March 13, 2026 • 8040 words

Applying to Grad School in the US

I am thinking about applying for masters in CS in the US. It's already February. I thought about applying before but my mind was dominated by stress and the anxiety of failing classes. I applied many times before, but this is the first time that I am in a such a position. Ok, this is the first time perhaps I am aiming for a non-top-tier school in my life. I am not applying for the top 10 or 20. And any excuses are just futile. Yeah, it's February 10th now. I am late. I am going to try to apply for fall, if it doesn't work, I am going to try to apply for spring. I don't want to wait for too long.

Geography

I've been to US 4 times now

  • California and New York (1st grade winter)
  • Great lake area and Boston (6th grade summer)
  • So-cal and Irvine (7th grade summer)
  • Berkeley and Alaska (sophomore exchange year)

So in my mind US has 3 main parts:

  • New York and New England (Ann M Martin "BSC", "Rain Reign", "Main Street", some dog books, Judy Blume "Rachael Robinson", "Forever", "In the Unlikely Event", a lot more books such as "Wonder", "Wonder" Auggie, "Magic Tree House", "A to Z Mysteries", "Boxcar Children"): Peak suburban life, Connecticut or Massachusetts are where most of the books are set in
  • California, Seattle and Portland ("La La Land", "The Graduate", "Easy A", "The Joy Luck Club", "Twilight" in Forks): A lot of movies, but I don't watch much Hollywood anyway

Then there are 3 smaller but still significant areas:

  • Florida (hot)
  • Texas (hot)
  • Chicago and Michigan area

Then there are the "middle of nowhere" states:

  • Kansas (Wizard of Oz, that's too vintage)
  • Missouri (Tom Sawyer, that's also quite vintage)
  • Utah (Mormons)
  • North Carolina ("Along for the Ride" beach town summer job vibe)
  • West Virginia (Mountain Mama)
  • Alabama (Atticus Finch, Jim crow racism)
  • Mississippi (Roll of Thunder, racism again)
  • Louisiana (Jambalaya, honestly don't know much)
  • Alaska (Call of the Wild)
  • Hawaii (Aloha)
  • Puerto Rico (Despacito)

I don't know much about the rest.

My Background

  • TOEFL: 109(4 years ago, 16)/105(2 years ago, 18)/104(half a year ago, 20)
  • GRE: 155(Verbal)/166(Quant) (4 years ago)

So I am in USTC, studying CS. My overall GPA is 2.7/4.3.

Are you happy? You can laugh at me, it's funny, even if I am crying or doubting my sanity. I don't know if I should blame it on myself or the Chinese CS education. Because here are the courses I took at Cal with literally zero CS foundation in one year I took.

  • CS161 Security (A)
  • CS170 Algorithms (A)
  • EECS149 Embedded (B)
  • CS188 AI (B+)
  • CS182 DL (B+)
  • CS285 RL (C+)
  • CS61C Architecture (C+)

2 math courses

  • Probability (P, I slipped in the midterm)
  • Abstract Algebra (A)

And I came back to USTC, and I still needed to complete the standard CS curriculum in China, and I got slaughtered. And I am finishing my undergrad this year!

I had no research so far. I was too busy dealing with depression and my mental health after the sophomore year. Good news is that I do not have suicidal thoughts right now. My weight went up in a year from 72 kg to 86 kg (and now down to 76 kg). Then I went out walking 10-20 km on desolate streets from midnight to 5 am. My parents were first "very disappointed with me" and completely shocked how "I was fine in Berkeley and we thought everything ahead was cleared". Then last year in May there were "we are graduating" signs in the school and I felt my heart wrench every time I looked at them. I learned Russian largely entirely because of the depression when I would watch YouTube all day as a form of escape. Looking in retrospect, it's divided into 2 phases, the first 2 years I almost didn't know anything about CS, then I was struggling/depressed. I don't blame myself anymore, but once I get my feet inside the master's program, I need to try to write and publish papers. I am very lucky (I am going to graduate from USTC soon after passing the failed courses), optimistic (things would be better almost certainly) and resilient of failure!

Остановились часы, полночь не бьют
Нет больше друзей, которые лгут
Трагикомедия, выход на бис
Занавес медленно падает вниз
Я не играла, я прожила всю эту пьесу
Так, как смогла. Зачем?

(Ranevskaya)

I am not dying for prestige anymore. In short, I am likely paying to get into a tier-3 program. I do like math and CS, but I hate the utilitarian way how the school treated them. Socializing and human connections are not negligible in my life. I already spent so many years in a sterile environment and the CS/DS department in the US is also going to be quite utilitarian, filled with Asians. I must not spend my Masters and PhD in a sterile university.

Profound Incompatibility with the Chinese System

掩重门、浅醉闲眠。莫开帘，怕见飞花，怕听啼鹃。

(高阳台·西湖春感, 张炎)

I am not claiming that America is a utopia. No, it is far too naive to think that going to the west would solve all my problems. However, the conflicts with the Chinese system are real, systemic, and constantly bothered me in the past 10 years.

