the insight as there's not a lot of postive stuff out there. One question I have for you, would you say an individual who has a good foundation should shoot for graduating with Cum Laude Honors respectively? I know it fluctuates depending on what university a person goes to some lower tier are 3.5 but over all from the more well known colleges it generally 3.75 or even 3.85 at some places. Would you recommend to shoot for cum laude and magna cum laude (for the university's where that equals 3.75)? Thank You
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I'm a little bit terrified of the world at the moment but, at the same, quietly optimistic.
The last eighteen months have been tough, I've been in and out of hospital, personal relationships came to an unfortunate (but, I suppose, inevitable) end and my career plan was derailed (temporarily). The hopelessly ambitious robot who runs my mind decided to take a brief holiday but as my life slowly sorts itself out, has returned to coerce the rest of me into moving forward.
One thing I've really missed, and this seems to happen whenever I'm back in London for any extended period of time - is cycling. Real cycling. A loose definition of real cycling might involve what we did each weekend in Cambridge - pounding the mild inclines and declines of Thetford Forest weekend after weekend in the quest to gain a mild advantage at the next Sports series race. A tighter definition might be something like the Tour D'Afrique. There's nothing quite like cycling over buttery smooth roads in the Sudanese desert, or soaring (metaphorically of course) towards the Tanzanian border over 'rolling' hills.
When I'm sitting in front of two screens with dry eyes, struggling to stave off the boredom of fixing another damned bug created by someone else, I think of these days. Even more at times like this when Doctor's orders are to stay away from my bike and just three years ago I was ploughing on through a corrugated and sandy Sudanese national park.
The fact that I probably couldn't do what I did three years ago now is what scares me. I've just turned 25 - and walking on the ice with my arm in a sling a few weeks ago was a nervewracking experience (and damned painful when I did eventually slip).
Perhaps I'm just getting old and boring.
Still, my knee's better now (I can run without searing pain!) and my shoulder feels better than it has since 2004. I was often scared of mountain biking after past hiatuses - so this should be no different. After watching Premium Rush this evening, I can't wait to get back on my bike. Graduate school applications should hopefully do well - my usual habit of meticulously overanalysing the process is helping - and I'll be starting a new, albeit very different, adventure in six months time.
So bring on May, sunshine and that joyous feeling of rolling freedom.
The last eighteen months have been tough, I've been in and out of hospital, personal relationships came to an unfortunate (but, I suppose, inevitable) end and my career plan was derailed (temporarily). The hopelessly ambitious robot who runs my mind decided to take a brief holiday but as my life slowly sorts itself out, has returned to coerce the rest of me into moving forward.
One thing I've really missed, and this seems to happen whenever I'm back in London for any extended period of time - is cycling. Real cycling. A loose definition of real cycling might involve what we did each weekend in Cambridge - pounding the mild inclines and declines of Thetford Forest weekend after weekend in the quest to gain a mild advantage at the next Sports series race. A tighter definition might be something like the Tour D'Afrique. There's nothing quite like cycling over buttery smooth roads in the Sudanese desert, or soaring (metaphorically of course) towards the Tanzanian border over 'rolling' hills.
When I'm sitting in front of two screens with dry eyes, struggling to stave off the boredom of fixing another damned bug created by someone else, I think of these days. Even more at times like this when Doctor's orders are to stay away from my bike and just three years ago I was ploughing on through a corrugated and sandy Sudanese national park.
The fact that I probably couldn't do what I did three years ago now is what scares me. I've just turned 25 - and walking on the ice with my arm in a sling a few weeks ago was a nervewracking experience (and damned painful when I did eventually slip).
Perhaps I'm just getting old and boring.
Still, my knee's better now (I can run without searing pain!) and my shoulder feels better than it has since 2004. I was often scared of mountain biking after past hiatuses - so this should be no different. After watching Premium Rush this evening, I can't wait to get back on my bike. Graduate school applications should hopefully do well - my usual habit of meticulously overanalysing the process is helping - and I'll be starting a new, albeit very different, adventure in six months time.
So bring on May, sunshine and that joyous feeling of rolling freedom.
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I had to duck out of the way when the barriers started closing.
(View in high res)
(View in high res)
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Over the last two years, I've developed a strong liking for matcha after first discovering it at the Canary Wharf branch of EAT. (In 2011 I set myself the goal of trying every variation of every warm drink in popular London coffee shops.)
Matcha, if you've not heard of it before, is a finely ground green powder made from green tea leaves. In Japan it is something of a delicacy and is normally served as part of an elaborate tea ceremony. In the west, it is commonly mixed with warm milk to produce a 'matcha latte'. It is relatively expensive because production of matcha is very slow, about 30 grams per hour according to Wikipedia.
Matcha varies in quality - the most expensive and highest grades have a much more intense flavour than cheaper variants. I've been experimenting with different sources of matcha, including from eBay (not good), from a variety of shops in San Francisco (very good) and from a variety of shops in London's Chinatown. The best I've found is from the Japan Centre in London.
It can be made into a variety of drinks, I normally either mix it into a protein shake or with milk (and a spoonful of Milo to sweeten slightly). It also makes a great baking ingredient and to date I've made a matcha trifle (rather like tiramisu), matcha, pistachio and white chocolate brownies and matcha rusks.
Fuck Yeah, Matcha! is a particularly favourite Tumblr of mine - they showcase beautiful photos of matcha based food and drink.
Matcha is also great for sufferers of thyroid disease like myself because it has a much lower fluoride content than tea and coffee. It also has a much longer half life - similar to green tea, so there are no unpleasant headaches in store. My favourite description of matcha's effects comes from Breakaway Matcha:
"The caffeine hit of an espresso can be a bit like having an express train screaming through the middle of your body: a deep, powerful, jittery roar. I find the effects of matcha to be just as stimulating but in a more delicate, refined way, as if a thousand butterflies have descended on my body, beating their wings until I'm lifted, gently but resolutely, a few inches off the ground. (Seriously.)"
