Applying to PhD Programs in Computer Science (2014) [pdf]

For anybody interested in the computer science PhD process, a good complement to the featured article is Philip Guo's "The PhD Grind" [1]. It's a long (115p, but with big text) blow-by-blow account of the author's PhD at Stanford in the late 00s. It's neither sensationalized nor sanitized, and it's weirdly engrossing for an account of PhD research. I read it before starting grad school and I think it helped my "meta" PhD skills a lot. [1] http://pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD-grind.pdf

As far as I can see, the top PhD programs are getting better and better applications for the same number of slots, and the process is becoming far more competitive. There are plenty of students coming in with publications at good venues (maybe not NIPS, SOSP, STOC level). It used to be that students came in without doing research, but that doesn't seem to be the norm any more. I don't know how I got into grad school --- looking…

I have an undergraduate degree that's completely unrelated to CS and I want to go back to school one day for a master's in CS. Is research experience also necessary for a master's at a good school (like UCs)? Or will industry experience and recommendations for being a good student in CS classes be sufficient? It just seems pretty hard to get research experience without having been a CS major in undergrad. If anyone has any tips on how to…

Anyone know if there is anything recent that's worth knowing about this topic now? (Like an updated version of this document?)