I didn't realize it before, but I largely built my worldview when I was 11 years old. My parents transferred me into SMIC International school when I was in 5th grade, and I went to Boston that summer for a math camp. I developed all my voice and perception of reality through hundreds of English YA novels, mostly set in New England, which I read in 5th grade and early middle school. I was a voracious reader back then and mostly read YA or Fantasy - I frequented Shanghai Foreign Language Bookstore and bought hundreds of English books on JD, reading far more in English than in Chinese.

It turned out that my parents' mindset at that time was still that of immigrants from Henan. They did not register themselves as "upper middle class" in their minds even though we have 2 apartments in Shanghai, and they live frugally. They had to push me into a top university and stem major. Going to SMIC school for 1 year and American summer camps were strictly for English fluency. They did thought about the idea of sending my abroad for university, but they kept hesitating, cautious about money (a complete undergrad and an MS in the US cost way more than a single exchange year or an MS), and believing that the domestic path is also viable. Finally because I was not that bad in school, I always scrambled by, and extremly luckily I got into USTC School of the Gifted Young at age 16, ending this whole debate for a while.

When I went into the middle school, one of the most competitive ones in math competition in Shanghai, I felt strongly alienated. However, it wasn't because of the math competition, in fact, I was doing very well in math - for most of my middle school I was always the top half in math in my class and I got some 2nd or 3rd prizes in Shanghai. The problem was that in my middle school, the school day was too long, filled with garbage subjects and teachers, usually until 5 or 6 pm, with a lot of useless, performative homework in other subjects. I frequently ended up bottom or near bottom in class in exams in Chinese, Chemistry, Geography, History, Science - yes, even in English grammar, when I was already near-native at the time, functioning seamlessly in American summer camps. Furthermore, it was not social or chill at all, with a severe gender imbalance of 80% male, far from the holistic education I expected. I literally could not stand it.

The implicit promise I made when I entered middle school was, "endure these 4 years of math competition, and you will end up in a utopia." In fact, when I was walking around in the Green City and Zhangjiang in 9th grade, this was exactly what I expected. I did not end up in a beautiful, cozy, emotionally delicate suburb in Connecticut.

High school - I went into a top 4 Gaokao high school in Shanghai. I went into the IB track first, but my parents decided that I stay in the Gaokao track first. TLDR, I was disillusioned, I was failing in everything except in math and physics. My math competition edge was completely neutralized - at least my middle school specialized in math competitions somehow. I consistently ranked bottom in my class, around 20-30 in a class of 40 in the Gaokao track. It did have a normal gender ratio but it didn't matter when your days are micromanaged. I do not deserve to go to Gaokao anyway. And then I miraculously got the lottery ticket to Hefei before I had a full burnout.

I do not even want to talk about it anymore. English was my primary language for several years already. The simple solution is to get out of China as quickly as possible. However, I did not have the agency up until now to make my own decisions. I did apply for an exchange program back then, but it didn't save me from a burnout back in China.

All my vocabulary, my logic, what I actually meant when I described a concept, were so far different from my parents, as well as my classmates here in Hefei. When I came to Hefei 5 years ago as a teeanager, I could not relate to anyone at all, losing all shared contexts completely. I was spending 2-4 hours a day on western social media, sometimes even more. What I meant by "teenage years", "mental health", "finding yourself", "rebellion", "clubs", "socializing", "exploration", "aesthetics", "emotions", there were simply no shared contexts.

Most of my classmates are from the provinces, they are from the middle class or working class, they have never been abroad, have extremely limited English and no western social media exposure, and they are usually passive and have poor hygiene. The total apathy of my classmates isn't an angry uproar, a defiant rebellion, a loud protest, a romantic escape, or a deep melancholy. There is literally nothing I can talk with them, and I literally can't - they usually wear headphones and play gun games on desktop computers for 10 hours a day. Gun games and anime were the dominant culture here, which I could not resonate with as well.

So I view it as a malicious theft of my teen years by the Chinese education system. Even if you manage to get a diploma, it's just a pyrrhic victory followed by a wall of nihilism and lost youth.

But this mindset in the first place was largely a product of my social class and cosmopolitan upbringing. I'm the perfect illustration of soft youth romanticism, completely shielded from the harsh, ruthless world.

TLDR, my parents, with their "peasant mindset", refused to spend money on me. So I suffered pointlessly in the education system for the working class. But I was inherently born comfortable and cosmopolitan. In the end, my parents are still my parents, and you don't bite the hand that feeds you and still gives some money sometimes. But I must be irrevocably independent, get away from them, and earn money myself.

Applying

Клюет, и бросает, и смотрит в окно,
Как будто со мною задумал одно.
Зовет меня взглядом и криком своим
И вымолвить хочет: «Давай улетим!

Мы вольные птицы; пора, брат, пора!
Туда, где за тучей белеет гора,
Туда, где синеют морские края,
Туда, где гуляем лишь ветер... да я!...»