My latest project has been to try and catalogue all the places that serve matcha in London. The map below is publicly editable - click here to add to it.
View Matcha! in a larger map
Matcha, if you've not heard of it before, is a finely ground green powder made from green tea leaves. In Japan it is something of a delicacy and is normally served as part of an elaborate tea ceremony. In the west, it is commonly mixed with warm milk to produce a 'matcha latte'. It is relatively expensive because production of matcha is very slow, about 30 grams per hour according to Wikipedia.
Matcha varies in quality - the most expensive and highest grades have a much more intense flavour than cheaper variants. I've been experimenting with different sources of matcha, including from eBay (not good), from a variety of shops in San Francisco (very good) and from a variety of shops in London's Chinatown. The best I've found is from the Japan Centre in London.
It can be made into a variety of drinks, I normally either mix it into a protein shake or with milk (and a spoonful of Milo to sweeten slightly). It also makes a great baking ingredient and to date I've made a matcha trifle (rather like tiramisu), matcha, pistachio and white chocolate brownies and matcha rusks.
Fuck Yeah, Matcha! is a particularly favourite Tumblr of mine - they showcase beautiful photos of matcha based food and drink.
Matcha is also great for sufferers of thyroid disease like myself because it has a much lower fluoride content than tea and coffee. It also has a much longer half life - similar to green tea, so there are no unpleasant headaches in store. My favourite description of matcha's effects comes from Breakaway Matcha:
"The caffeine hit of an espresso can be a bit like having an express train screaming through the middle of your body: a deep, powerful, jittery roar. I find the effects of matcha to be just as stimulating but in a more delicate, refined way, as if a thousand butterflies have descended on my body, beating their wings until I'm lifted, gently but resolutely, a few inches off the ground. (Seriously.)"
My latest project has been to try and catalogue all the places that serve matcha in London. The map below is publicly editable - click here to add to it.
View Matcha! in a larger map
Matcha Expert wrote at 7:52 am on Wed 13th Mar -
Thanks for the blog. Amazon also has some great offers on Matcha. One of the best is DOCTOR KING
Finest Ceremonial ORGANIC Japanese Matcha Green Tea (Premium, Top Grade (Grade A), FIRST Harvest
Matcha Superpowered Green Tea). It is only £17.99 for 30g! Currently postage is free! I love this
product. You might want to visit Amazon and check it out.
Finest Ceremonial ORGANIC Japanese Matcha Green Tea (Premium, Top Grade (Grade A), FIRST Harvest
Matcha Superpowered Green Tea). It is only £17.99 for 30g! Currently postage is free! I love this
product. You might want to visit Amazon and check it out.
14:01
After several hours of procrastination, I'm starting out on an adventure, feeling a little tired, very fat and generally not my best. I'm writing a prototype mobile app to gather clinical survey data for a study my uncle will soon be running throughout hospitals in Edinburgh. The first port of call was Trigger.io's Forge tool, which compiles and packages HTML and Javascript to both Android and iOS mobile devices. This doesn't look like it'll be suitable for my needs, so I've registered as an Apple developer. The learning curve looks steep and so far it's taken nearly an hour (and still going) for Xcode to install on my tiny MacBook Air. The mini DisplayPort adaptor that is meant to connect my laptop to my monitor doesn't work, so I've ordered a new one in anticipation of the long hours that I don't want to be spending peering at an 11" screen.
This is an Easter Bank Holiday adventure. Time for some more matcha.
14:28
Xcode installed successfully! I'm running through the beginner's 'Hello World' tutorial. Xcode looks pretty slick but I'm a little terrified at the sight of Objective-C - having mainly programmed in C# and Java since my second year of university...
22:05
Was massively side tracked while going through the 'Hello World' tutorial and ended up catching up on the last but one copy of Wired. Then I went to the gym, came back, ate dinner ad played with my baby cousin for a few hours and watched an episode of Futarama. There's always tomorrow...
After several hours of procrastination, I'm starting out on an adventure, feeling a little tired, very fat and generally not my best. I'm writing a prototype mobile app to gather clinical survey data for a study my uncle will soon be running throughout hospitals in Edinburgh. The first port of call was Trigger.io's Forge tool, which compiles and packages HTML and Javascript to both Android and iOS mobile devices. This doesn't look like it'll be suitable for my needs, so I've registered as an Apple developer. The learning curve looks steep and so far it's taken nearly an hour (and still going) for Xcode to install on my tiny MacBook Air. The mini DisplayPort adaptor that is meant to connect my laptop to my monitor doesn't work, so I've ordered a new one in anticipation of the long hours that I don't want to be spending peering at an 11" screen.
This is an Easter Bank Holiday adventure. Time for some more matcha.
14:28
Xcode installed successfully! I'm running through the beginner's 'Hello World' tutorial. Xcode looks pretty slick but I'm a little terrified at the sight of Objective-C - having mainly programmed in C# and Java since my second year of university...
22:05
Was massively side tracked while going through the 'Hello World' tutorial and ended up catching up on the last but one copy of Wired. Then I went to the gym, came back, ate dinner ad played with my baby cousin for a few hours and watched an episode of Futarama. There's always tomorrow...
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(During the trip, I decided to take a quick survey of all the riders, just after we had left Arusha in Tanzania. This has been sitting on my hard drive since then! It's time to finally use it - this will be a first in a series of posts about the results. 52 riders participated in this survey, out of 69 total riders, a subscription rate of about 75%. I've not discounted sectional riders but there were relatively few of these.)
