My Experience as an international master student in Indiana University — After 1 year.

Hi Everyone, I am a Fall 21 Admit from Indiana University, Bloomington. While writing this blog I completed two semesters (Fall 21, Spring 22). I want to share here some information about the common questions I get frequently from the incoming students. Hope this blog post will be helpful.

Most of the questions here are the questions I had before starting my masters and I wished there is a document like this to refer to…:)

Regarding Curriculum

1. What track to choose?
2. What is the Quality of the courses and how tough will be the semester?
3. What are some important things to keep in mind while choosing the courses?
4. Do you have any link for the syllabus for all the subjects?
5. Which college is better IUB vs X?

Part-time :

1. When and how to apply for part-time?
2. How to apply for TA/RA?
3. How much will I earn from the part-time?

Personal:

1. What are your monthly expenses?
2. How is the weather at Bloomington? Any winter wear should I get before coming there?
3. What are some good apartment places to live?

Jobs:

1. How is the career fair at IU?
2. Would location be a disadvantage when you are pursuing your masters at IU?
3. When and how to apply for Internships?
4. If not coming from a data science background, what prerequisites one can take which might be helpful and give a kickstart into the program?
5. Can Data science folks apply for SDE internships?

Please keep in mind that all the responses are based on my personal opinion.

Regarding Curriculum

1. What track to choose?

I would recommend you to not worry about the track initially. Try to take subjects which are there in all the tracks. Like Intro to stats, Applied Algorithms. e.t.c. Taking these subjects will give you more flexibility and you can decide on the track eventually in the subsequent semester. In the worst case, one/two subjects will be as an elective for the new track you chose.

2. What is the Quality of the courses and how tough will be the semester?

Some courses are really really good and will be tough if you do not have a good background. Remember these are master-level courses and they expect you already know some basic things.

So, if you take many tough courses your life will be hard or you can easily get through the semester by taking easy courses. Just to get an idea here is some division of subjects based on difficulty:

Easy set → {Intro to statistics, Social media mining, Data mining, Applied Machine Learning, Management Access and Use of Big and Complex Data}

Medium set → {Applied Algorithms, Distributed Systems, Cloud computing, Machine Learning for Signal processing}

Hard set → {Elements of AI, Machine Learning, Advanced Database concepts, Applied Distributed systems, Computer vision, Reinforcement learning, Deep learning systems}

Note: Again the above division is based on my past experience. It can be completely different for you.

I am currently working on writing a review on all the courses available based on my experience and my friends. I will update here once done.

3. What are some important things to keep in mind while choosing the courses?

Try to take a mixture of hard and easy courses. Do not take all ‘P’ type (Project type) courses in one semester. This will get hectic at the end as you need to do a project for all the courses. Try to have a balance between them.

Before taking the courses carefully go through the syllabus or ask any senior who had already taken the course, just to understand the difficulty and the basic pre-requisites you need to get through it.

Not all courses in the Handbook will be available always (Yeah, this is very sad!). There are certain courses that are available only in Fall or only in Spring. For example Elements of AI is only in Fall and Computer vision is only in Spring. And computer vision has a pre-requisite course Elements of AI you need to take before enrolling. If you missed EAI then in Fall then you cannot take CV in the next semester.

If you are planning to specialize in

• Computer vision. Take Elements of AI in Fall and Computer vision in Spring.
• Reinforcement Learning. Take Machine learning in Fall and Reinforcement learning in Spring. (Both will be taught by the same professor and will be available only he teaches only one course at a semester. )

Tip: Login to one.iu. Search for OCQ dashboard. And search for the course you are taking. This will show some ratings and difficulty of the course your seniors have given to that course. 

4. Where can I find the syllabus for all the courses?

Unfortunately, they are not easily available sometimes. Check the professor's website or directly mail the professor and ask for the syllabus.

Here is a link to some of the courses syllabus from DS I had. Be careful, this can be outdated.