(Pushkin, Prisoner)

user@fedora ~/D/applying-for-masters (master)> tree
.
├── CV
│   ├── Jiamu_Chen_CV.pdf
│   ├── Jiamu_Chen_CV.tex
│   └── template.tex
├── LOR
│   ├── LOR-1
│   │   ├── LOR-1-draft.pdf
│   │   ├── LOR-1-draft.tex
│   │   ├── LOR-1.pdf
│   │   └── LOR-1.tex
│   ├── LOR-2
│   │   ├── LOR-2-draft.pdf
│   │   ├── LOR-2-draft.tex
│   │   ├── LOR-2.pdf
│   │   └── LOR-2.tex
│   ├── LOR-3
│   │   ├── LOR-3-draft.pdf
│   │   ├── LOR-3-draft.tex
│   │   ├── LOR-3.pdf
│   │   └── LOR-3.tex
│   ├── LOR-4
│   │   ├── LOR-4-draft.pdf
│   │   ├── LOR-4-draft.tex
│   │   ├── LOR-4.pdf
│   │   └── LOR-4.tex
│   └── ustc-logo.png
├── SOP
│   ├── Arizona-State-University
│   │   ├── Arizona-State-University.pdf
│   │   └── Arizona-State-University.tex
│   ├── Auburn-University
│   │   ├── Auburn-University.pdf
│   │   └── Auburn-University.tex
│   ├── Brandeis-University
│   │   ├── Brandeis-University.pdf
│   │   └── Brandeis-University.tex
│   ├── DePaul-University
│   │   ├── DePaul-University.pdf
│   │   └── DePaul-University.tex
│   ├── Emory-University
│   │   ├── Emory-University.pdf
│   │   └── Emory-University.tex
│   ├── George-Mason-University
│   │   ├── George-Mason-University.pdf
│   │   └── George-Mason-University.tex
│   ├── New-Jersey-Institute-of-Technology
│   │   ├── New-Jersey-Institute-of-Technology.pdf
│   │   └── New-Jersey-Institute-of-Technology.tex
│   ├── Northeastern-University
│   │   ├── Northeastern-University.pdf
│   │   └── Northeastern-University.tex
│   ├── SOP_template.tex
│   ├── Syracuse-University
│   │   ├── Syracuse-University.pdf
│   │   └── Syracuse-University.tex
│   ├── Tufts-University
│   │   ├── Tufts-University.pdf
│   │   └── Tufts-University.tex
│   ├── University-of-Arizona
│   │   ├── University-of-Arizona.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Arizona.tex
│   ├── University-of-Arkansas
│   │   ├── University-of-Arkansas.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Arkansas.tex
│   ├── University-of-Chicago
│   │   ├── University-of-Chicago.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Chicago.tex
│   ├── University-of-Cincinnati
│   │   ├── University-of-Cincinnati.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Cincinnati.tex
│   ├── University-of-Delaware
│   │   ├── University-of-Delaware.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Delaware.tex
│   ├── University-of-Georgia
│   │   ├── University-of-Georgia.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Georgia.tex
│   ├── University-of-Kentucky
│   │   ├── University-of-Kentucky.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Kentucky.tex
│   ├── University-of-New-Hampshire
│   │   ├── University-of-New-Hampshire.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-New-Hampshire.tex
│   ├── University-of-Oklahoma
│   │   ├── University-of-Oklahoma.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Oklahoma.tex
│   ├── University-of-Oregon
│   │   ├── University-of-Oregon.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Oregon.tex
│   ├── University-of-Vermont
│   │   ├── University-of-Vermont.pdf
│   │   └── University-of-Vermont.tex
│   └── Washington-University-in-St-Louis
│       ├── Washington-University-in-St-Louis.pdf
│       └── Washington-University-in-St-Louis.tex
└── transcripts
    ├── Berkeley-Combined.pdf
    ├── Berkeley-Fall-and-Spring.pdf
    ├── Berkeley-Summer.pdf
    ├── english-tests
    │   ├── GRE.pdf
    │   └── TOEFL.pdf
    ├── 在读证明中英文_出国用_陈加木(PB21000002).pdf
    └── 普通成绩单英文_出国用_陈加木(PB21000002).pdf

32 directories, 72 files

I want to apply for CS/AI/DS MS for now. I do not want to go into a "tech institute". I want a green campus. It's already March.

  • [x] Transcripts & English Tests (2 exchange, 1 USTC, TOEFL, GRE)
  • [x] CV
  • [x] Statement of Purpose (SOP)
  • [ ] Letter of Recommendation (LOR)

I applied to these schools at March 1-2 (No LORs)

SOP (Brandeis example)

I was admitted to the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) at 16 through a difficult program for students with math competition backgrounds. I initially chose the math major before transitioning to Computer Science in my sophomore year.