When starting the Tour D'Afrique, it quickly became clear that I was one of the youngest riders on the trip. The two main logistical barriers to the trip seem to be getting time off from work and financing it. Most young people have plenty of time, either before or after studying and don't have other constraints which tie them to home - such as a family or mortgage. Having enough money to do the trip is pretty difficult though and I worked hard for four summers and had to borrow some money from my parents in order to fund the trip! (Incidentally, the third barrier to joining the TDA is your fitness! Arguably though, this is something that can be fixed with a little dedication and perseverance.)
A few weeks ago, I was catching up with a friend over a drink and he had a dozen questions about the trip and more specifically EFI. This Wikipedia entry details EFI fairly well but I was curious to find out what the breakdown of EFIers was, by age. Brian at Tour D'Afrique very helpfully extracted this data for me and I've combined it with the data from our trip below.
The very first question we asked people was what their age was. I've plotted a histogram of the 52 riders ages on the graph below, bucketed in 5 yearly intervals. The average age of riders on our trip was 35.2 years, of which 28% had a birthday on the trip. (Theoretically this should be 32.9% but it's close enough.)
You'll notice the following-
Using the data that Brian gave, I've plotted a histogram of the 100 EFIers ages on the graph below, again bucketed in 5 yearly intervals.
This is a little different to the 2010 age distribution-
Out of interest, I've plotted the age distribution of EFIers against riders on our tour on the graph below. You should not that this is not statistically sound because the EFI data is taken from ten tours versus just one for the age distribution!
What is interesting is that-
In addition to the aggregate data above, I also have a gender breakdown of both riders from the 2010 trip and of EFIers.
Women appear to be generally underrepresented in both our tour and as a proportion of EFIers as a whole. However, the proportion of EFIers who are women is much less than the proportion of riders on our tour. There's a roughly similar age distribution for EFIers - whether man or woman.
When starting the Tour D'Afrique, it quickly became clear that I was one of the youngest riders on the trip. The two main logistical barriers to the trip seem to be getting time off from work and financing it. Most young people have plenty of time, either before or after studying and don't have other constraints which tie them to home - such as a family or mortgage. Having enough money to do the trip is pretty difficult though and I worked hard for four summers and had to borrow some money from my parents in order to fund the trip! (Incidentally, the third barrier to joining the TDA is your fitness! Arguably though, this is something that can be fixed with a little dedication and perseverance.)
A few weeks ago, I was catching up with a friend over a drink and he had a dozen questions about the trip and more specifically EFI. This Wikipedia entry details EFI fairly well but I was curious to find out what the breakdown of EFIers was, by age. Brian at Tour D'Afrique very helpfully extracted this data for me and I've combined it with the data from our trip below.
The very first question we asked people was what their age was. I've plotted a histogram of the 52 riders ages on the graph below, bucketed in 5 yearly intervals. The average age of riders on our trip was 35.2 years, of which 28% had a birthday on the trip. (Theoretically this should be 32.9% but it's close enough.)
You'll notice the following-
- The bulk of riders are aged between 25 and 45.
- There are a reasonable number of younger riders but far fewer older riders - this is probably indicative of the fitness level required to do the trip.
Using the data that Brian gave, I've plotted a histogram of the 100 EFIers ages on the graph below, again bucketed in 5 yearly intervals.
This is a little different to the 2010 age distribution-
- There is a similar peak between 25 and 45, although here it appears to extend to 50. 40-44 is a little bit of an anomaly. I think this is due to fitness.
- There are no EFIers younger than 22.
Out of interest, I've plotted the age distribution of EFIers against riders on our tour on the graph below. You should not that this is not statistically sound because the EFI data is taken from ten tours versus just one for the age distribution!
What is interesting is that-
- There are proportionally more older EFIers than riders on the 2010 tour.
- Whereas the peak bucket for riders is to be aged between 25-29, the highest proportion of EFIers are aged 35-39.
In addition to the aggregate data above, I also have a gender breakdown of both riders from the 2010 trip and of EFIers.
Women appear to be generally underrepresented in both our tour and as a proportion of EFIers as a whole. However, the proportion of EFIers who are women is much less than the proportion of riders on our tour. There's a roughly similar age distribution for EFIers - whether man or woman.
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Sam wrote at 7:50 pm on Sat 18th Feb -
That's a matter of opinion.
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Leonardo DiCaprio is probably running around these streets somewhere.
(View in high res)
(View in high res)
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...is that I'm able to ride my bike again! I've been for a short ride up and down the street. The bad news is that my knee still hurts like crazy. I'm hoping at least that it's going to heal itself with time because it has got a lot better since that fateful Wednesday morning.
In any case, I think my dreams of running my first marathon next year have probably been dashed, which is a shame. It's definitely still on the list for sometime soon though, should my knee permit.
I returned to work a week and a half ago which was, as many people warned, probably a bit too soon. It was immensely tiring for a week and come 7pm, I'd be pretty much wiped and unable to hold an intelligent conversation. Still, I survived and it let me get out of house! The dizziness has mostly gone away unless I lie on the left side of my head, which is a little worrying.
Anyway, enough medical offloading. I've started planning the replacement to the late Woodrup that was lost in the crash. Since that was pretty much my around town bike, I've decided to replacement it with the quintessential town bike: a fixed gear bike! None of the off the shelf bikes are sufficiently unique for me, so I'm going to be attempting to assemble a new bike from scratch.
This is what I've decided so far-
Frame: On-One Pompino
Fork: Surly Crosscheck (this was the fork I took to Africa)
Hub: Shimano XT Disc Hub
Cog: VeloSolo Disc Cog
As for wheels, that's to be decided but I'm probably going to get something ridiculously bright.
That's it for today, more as I decide it!
In any case, I think my dreams of running my first marathon next year have probably been dashed, which is a shame. It's definitely still on the list for sometime soon though, should my knee permit.