5. Which college is better IUB vs X? (Curriculum wise).

I honestly don’t know. I recommend checking your interests first and seeing if there are suitable courses you have at IU or other colleges and then evaluate your options. I know it is a tough choice, speaking to seniors at both the colleges might help. In the end, you have to decide don’t be biased based on some people’s opinions something which both humans and machine learning algorithms are really good at.

Part-time :

1. When and how to apply for part-time?

You can apply for part-time before starting your masters. You can check this website( https://hrms.indiana.edu/) to find all the available part-time.

2. How to apply for TA/RA?

For TA:

Getting TA’s is tough in the first semester. But you can still apply TA’s for many undergraduate courses. If you did really well in the first semester then you will be given an opportunity to do TA for the same course in the next semester.

You can directly mail the professor if you have relevant experience. And more importantly, you have to find the person who is responsible for assigning AI’s. One easy way to do this find your seniors who are doing TA’s and ask them.

While I am writing this blog. Professor Charles was responsible for assigning TA’s. (https://luddy.indiana.edu/contact/profile/?Charles_Pope). You can email him.

For RA:

Getting RA’s is tough !!

You have to directly mail the professor. Carefully tell your experience and explain how you can support the research the professor is working. The professor might not email you back right away as they might be really busy. You have to be patient.

Also, check the professor's website, usually, they mention it on the website if they are looking for any RA’s. Also, keep checking your emails.

3. How much will I earn from the part-time?

General part-time like dining, event co-ordinators can earn you up to 12$ per hour. For TA you can get up to 15$ and for RA you can get anywhere from 20–25$ per hour. You can maximum work for 20 hours per week in any of the above.

Personal:

1. What are your monthly expenses?

My monthly expenses are approximately as shown below:

Rent: 350$
Electricity + wifi + Cellular: 70 - 80 $
Food: 100 - 150$ 
Total: upto 600$. 

2. How is the weather at Bloomington? Any winter wear should I get before coming there?

The weather in Fall is great. The campus is really beautiful. It gets colder from December till April. You can get affordable winter wear here in Bloomington itself. No worries!.

3. What are some good apartment places to live?

Try to choose something that is closer to Grocery stores and near to the college.(Yeah, an ideal place !) My Favorites are Hunter Ridge, Park Doral, Town and Country, Cresent Park and Fountain Park.

Jobs:

Ok, the most important part.

1. How is the career fair at IU?

It is not good. You are mostly on your own in finding a job. Although the college provides free one-one sessions to improve your resume and cover letter.

2. Would location be a disadvantage when you are pursuing your masters at IU?

I thought it was. But I did not find any. Now, since everything is remote most of the interviews are virtual. So, it does not matter if you are in Bloomington or New York. I don’t know how things will turn up post covid.

3. When and how to apply for Internships and how tough is to crack them?

Apply as quickly as you can and as many as you can. Do not lose hope. It will be a tough ride. Try to constantly improve your resume expand your network and get referrals if you can. Improve your Data structure and Algorithm skills.

The hardest part is to get a response back from the company you applied. Getting an opportunity to get an interview is as hard as cracking the interview.

4. If not coming from a data science background, what prerequisites one can take which might be helpful and give a kickstart into the program?

• Strong programming skills in Python is must. Good to have fundamental Data structures and Algorithms. Basic SQL although not required.
• These days there are plethora of resources available. Try to pick one dataset, one problem statement and solve it end to end (Data collections to Deployment). And then showcase your results. Write a blog and spread out your learnings.
• Repeat the above step.

You need not come here to start your DS journey. You can start now. All the hard work you put in will not be wasted.

5. Can Data science folks apply for SDE internships?

Of course, you can. CS people can apply to DS roles and vice versa.

Do you have more questions? Try to fill out this form I will try to get back as soon as I can.

Overall my experience is very positive. I learned many things from cooking to programming. It is a journey I am really proud of. I really wish you all the very best to your future.

Hope it helps! Thanks for reading.