In my sophomore year, I applied and went to a one-year exchange program at the University of California, Berkeley. I adapted quickly to the open-ended, project-heavy environment. Despite being only a sophomore, I took a total of 6 highly demanding upper-division courses in a year. I earned an 'A' in CS 170 (Algorithms) and CS 161 (Security), and strong grades (B+) in both CS 188 (Artificial Intelligence) and CS 182 (Deep Learning). I was deeply engaged with AI and Machine Learning, and I took a graduate-level course in Machine Learning: CS 285 (Deep Reinforcement Learning). In CS 285 (Deep Reinforcement Learning), I moved beyond theory, writing implementations for Model-Based Reinforcement Learning (MBRL), Conservative Q-Learning (CQL) for offline RL, and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) algorithms. Despite being a little overwhelmed by the course at the time, I reviewed all the materials and did all the experiments myself again after the semester finished.

I am always interested in applying the knowledge I learned in class.

After studying web security in the Computer Security course, I discovered and reported a critical XSS and cookie-hijacking vulnerability in my home university's official educational platform, which could allow students to log in as TAs through parsing markdown into HTML without sandboxing to steal the cookie.

Inspired by the LLM fine-tuning techniques in the Deep Learning course, I tried fine-tuning LLMs including Cohere Command R and GPT-4o on my personal blog (150k words total at that time) through different approaches, such as generating a question for each sentence or paragraph, and feeding the first part of sentences as the question and the later part of a sentence as the answer. I studied how models can imitate a human blogger and how they can retain information after imitation.

I always had a strong desire to scrape and analyze online data. I scraped around 170k comments from Douban (an online forum) discussions to analyze the contents and tones of users, and I built a frontend with Next.js to search for terms efficiently in real time, as the website does not have a decent search function.

To me, computer science is far more than just a sterile subject in school, but is woven into everyday life and utilities.

My old blog was on WeChat, which, unfortunately, is very inconvenient for me: it is prone to censorship, you are unable to edit posts later, and it does not support external links. After learning full-stack development, I migrated my blog to my own website with Markdown, CI/CD from GitHub, and a Postgres database as a backend.

When I was learning Spanish, I wanted to have dual subtitles for videos. So I built an automated pipeline utilizing Cloudflare R2, AWS EC2, and Docker to scrape and process over 400 GB of diverse video content from YouTube. I optimized instances of Faster-Whisper and Helsinki NLP on cloud GPUs, generating dual subtitles and writing them back via ffmpeg. I then built a full-stack Go/Crystal and Next.js platform to host and stream the data for learning Spanish with dual subtitles. Although later, I found out that YouTube's built-in subtitles work fine, and dual subtitle display is achievable through a browser extension. As I found existing extensions inconvenient or paid, I built an open-sourced extension for dual subtitles on YouTube on my own, which now has 40 users.

I believe in the openness of computing. I spent time reading the original Git source code to understand its raw index, blob, and tree implementations. I tried different open operating systems including BSD and the mobile PostmarketOS. I experimented with self-hosting open-source software, and hosted Mastodon (social media), Gitea (git service), and Metabase (a data processing tool) on AWS, in an attempt to build a parallel self-controlled, open social media system for myself.

My traditional academic path is not without struggles. Returning from Berkeley's ecosystem to the rigidly structured, highly traditional style of my home university resulted in a period of academic struggle, delaying my graduation by a year. The experience taught me that my true motivation does not come from chasing GPAs, but from my intrinsic passion and curiosity. I spent the summer at HKUST researching the relevance of physical data and location detection. My time as a summer research intern at HKUST taught me that I need more formal research experience on top of my engineering skills.

At Brandeis University, I am drawn to the M.S. in Computer Science and the Brandeis Lab for Linguistics and Computation. I have a special linguistic background that I believe is incredibly valuable for computational linguistics research: I am a native speaker of Chinese. As I immersed myself in English in primary school and middle school, reading hundreds of novels and writing many book reviews and travel blogs on my website, I now mainly use English as my primary language for writing and living. I am actively learning Spanish. I am drawn to the intersection of NLP research and linguistics, including the work of Professor James Pustejovsky and Professor Nianwen Xue. I am looking forward to studying in the picturesque, historic Waltham city and Boston area in New England. I am ready to fully dedicate myself to graduate-level research.

I thank the admissions committee for your time and consideration.

Update Mid-March

In a span of 2 months, my mindset has drastically changed.

  • In January, I was worried about passing the digital circuit final exam and several other courses. It is a sophomore course and I was retaking it in the 5th year. If I failed, I would not be able to graduate this year. Fortunately, through tremendous amount of effort, I got 67.
  • In February, I found out I passed all courses last semester and I only had computer organization and the thesis left. It became clear that I can soon graduate if I pass the course this semester. I began to think about applying for MS. I wanted to escape as quickly as possible.
  • Then I suddenly got admitted by NJIT and DePaul. And I had around 2 months to unpack the extreme pressure, anxiety, and depression. And my academic probation cleared. And suddenly I am right back on track at the previous path of pursuing a PhD in the US, just delayed by one year and probably going to a less prestigious university.