I returned to work a week and a half ago which was, as many people warned, probably a bit too soon. It was immensely tiring for a week and come 7pm, I'd be pretty much wiped and unable to hold an intelligent conversation. Still, I survived and it let me get out of house! The dizziness has mostly gone away unless I lie on the left side of my head, which is a little worrying.
Anyway, enough medical offloading. I've started planning the replacement to the late Woodrup that was lost in the crash. Since that was pretty much my around town bike, I've decided to replacement it with the quintessential town bike: a fixed gear bike! None of the off the shelf bikes are sufficiently unique for me, so I'm going to be attempting to assemble a new bike from scratch.
This is what I've decided so far-
Frame: On-One Pompino
Fork: Surly Crosscheck (this was the fork I took to Africa)
Hub: Shimano XT Disc Hub
Cog: VeloSolo Disc Cog
As for wheels, that's to be decided but I'm probably going to get something ridiculously bright.
That's it for today, more as I decide it!
No comments yet!
I've just arrived at the end of a relatively eventful week! No doubt if you've been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you'll already know what events I'm talking about.
Wednesday morning, running ten minutes late for work (late by my own standards more than actually being late), I was sprinting down St. Albans road between my house and Watford Junction where I park my bike on the way to work. Normally the traffic moves so slowly that it's safe enough without a helmet and it's barely 1.5 miles from door to door. This Wednesday morning however, as I later found out, a bus driver decided to headlight flash a Ford Ka coming the other way who was waiting to turn right. The Ford Ka didn't see me coming up the inside of the bus and took the corner - and the split second following, I have a very distinct memory of embracing the bonnet of the car with a lot of force at about 20 MPH. (If you want to see the actual junction on Streetview, check it out here.)
I don't remember much of what happened shortly afterwards so I'm just going to list what I've pieced together in some sort of approximate order-
1) Very many pedestrians helped me pick myself and my bike up off the road.
2) Several people called ambulances (in fact I think there were three ambulances and two police cars).
3) Supposedly my first reaction (undoubtedly one of shock) was to immediately start sending a message on my phone...
4) I started losing it as soon as I got into the ambulance. I couldn't remember my name, my address or my phone number. I had no idea who the current prime minister was and I thought I was late for school.
5) The ambulance took me to hospital at 9am.
6) Somehow the paramedics managed to call my sister and when I came to at the hospital, my sister and mother were by my side.
7) A CT scan, diagnosed concussion and four stitches later, I was slowly recovering. They kept me for a couple of hours to observe me and sent me on my way home at about 3pm.
(Fans of Geek on a Bicycle will be astounded that my shoulder didn't dislocate. I can reveal that it is a little sore but is very much where it should be!)
There is a picture of a broken me and my broken bicycle here.
As part of standard recovery, I'm housebound for a while - and won't be returning to work until Monday. I'm not supposed to drive for a couple of weeks and no sport for at least that long too. Whilst I can't say that I would have escaped without an injury if I had been wearing a helmet, it would certainly have lessened the impact of the concussion... I'm pretty certain the stitches on my face and general road rash all over my shoulders, arms and legs would still have been there. Lesson learnt though - I will be wearing my helmet forevermore, even if it is a slight inconvenience.
Wednesday morning, running ten minutes late for work (late by my own standards more than actually being late), I was sprinting down St. Albans road between my house and Watford Junction where I park my bike on the way to work. Normally the traffic moves so slowly that it's safe enough without a helmet and it's barely 1.5 miles from door to door. This Wednesday morning however, as I later found out, a bus driver decided to headlight flash a Ford Ka coming the other way who was waiting to turn right. The Ford Ka didn't see me coming up the inside of the bus and took the corner - and the split second following, I have a very distinct memory of embracing the bonnet of the car with a lot of force at about 20 MPH. (If you want to see the actual junction on Streetview, check it out here.)
I don't remember much of what happened shortly afterwards so I'm just going to list what I've pieced together in some sort of approximate order-
1) Very many pedestrians helped me pick myself and my bike up off the road.
2) Several people called ambulances (in fact I think there were three ambulances and two police cars).
3) Supposedly my first reaction (undoubtedly one of shock) was to immediately start sending a message on my phone...
4) I started losing it as soon as I got into the ambulance. I couldn't remember my name, my address or my phone number. I had no idea who the current prime minister was and I thought I was late for school.
5) The ambulance took me to hospital at 9am.
6) Somehow the paramedics managed to call my sister and when I came to at the hospital, my sister and mother were by my side.
7) A CT scan, diagnosed concussion and four stitches later, I was slowly recovering. They kept me for a couple of hours to observe me and sent me on my way home at about 3pm.
(Fans of Geek on a Bicycle will be astounded that my shoulder didn't dislocate. I can reveal that it is a little sore but is very much where it should be!)
There is a picture of a broken me and my broken bicycle here.
As part of standard recovery, I'm housebound for a while - and won't be returning to work until Monday. I'm not supposed to drive for a couple of weeks and no sport for at least that long too. Whilst I can't say that I would have escaped without an injury if I had been wearing a helmet, it would certainly have lessened the impact of the concussion... I'm pretty certain the stitches on my face and general road rash all over my shoulders, arms and legs would still have been there. Lesson learnt though - I will be wearing my helmet forevermore, even if it is a slight inconvenience.
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After four weeks of delays (mainly caused by the range of weather from abysmal to mediocre) and many months of me forgetting to book, I finally managed to capitalise upon an eagerly anticipated birthday present from my other half - a microlight flight experience!