GPA Minimum

Sometimes they write "3.0 undergrad GPA" as a requirement on their website, but when you email them and you're like, "Can I apply with an undergrad GPA lower than 3.0?" Augusta was like, "you can definitely apply", Iowa was like, "That would be up to the program". Auburn was like, "we typically requires 3.0, you should demonstrate significant strength in other areas," Idaho was like, "the grade must be 3.0, but you can be considered if you write a statement or show your experience". West Virginia was like, "We offer provisional graduate admission below 2.75 GPA", I called Syracuse and they were like, "Absolutely, we offer admissions to 2.5, 2.6 applicants." I called Kentucky and they were like, "Yes, we accept GPA below 3.0 but it must be above 2.75." and I said, "Can I still apply with GPA below 2.75?" She was like, "Um, yes, but you have to talk to the department director Simone." Then she sent me an email and be like, "I copied Simone so he is aware of your inquiries." I called Washington State and they were like, "yeah, you can definitely apply, we wait until all your materials are submitted then look into it." I called University of Oklahoma, and she was like, "yes, sometimes if you provide your background or history. We have a minimum GPA but you can reach out to the department director Jean. They do it case by case." As it was like 4 am and I was yawning and I thought I accidentally called Oklahoma State and I called the same number again and it was quite funny, she was like, "you just called and asked the same question?"

Didn't Apply (Got first admission)

Deadline Missed

LORs

  • [x] Bei Hua (Professor, Thesis advisor)
  • [x] Lei Gong (Associate Professor, Head Teacher)
  • [x] Shuai Shao (Professor, Previous Head Teacher)
  • [x] Baizong Wang (Instructor, got 99 in Intro to C)

I will send the LORs to them at once in 2 phases. There are actually a lot of fear in contacting with the professors here directly. I failed too many courses and I rarely talked to them, but the teachers are all very chill in writing me LORs.

Final Applying Results (14/23)

March 1

  • New Jersey Institute of Technology (No LOR): March 12 🟢 Admit (AI)
  • DePaul University (No LOR): March 17 🟢 Admit (CS)

March 2

  • George Mason University (No LOR): March 27 🟢 Admit (AI)

March 17

  • Arizona State University (No LOR): April 9 🟢 Admit (AI)

March 19

  • Wayne State University (No LOR, No SOP): March 23 🟢 Admit (AI)

March 24

  • University of Vermont: April 8 🔴 Reject (CS)
  • University of Oklahoma: 🟡 Too Long Undecided (CS)

March 27

  • University of Oregon: 🟡 Too Long Undecided (CS)

March 28

  • University of Arizona: April 3 Dept Admit April 16 🔴 GPA Reject (CS)

March 30

  • Syracuse University: April 15 🔴 Reject (CS)
  • University of Delaware: May 9 🟢 Admit (AI)
  • University of Arkansas: April 3 Oral Admit May 1 🟢 Admit (CS, PhD)
  • University of Kentucky: May 28 🔴 Reject (CS)
  • Emory University: April 23 🟢 Admit (CS)
  • Washington University in St Louis: April 7 🟢 Admit (STAT)
  • Northeastern University Boston: April 3 🟢 Admit (CS, AI, DS)
  • University of Chicago: May 15 🔴 Reject (CS)
  • University of Cincinnati: April 11 🟢 Admit (CS)
  • University of Georgia: April 22 🟢 Admit (CS)
  • Auburn University: April 10 🔴 Reject (CS)
  • Tufts University: April 24 🔴 Reject (AI)
  • University of New Hampshire: May 8 🟢 Admit (CS)

March 31

  • Brandeis University: April 13 🟢 Admit (CS)

Choosing a School

PhD Interview

Professor Xintao Wu from University of Arkansas sent me an email on April 2nd saying he would like to have a 45-minute interview with me as I mentioned wanting to join "SAIL" in the SOP. He was a professor at UNC Charlotte till 2014. I looked up the professor and he is also an alumni of USTC and graduated in 1994. He has the "Acxiom Endowed Chair" (which means funding?) and is the top publisher in Arkansas on CSRankings (basically because that's where I looked up professors and put them in my SOP). I thought usually you don't get interviews with professors when applying to masters as there are thousands or more applicants and professors are busy. Even if you do, I think it is very rare for a professor to reach out first when I didn't even email the professor beforehand. And somehow I went on the website of Arkansas and it said students "must have a 3.0 GPA from bachelors", and the "SAIL" lab also listed "3.0 grade" in the requirements. So I went to read some papers for the interview.