For the last four years at school I was involved in our school's Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the RAF section and as part of that, won a gliding scholarship where we learnt how to fly motorized gliders over a four day course. At the end of it, I successfully soloed the glider. In addition to this, for my sixteenth birthday, I started going for flying lessons and solo-ed a Piper Aviation PA-28. Unfortunately budget constraints prevented me from getting my private's pilot's license but it's definitely on my life 'to-do' list.
These were both completely unlike the experience of flying in a flex-wing microlight. The closest analogy I can think of is that of riding a motorcycle versus riding in a car. One is so completely raw and exposed and the other is relatively comfortable. You sit within three feet of the engine and you can see just about every component of the plane that matters. When you're on the ground, you're barely a couple of feet above the ground and it's very obvious that there's not much separating you from being shredded by the tarmac - no safety net.
I exercised my voucher with microlight school Clearprop at the Blackbushe Airport in Surrey. It took a few attempts to actually get flying - this sort of vehicle is very weather-dependent (and especially wind-dependent).
As for the actual experience, after a short briefing, we took off in what seemed like mere metres. All it took was a gentle push forwards on the bar and we were up in the air. In some sense, the control system, although different from most fixed wing aircraft (no joystick or yoke), is more natural - it's directly connected to the wing. This is called weight-shift because the action of manipulating the centre of gravity shifts the wing itself and this causes you to turn. There is no rudder so yawing is non existent. This makes flying in windy situations difficult.
Turning is much more physical (or feels that way) than most fixed wing aircraft too - requiring you to pull down on one side of the bar. This felt quite unnerving for me too, having dislocated my shoulder several times before - in the brief period between having my hands on my lap and holding the bar, there was a substantial amount of pressure on my arm from the wind. Luckily it stayed in its socket and I managed to approximately steer the aircraft in the right direction.
As for landing, this was a terrifying experience. There's no safety (as psychological as it might be) of having a big shock absorbing undercarriage underneath. As we came down to land, my eyes grew to the size of lightbulbs as we rapidly approached the ground.
An epic experience and one of the best birthday presents I've ever received. I'm definitely considering picking up the lessons again this next year.
Photos on GeekOnABicycle.
For the last four years at school I was involved in our school's Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the RAF section and as part of that, won a gliding scholarship where we learnt how to fly motorized gliders over a four day course. At the end of it, I successfully soloed the glider. In addition to this, for my sixteenth birthday, I started going for flying lessons and solo-ed a Piper Aviation PA-28. Unfortunately budget constraints prevented me from getting my private's pilot's license but it's definitely on my life 'to-do' list.
These were both completely unlike the experience of flying in a flex-wing microlight. The closest analogy I can think of is that of riding a motorcycle versus riding in a car. One is so completely raw and exposed and the other is relatively comfortable. You sit within three feet of the engine and you can see just about every component of the plane that matters. When you're on the ground, you're barely a couple of feet above the ground and it's very obvious that there's not much separating you from being shredded by the tarmac - no safety net.
I exercised my voucher with microlight school Clearprop at the Blackbushe Airport in Surrey. It took a few attempts to actually get flying - this sort of vehicle is very weather-dependent (and especially wind-dependent).
As for the actual experience, after a short briefing, we took off in what seemed like mere metres. All it took was a gentle push forwards on the bar and we were up in the air. In some sense, the control system, although different from most fixed wing aircraft (no joystick or yoke), is more natural - it's directly connected to the wing. This is called weight-shift because the action of manipulating the centre of gravity shifts the wing itself and this causes you to turn. There is no rudder so yawing is non existent. This makes flying in windy situations difficult.
Turning is much more physical (or feels that way) than most fixed wing aircraft too - requiring you to pull down on one side of the bar. This felt quite unnerving for me too, having dislocated my shoulder several times before - in the brief period between having my hands on my lap and holding the bar, there was a substantial amount of pressure on my arm from the wind. Luckily it stayed in its socket and I managed to approximately steer the aircraft in the right direction.
As for landing, this was a terrifying experience. There's no safety (as psychological as it might be) of having a big shock absorbing undercarriage underneath. As we came down to land, my eyes grew to the size of lightbulbs as we rapidly approached the ground.
An epic experience and one of the best birthday presents I've ever received. I'm definitely considering picking up the lessons again this next year.
Photos on GeekOnABicycle.
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So after a (very) long hiatus, I decided to cycle into work again on Monday, cycling from Watford to Old Street. This is not an inconsiderable distance but compared to my summer internship commute to Canary Wharf from Watford (26 miles each way), it's easier at just 21 miles. Sunday evening was, as always, a series of minor and major procrastinations where, although I was meant to be getting my bike ready for the journey in, I decided to go visit friends, listen to music, watch television and tidy my room.
Waking up bleary eyed on Monday morning, I somehow convinced myself that today was going to be the day I cycle in (the first time is always the hardest - both from a logistical and a psychological point of view). In my pyjamas, I started rummaging around my 'box of bits' in our garden shed looking for my sturdy pannier rack which went with me from Cairo to Capetown (on my bike for the first four weeks and in my suitcase for the last four months when it became obviously useless). I came out, defeated, with another, much less sturdy pannier rack that attaches to a seat post. This loyal pannier rack was what had taken the load of my school books and uniform when I first started commuting in the fat days.
Grudgingly attaching the pannier rack to my carbon seat post (and ever conscious of the increasing probability of my seat post shearing in two horizontally), I managed to fill my panniers with all sorts of 'necessities' - almost everything I needed except for a hoody which I decided would take up too much space. Walking out onto the road in my cycling Android jersey, a delightful gift from my friend at Google, I realised that short sleeve was perhaps a bit short sighted.
Rolling twenty metres down the road, strange noises already started coming from my bike and when I braked to a halt, there was an unnerving juddering. Investigating further, the pannier rack had already come askew and the edge of one of my pannier bags was rattling against the spokes. This is something I was very used to when commuting to school but it took a small leap of faith that my panniers would make it to work in one piece. As for the juddering, it merely seemed to be alignment of my brakes and in true Kenyan style, I figured it would be fine to get me to work.