So I spoke with Professor Wu for an hour on April 3rd, and we talked a lot, but mostly in Chinese. He asked about my academic background and my failures in school, and I explained that I was in a bad state after I went back to USTC and I said I am considering AI. He asked if I would be graduating, I said yes and I said the transcripts showed me retaking and passing courses. He expressed understanding and he said he is fine with that as I am from USTC. He asked how I found out about the programs in Berkeley and HKUST, I said I applied and mostly paid for myself in the Berkeley exchange program with some reimbursements, while the HKUST program was a school program, but you still need to apply. He asked about how I found Arkansas, I said CSRankings. I asked about 2 papers. He asked me about the projects I wrote in my SOP and my grad thesis and I told him about it. He asked me if I can code, and I told him about my projects, and I said I can implement ideas mostly without much problems. I told him how I implemented a transformer and I could put different book texts into it and generate something with the author's style. So he is mostly doing LLM privacy, and I asked about the "unlearning" process. It was about "attention masking" or something. I asked if it worked like, "John Smith lives in this street" and then hiding it. The professor said it doesn't work like this, but work for a specific record classification for copyrighted labels. He said that is partially the work of another vision transformer paper about hiding the face or something. I said I was curious if he tried to jailbreak it in different languages and he said they didn't really try it. Then I asked about another paper, which is from a student who worked in Walmart. Though, he discouraged "free exploration" and reading "systems code". He told me about the offers like Amazon or Google, or tenure tracks his former PhD students got. A lot of those students are Chinese and he said some went back to China. He said that his students are all well above the "average level" in Arkansas. (fair enough, he and another Postdoc student in the group are the top publishers on CSRankings in Arkansas by a huge margin) He said he have 1 Postdoc and 4 PhDs currently, 2 of his PhDs are graduating, and he is hiring 2 more PhDs this year. He already had one, and he is considering me. He asked me about my plans and he said he can tell the committee and transfer me directly to PhD. He said that MS in America is usually 2 years, and you still have to do a 4-5 years PhD after that, if you do PhD here you can do a PostDoc in a better school. I asked about whether his PhD students are being "pushed", he said the Chinese students work really hard, but if you don't want to work hard and just want a job, he will try to help you succeed as well. He said he have 3 million dollars endowment and he can use the interest for funding. Then we talked about curiosity and exploration. I said I have passion for computer science. He said you must publish in a PhD. I said I should be more modest. So basically he is suggesting me be more utilitarian. I said it and I was like, "You mean like being instrumental?" He smiled a little and he was like, "You are young and you can afford a few years exploring, you certainly can have curiosity, but they may end in failure." He suggested that you have to work much harder than the local Americans for success. Anyway, I said I was really thankful how a professor took an hour to talk to me and I said I thought professors are busy. He said if I got better offers, I can certainly take it. Then the meeting ended.

I received an email, where Professor Wu emailed the Department Head Roy McCann that he would like to have me in his group with "potential RA support", and Roy McCann (Head for Academics & Graduate Coordinator) told me to email the Graduate Admissions Office and provide the GRE score. I immediately confirmed my intention to join the lab. Then Jennifer Sandridge (Director of Graduate & International Admissions) completed the academic level change of my application to the PhD program. Then I went to the application portal again and uploaded a few empty PDFs for some requirements, and it went into the security clearance process.

Let's be completely honest, there doesn't seem to be any "hacker culture" or deep passion for CS in Arkansas (reading soure code does not register for fun to them), the culture does seem utilitarian, and his English was heavily accented (he switched to Chinese in the first minute). But on the plus side, he is already tenured, he has papers in ACL/EMNLP/AAAI in the last 2 years, I get good funding, I literally get a direct PhD, it is a gender-balanced university, and I think he is relatively lenient and cool about graduation. And for my specific profile at this moment, it is far more than what I believe I could ask for. If I go to a regular MS program, I have the huge burden of fighting to get research with just any NLP professor in a Capitalist program, getting a good GPA in the required courses (it is not "trivial"), and finally I might still land at a utilitarian, high-pressure, possibly a tenure-track, sadist professor, and start the PhD only by then. If I go straight to a PhD, I can quickly pivot my focus to reading and publishing papers.

Basically it is futile to argue right now. I sent an email to Karuna (a student graduating this year from the lab), Aneesh (another student graduating from the lab), and Min Hao (a student who graduated last year, now in Google) scheduled a video chat. From the professor's perspective, I am an "unknown variable" who is perhaps good at math but very arrogant, uncooperative, lacking in self-awareness, and who failed a lot of basic courses. The last thing I want is to alienate my potential advisor when I have no leverage. I must be cooperative for now.

Lab Culture (Per accounts of the students I spoke to)