Sure enough it was, and really the only difficult I had was that the pannier partially unclipped itself at a couple of points during the journey. The handling of the bike with a seat post mounted rack was quite sketchy - my road bike is much lighter than my mountain bike was and the pannier rack must have moved the centre of gravity much higher. Every time I stood up to cycle, the bike was start oscillating quite wildly.
As I got to work, it became harder and harder to unclip. I realised somewhere near Euston that my left SPD clip was missing a single screw. This meant that when I twisted my foot to unclip, the cleat would stay where it was and just rotate around the single retaining screw. When I finally got to Old Street it took a good five minutes of hopping around on my bike to unclip.
The commute overall was pretty damn slow. I left home at 08:30 (admittedly late) and reached work at 10:10. Normally I leave home at 08:25 and reach work at 09:15 when travelling by train. While the distance was slower, the traffic was pretty horrendous and there was no real clear stretch of road. Part of the reason for the traffic is that I was on Euston road - which skirts the congestion charging zone (and presumably carries a higher volume of traffic after 07:00). The frequent traffic lights also kill average speed - at least the route to Canary Wharf has relatively few interruptions!
In a nutshell, I'm not convinced that commuting to Old Street is worth it for me - I might do it a few times a week because of the fitness element but it certainly doesn't compare to public transport when it comes to convenience. At least not in the same way that commuting to Canary Wharf did.
Waking up bleary eyed on Monday morning, I somehow convinced myself that today was going to be the day I cycle in (the first time is always the hardest - both from a logistical and a psychological point of view). In my pyjamas, I started rummaging around my 'box of bits' in our garden shed looking for my sturdy pannier rack which went with me from Cairo to Capetown (on my bike for the first four weeks and in my suitcase for the last four months when it became obviously useless). I came out, defeated, with another, much less sturdy pannier rack that attaches to a seat post. This loyal pannier rack was what had taken the load of my school books and uniform when I first started commuting in the fat days.
Grudgingly attaching the pannier rack to my carbon seat post (and ever conscious of the increasing probability of my seat post shearing in two horizontally), I managed to fill my panniers with all sorts of 'necessities' - almost everything I needed except for a hoody which I decided would take up too much space. Walking out onto the road in my cycling Android jersey, a delightful gift from my friend at Google, I realised that short sleeve was perhaps a bit short sighted.
Rolling twenty metres down the road, strange noises already started coming from my bike and when I braked to a halt, there was an unnerving juddering. Investigating further, the pannier rack had already come askew and the edge of one of my pannier bags was rattling against the spokes. This is something I was very used to when commuting to school but it took a small leap of faith that my panniers would make it to work in one piece. As for the juddering, it merely seemed to be alignment of my brakes and in true Kenyan style, I figured it would be fine to get me to work.
Sure enough it was, and really the only difficult I had was that the pannier partially unclipped itself at a couple of points during the journey. The handling of the bike with a seat post mounted rack was quite sketchy - my road bike is much lighter than my mountain bike was and the pannier rack must have moved the centre of gravity much higher. Every time I stood up to cycle, the bike was start oscillating quite wildly.
As I got to work, it became harder and harder to unclip. I realised somewhere near Euston that my left SPD clip was missing a single screw. This meant that when I twisted my foot to unclip, the cleat would stay where it was and just rotate around the single retaining screw. When I finally got to Old Street it took a good five minutes of hopping around on my bike to unclip.
The commute overall was pretty damn slow. I left home at 08:30 (admittedly late) and reached work at 10:10. Normally I leave home at 08:25 and reach work at 09:15 when travelling by train. While the distance was slower, the traffic was pretty horrendous and there was no real clear stretch of road. Part of the reason for the traffic is that I was on Euston road - which skirts the congestion charging zone (and presumably carries a higher volume of traffic after 07:00). The frequent traffic lights also kill average speed - at least the route to Canary Wharf has relatively few interruptions!
In a nutshell, I'm not convinced that commuting to Old Street is worth it for me - I might do it a few times a week because of the fitness element but it certainly doesn't compare to public transport when it comes to convenience. At least not in the same way that commuting to Canary Wharf did.
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People who knew me well at university know that for a short while (about a term), I graphed my sleep in order to figure out the relationship that my productivity (and enjoyment of life) has with my sleep levels. Anyone who's studied at Cambridge knows that terms are notoriously irregular - you'll start off with no work and then a week later find yourself trying to finish three sets of supervision work in one night. This makes it almost impossible to have a 'normal' week and to sleep the same amount every night.
When graphed and analysed, I noticed a few interesting facts-
- At that time, I used to sleep in multiples of 1.5 hours - and if I woke up a multiple of 90 minutes after I went to bed, I'd wake up feeling good.
- One day of good sleep often wasn't enough to reset my fatigue levels - I needed three nights of solid sleep to feel at the top of my form. This rarely happened during term.
- Even if I slept for 12/13 hours after an all nighter- it still wasn't enough. All nighters were disastrous for my productivity for the rest of the week.
- Generally 7.5 hours of sleep was good enough if I hadn't been training (i.e. cycling). If I had trained, I would require 9 hours.
This worked well for a few years and I've been tweaking my 'rules' as I go - I know the effects of caffeine and alcohol on my energy levels and try to adjust where I go. The irony is that, lately - mainly since starting work, I don't often get very good sleep. I've always been a light sleeper but generally I've always managed to sleep through the night.
It's been hard to pinpoint the reason and during a routine medical, the blood test revealed my thyroid levels were a bit off. To cut a long story (spread over six months) short - I've been diagnosed as hypothyroid. Standard treatment of hypothyroidism is the synthetic hormone levothyroxine. This is working, but with some annoying side effects. I've been finding it harder still to sleep - waking up in the middle of night regularly. I've also had some sort of headache constantly. Now with enough time, my doctor will probably be able to tweak the dosage so that these can be avoided. But the point being, I can't adequately control my energy levels as I used to, which is most likely now going to be the case for the rest of my life.
The constant process of diagnosis, especially for a condition like this has got me thinking - it must be very difficult to be a doctor indeed. Not purely from the sheer amount of knowledge you need but the feedback loop you have from your patients. Administer some medication, wait six weeks, take a blood test, look at a number and re-evaluate. On one hand it is a straightforward process but on the other - it is slow, prone to error (I was almost misdiagnosed when the wrong blood test results were used) and there's no instant gratification. Software development on the other hand gives you an answer in minutes, occasionally hours and very rarely days. There's no waiting required. And finally - there's always a logical or rational reason for something to happen the way it does. This is not always true in the human body and there's still a large amount of the 'unknown'. The human body is non deterministic.
That, dear readers, is why I'll never be a doctor.
When graphed and analysed, I noticed a few interesting facts-
- At that time, I used to sleep in multiples of 1.5 hours - and if I woke up a multiple of 90 minutes after I went to bed, I'd wake up feeling good.
- One day of good sleep often wasn't enough to reset my fatigue levels - I needed three nights of solid sleep to feel at the top of my form. This rarely happened during term.
- Even if I slept for 12/13 hours after an all nighter- it still wasn't enough. All nighters were disastrous for my productivity for the rest of the week.
- Generally 7.5 hours of sleep was good enough if I hadn't been training (i.e. cycling). If I had trained, I would require 9 hours.
This worked well for a few years and I've been tweaking my 'rules' as I go - I know the effects of caffeine and alcohol on my energy levels and try to adjust where I go. The irony is that, lately - mainly since starting work, I don't often get very good sleep. I've always been a light sleeper but generally I've always managed to sleep through the night.
It's been hard to pinpoint the reason and during a routine medical, the blood test revealed my thyroid levels were a bit off. To cut a long story (spread over six months) short - I've been diagnosed as hypothyroid. Standard treatment of hypothyroidism is the synthetic hormone levothyroxine. This is working, but with some annoying side effects. I've been finding it harder still to sleep - waking up in the middle of night regularly. I've also had some sort of headache constantly. Now with enough time, my doctor will probably be able to tweak the dosage so that these can be avoided. But the point being, I can't adequately control my energy levels as I used to, which is most likely now going to be the case for the rest of my life.
The constant process of diagnosis, especially for a condition like this has got me thinking - it must be very difficult to be a doctor indeed. Not purely from the sheer amount of knowledge you need but the feedback loop you have from your patients. Administer some medication, wait six weeks, take a blood test, look at a number and re-evaluate. On one hand it is a straightforward process but on the other - it is slow, prone to error (I was almost misdiagnosed when the wrong blood test results were used) and there's no instant gratification. Software development on the other hand gives you an answer in minutes, occasionally hours and very rarely days. There's no waiting required. And finally - there's always a logical or rational reason for something to happen the way it does. This is not always true in the human body and there's still a large amount of the 'unknown'. The human body is non deterministic.
That, dear readers, is why I'll never be a doctor.
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Anyone who knows me well knows that-
1) I love biscuits.
2) I have to drink milk while eating biscuits or cake.
Mid last week I had a (mini) epiphany. I was at my cousin's house for her birthday party and for the first time in an immeasurable amount of time, I had cake without milk. Surprisingly, it was good. I spent much less effort trying to coordinate milk-drinking with cake-eating (it's the same really as the cereal and milk problem - you don't want to have extra milk or extra cereal left at the end...). Only concentrating on the cake meant I was able to really enjoy and appreciate it.
I guess this points to a wider trend in my life - that of multitasking. I'm notorious for doing multiple things at the same time and not just while at work. At home I've got a ridiculous three screened set up (and four if my laptop is up) and normally I'm doing a dozen things at the same time. It's probably because I spent so little actual time at home but I can't help thinking it's detrimental to the quality of how well I accomplish various tasks.
Admittedly a lot of what I do at home doesn't require much intellectual concentration - the last couple of hours I've been editing photos while watching television and catching up on reading - but I worry sometimes that this way of working carries itself over into other parts of my day.
1) I love biscuits.
2) I have to drink milk while eating biscuits or cake.
Mid last week I had a (mini) epiphany. I was at my cousin's house for her birthday party and for the first time in an immeasurable amount of time, I had cake without milk. Surprisingly, it was good. I spent much less effort trying to coordinate milk-drinking with cake-eating (it's the same really as the cereal and milk problem - you don't want to have extra milk or extra cereal left at the end...). Only concentrating on the cake meant I was able to really enjoy and appreciate it.
I guess this points to a wider trend in my life - that of multitasking. I'm notorious for doing multiple things at the same time and not just while at work. At home I've got a ridiculous three screened set up (and four if my laptop is up) and normally I'm doing a dozen things at the same time. It's probably because I spent so little actual time at home but I can't help thinking it's detrimental to the quality of how well I accomplish various tasks.
Admittedly a lot of what I do at home doesn't require much intellectual concentration - the last couple of hours I've been editing photos while watching television and catching up on reading - but I worry sometimes that this way of working carries itself over into other parts of my day.
Anish wrote at 3:46 pm on Mon 7th Nov -
Oh God....you and your biscuit mania!
As promised, a slightly more elaborate (or rather, descriptive) update.
As you may or may not have known, I had been working at a large investment bank for the last year since returning from my travels. It's a place where I interned twice and enjoyed enough to want to return to as a graduate - the work was interesting and the people were great.