  • Work-life balance: Very pushy or hands-off? Work hours in the lab?
    • Weekly group meetings and 1-to-1 meetings, people are in the lab for several hours a day (half a day maybe?) but not 996. If you aren't meeting your potential, Dr. Wu will tell you to work harder.There are moments where he will tell you your idea is wrong but you really want to do it.
    • It depends. Expected to come from Monday to Friday. On average 8 hours, but nobody cares if you are missing. Professor has own office. 1 meeting with you per week, 1 meeting with the whole lab.
    • 8 hours a day, you should come to the lab, one to one meeting and group presentation weekly. You can meet other students.
  • Lab culture: Collaborative or people work independently? Do they speak Mandarin?
    • You can choose to collaborate with other people. You can also choose to collaborate with other faculties. (actually, Dr. Wu and another Postdoc in the university are both from USTC, ok) But every paper usually has a main "first-author". Actually there is only one part-time PhD student from China now, the rest 4 from India, Vietnam, Nepal, and South America, 2 are graduating, so they mostly speak English (but somehow the professor interviewed me in Mandarin). The professor had a lot of former Chinese students though (and from his time in UNC Charlotte).
    • We have collaborations. There are other Chinese professors Dr. Wu is working with.
    • Weekly one-to-one meeting and group meeting. Other than that your schedules are quite flexible and it depends on you. You can talk to people around the school.
  • Funding: How much a month? TA vs RA? GPU?
    • Stipend is 2000 dollars a month. Says you have to find a roommate. (really?) Has a scholarship but she thought it passed for this year. 4 years RA, 1 year TA. Has some funding from the chair. Has some NSF grants, they are ending. He is writing new grants. Has university wide V100, A100, and some H100s. Didn't tell me about the details though.
    • Not sure, ask Dr. Wu. Dr. Wu allow you to do internships, but you can also stay in the lab to do more research. Students take internships in the summer and Dr. Wu allow that.
    • Dr. Wu pays you in the summer to do research. He pays you. You don't have to live in a shared bedroom.
  • Graduation
    • Professor Wu doesn't keep you around like a slave labor for 8 years. If he thinks you are failing, you will "master-out", as seen on the "Alumni – MS Graduate" at the bottom of the lab page. If you are doing a PhD, you usually graduate in 5 years, or 4 years if you had a Master's.
    • Once he feel that you are ready to graduate with 4-5 papers, you can do a dissertation, and he will not keep you for long. He is fair to students. In the summer you can stay in the lab, or you can do an internship.
    • There are very few industry jobs that exactly match your direction. In the US if you have done good research, you use that to search for a job.

Admission Delay

Actually, I still have my F1 visa from the Berkeley exchange. There are still around 1.5 years valid time, so I am not applying for a new visa.

MS send offers really quick, sometimes within a week. However, incoming PhDs need to go through a security clearance process as I am from China. So I paid the deposit for WashU and Brandeis. WashU sent me an email about how their students are receiving PhD offers. They posted the students' MS thesis on their website. Brandeis sent me an email with a "faculty spotlight" PDF and an hour long video for CS students where each professors talked for a while.

I sent an email to Professor Liuba Shira in Brandeis and asked for a chat, but the email ended up in my spam folder (perhaps because of the Eastern European/Hebrew nature of the name?). I called Brandeis and chatted with someone named Anna. I asked her how many students they have for MS and PhD, and whether there are over a thousand MS students. She said there was only 10-20 admitted masters in CS each year. I was so surprised and I said that is a huge relief, then I realized that I was one of the less than 20 admitted students. So there are indeed opportunities for research, and it looks appealing to me. Then professor Liuba and professor Antonella chatted with me (she emailed me again and it didn't go in the trash). They confirmed the program is 10-20 students and they told me I have to chose my courses to align with my research later on. Liuba said I need recommendation letters. I asked if the grants are changing or you must work on a grant that a professor had. Then Professor Liuba was like, you can choose the professor whose research you are interested in and you can align your research then. I was like, professors nowadays in AI are changing their directions every 3 years. Professor Liuba told me that "AI is just a tool, AI is not the whole thing, and the hype will pass". I was like, "all the undergrads here are working in AI in a state of panic and anxiety". I asked if it is chill and like they got work life balance. They said of course you can join a club if you want and overall the place is really small and they don't have a lot of students so you can walk up to professors. I said I had been to Concord for a summer camp before and I really enjoyed the place and New England. And I said have a good day.

Chat #2 With Professor Wu

Mainly about research. If I get the official admission, I will likely go. Thanks professor for the time and for advocating to the security committee for me.

Prof: Due to ... (blamed the government), Chinese students need a long security check these days. Very sorry for the inconvenience! WashU is a much better university and he knows professor Chen also doing AI in WashU from USTC, I can contact him to "convert" into a PhD as well.

  • What direction will I be working on? Since I will have RA funding, which specific grant or project that will be funding me?

AI for science (I don't want to do it!), also has endowned chair, but I can also do trustworthy learning (professor claimed is "crowded").

I be like, "I didn't study one course in Chemistry and Biology and I know I am bad at it." Professor be like, "back in our times in USTC we need some Chemistry and Biology." Professor be like, "fine, I am just telling you the situation, I am not forcing you down a path you don't like. I am just saying it is more crowded there. You cannot compete with big labs in fundamental research anyway."

  • GPU resources

8x H200, A100 (several years ago), shared HPC

  • Do I have flexibility for my research? Or is the research strictly defined by the lab's projects?

Due to ... (blamed the government again), NSF/grants are harder, Professor has much less funding than a few years ago. As Professor bought 8x 200 GPUs with some 300k dollars, the money is more tight right now. "AI for science" (claimed is the new direction) can pay get grants. But you can still choose your own direction more or less.

Professor Wu said you will not have time to collaborate with other professors or do flexible things once you get bogged down in a project or research, where you have to produce results in several months and compete with other researchers.

  • Do you expect students to publish in their first year, or mostly focused on coursework and paper review?