Without going into full detail, our graduate scheme requires us to complete several six month rotations before choosing a team to permanently settle in. The incentive structure for the process of picking placements at each stage is maligned and essentially I had a poor first rotation placement (great people, dull work, learnt very little) and as a result didn't get my top preference for the second rotation team. I enjoyed my second rotation team but it wasn't somewhere I wanted to stay permanently - the work was semi-interesting but there was very little support from the team, purely as a result of it's small size.
Our graduate scheme was shortened to just two rotations and beginning in August, we began the process to choose a team to settle in. I found that most of the interesting teams either already had a graduate in mind (someone who had previously been on that team) or that I didn't have the requisite skill set (when competing against other graduates). Suspecting that this might be the case, as soon as we heard news of this change, I fired off my C.V. in an email to popular music recommendation website - http://last.fm.
Roll around to mid September and for the most part, it was exactly as I had guessed. I'd gone through the interview process at last.fm and with an offer in hand, I spoke to our graduate HR who, unfortunately, weren't willing to offer any other choices. With some trepidation I sent in my notice of resignation.
Quite a few people tried to convince me before I left the bank that I'd hate it outside of finance - they were shocked that I was even considering leaving investment banking and they thought I'd get bored. Naturally these fears played heavily on my mind in the four weeks preceding my new job. Luckily it was more FUD than actual insight.
I've been working at last.fm for a week now and it's great. The people here are wonderful - very helpful, friendly and they know their stuff. There are fewer politics than at the bank and I find it a much more productive place to work. There's no bureaucracy blocking me from doing my job, I have a fast computer and access to whatever developer tools I want to use. In addition, there are fewer distractions throughout the day, no pointless meetings and no constant interruptions. We get to use cutting edge technologies too, versus the cutting edge of three years ago at the bank. As a technologist, I feel more at home here than I ever did as a graduate at a bank.
To sum it up, the first question most people working at the bank asked me when I said I was leaving was 'how much are you getting paid at the new place?'.
The first question that most people working at last.fm asked me when I mentioned I used to work at the bank was 'what were you working on?'.
I'm happy to be a part of the second group :-).
As you may or may not have known, I had been working at a large investment bank for the last year since returning from my travels. It's a place where I interned twice and enjoyed enough to want to return to as a graduate - the work was interesting and the people were great.
Without going into full detail, our graduate scheme requires us to complete several six month rotations before choosing a team to permanently settle in. The incentive structure for the process of picking placements at each stage is maligned and essentially I had a poor first rotation placement (great people, dull work, learnt very little) and as a result didn't get my top preference for the second rotation team. I enjoyed my second rotation team but it wasn't somewhere I wanted to stay permanently - the work was semi-interesting but there was very little support from the team, purely as a result of it's small size.
Our graduate scheme was shortened to just two rotations and beginning in August, we began the process to choose a team to settle in. I found that most of the interesting teams either already had a graduate in mind (someone who had previously been on that team) or that I didn't have the requisite skill set (when competing against other graduates). Suspecting that this might be the case, as soon as we heard news of this change, I fired off my C.V. in an email to popular music recommendation website - http://last.fm.
Roll around to mid September and for the most part, it was exactly as I had guessed. I'd gone through the interview process at last.fm and with an offer in hand, I spoke to our graduate HR who, unfortunately, weren't willing to offer any other choices. With some trepidation I sent in my notice of resignation.
Quite a few people tried to convince me before I left the bank that I'd hate it outside of finance - they were shocked that I was even considering leaving investment banking and they thought I'd get bored. Naturally these fears played heavily on my mind in the four weeks preceding my new job. Luckily it was more FUD than actual insight.
I've been working at last.fm for a week now and it's great. The people here are wonderful - very helpful, friendly and they know their stuff. There are fewer politics than at the bank and I find it a much more productive place to work. There's no bureaucracy blocking me from doing my job, I have a fast computer and access to whatever developer tools I want to use. In addition, there are fewer distractions throughout the day, no pointless meetings and no constant interruptions. We get to use cutting edge technologies too, versus the cutting edge of three years ago at the bank. As a technologist, I feel more at home here than I ever did as a graduate at a bank.
To sum it up, the first question most people working at the bank asked me when I said I was leaving was 'how much are you getting paid at the new place?'.
The first question that most people working at last.fm asked me when I mentioned I used to work at the bank was 'what were you working on?'.
I'm happy to be a part of the second group :-).
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Dear readers,
I apologise for the lack of updates over the many past months. I've been rather busy with a variety of things and that seems likely to continue. However, my life is about to undergo a relatively significant change and with that change, I've decided to get my house in order (quite literally as well as metaphorically).
I'll go into more detail in a following post but the short story is that I've decided to leave my first real job for a variety of reasons. As you can imagine, this is quite a terrifying step to take but ultimately, I hope, one for the better.
More detail soon, but it's good to be back and I hope to be writing more frequently :-). I'll also be updating this site so that it's a bit less 2010 and a bit more NOW().
I apologise for the lack of updates over the many past months. I've been rather busy with a variety of things and that seems likely to continue. However, my life is about to undergo a relatively significant change and with that change, I've decided to get my house in order (quite literally as well as metaphorically).
I'll go into more detail in a following post but the short story is that I've decided to leave my first real job for a variety of reasons. As you can imagine, this is quite a terrifying step to take but ultimately, I hope, one for the better.
More detail soon, but it's good to be back and I hope to be writing more frequently :-). I'll also be updating this site so that it's a bit less 2010 and a bit more NOW().
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We came across this beautiful view from the bridge.
(View in high res)
(View in high res)
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Leaving nothing but the wake and our tourist money behind us.
(View in high res)
(View in high res)
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Rickety wooden bridges and camera toting tourists.
(View in high res)
(View in high res)
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