Directly into research. Professor says you can graduate in 4 years if everything goes well. There are almost no students who did "TA" except Karuna, almost everyone is always an "RA". Most people listed on the lab page graduate in 4-5 years. We got a student from Bangladesh and a student from China coming this year. You might be collaborating with them.

About the USTC Alumni Network

WashU sent me a WeChat group. I went into the group and there were very few people, only one professor. The WashU stat professor Lin Nan is also from USTC and I added his WeChat.

It's almost like no matter how much I hate my undergrad and how depressed I was, it already opened some doors for me. So I better keep playing this card if I can.

Epilogue

Ok, since I got admitted, I am very happy and contented for now. I am proud to be a razorback and I am ready to embrace the American south chapter.

Time has finally came for me to escape ugly Hefei and go to the US, but the disillusionment probably won't end there either. I am chill as long as I don't get fired by the PI. If I master out, I get into a decent tech job while most of the MS is subsidized. In the absolute worst sceanrio, I get deported, and I can go to Canada, get a citizenship, and go back to the US again.

Сотни лет, и день, и ночь вращается
Карусель-Земля.
Сотни лет — всё в жизни возвращается
На круги своя.

Завтра ветер переменится,
Завтра, прошлому взамен,
Он придёт — он будет добрый, ласковый,
Ветер перемен.

(Mary Poppins, Goodbye)

How I Failed in Socializing at Cal

Recalling some socializing experiences in Cal. I was 17 by then.

I quickly joined the Discord student hub, I posted on Reddit about being excited to be there, and I joined the Chinese student WeChat group.

However, I walked straight into 2 massive problems. When I first went to Cal, I still had to do take finals in China remotely (thanks to the covid policies back home postponing finals till February). Also, I was in concurrent enrollment, which means you are placed in the lowest priority for course selection, and EECS makes it worse. You can only be sure of what classes you are taking at around the third week.

I went to a business club or something, the first time people met in a large building. And when I went in there it was insanely loud and everyone was talking to everyone, like, 200 people in that building. So I left.

Then I went to a running club. Even the cal running club was very fast and I couldn't keep up, they do 65-70 second laps for several laps.

Then I went to OCF, OCF is more chill and probably the only tech club without any barriers, and people are actually passionate, but there isn't anything to talk to if you don't have a tech problem they can help you with.

Then there's a stat club, I went for a coffee chat with a member. They say they teach full-stack. They need 2 rounds of interviews. I was like, ok, bye.

There's a hiking club. I went there but it was some guys walking on a rope between trees in the first meeting. I exchanged Instagram with someone, but I don't think people care. So I left.

Then I went somewhere at night in north Berkeley, and it was another kind of meetup or something. It was so dark there. Finally I arrived and found some people but the foods were gone and they were leaving.

I went to the YA and creative writing decal. It's really cool, but I couldn't sign up for the class for 3 weeks and ultimately left. And before I failed I heavily prioritized CS. I should have stayed longer to hang around though.

I had a partner for the AI course, he came to my apartment and we worked on the first project together, but I ended up dropping the course.

Then the remote finals hit (actually I did ok in the finals compared to the failures later), my energies crashed, and I genuinely got lost in a big school. And I was also under heavy pressure to grind CS. And obviously I didn't want to hang out with Chinese students on WeChat. And I never had the energy during the year.

In the second semester I only went to the ML club introduction, and, as expected, they rejected me. I enrolled in 4 courses well beyond my capacity. And I was walking around a lot, taking the Bart to a station like Fremont, Emeryville, Orlando, Lafayette, then walking for 1-2 hours around, and taking the bart back. Or I ran down the city to the shore and Albany a lot, since it's downhill, and just running there and back. I had a lot of lonely coffee or cookies in Moffitt, not the place to strike up any conversation with strangers. You go in and everywhere there's a person with a laptop.

I even went to the Berkeley high school several times. I was the same age 17-18 back then. Once they were playing a basketball game and people were cheering, and I sat there among students. Once or twice they played soccer. I went there once in the morning and I stayed half a day mostly wandering around the campus and in the library. But I didn't talk to anyone though.

I lived in shared bedroom house with 5 housemates at the start. One roommate, female, with her boyfriend most of the time, just "polite hi". Another roommate, male, stuck in his room gaming and I don't know if he ever goes out. Another roommate, female, from UK, working in Lawrence labs, always with her mom and very closed. Another roommate, male, seen once like in half a year. Then at the second semester I lived in a studio at north Berkeley.

I spent a lot of time at Moffitt and the "main stacks" bunker.

I did not meaningfully socialize last time. I did not integrate or feel that I belong.

Clubs

I want to be chill, and I want the people in the clubs to be relatable.

It appears that there is a high overlap between the media clubs such as "Main Hill Media" and the Greek life, so idk. I got into Discord student hub once I got my email. But Discord does not seem very popular here.

A lot of interesting student associations, but please no CSSA

There is a "The Movement Company" on Instagram, but it seems very professional and not chill, the other dance clubs seem chill.

Some other clubs. I want communcation and ease of social integration.




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