On Habré occasionally come across stories about how people go to study abroad. Not so long ago, they wrote about getting a master's degree in the US and I finally decided to describe my story about how I got into graduate school and started doing PhD, as well as my summer internship experience in the Mitsubishi Electric research laboratory, well, just a few words about post-Soviet and overseas.
True, I am writing with a little selfish purpose - to lure here several future graduate students to work on one interesting project. So, if you are interested and especially if you want to get into graduate school in the United States, welcome under cat.

I will begin by apologizing for the brazen copyieast :). Honestly, I first began to write everything from scratch, but then I remembered that I had once described the process of admission to LJ , so the first part of this article will be a brazen copy-paste from there.

Part 1. Admission

After a whole semester of staying in the USA, the day after the last exam (which was from 19.00 to 21.30 on Friday ...), I decided to write about how I got here, what I did for this and whether I need to get here a normal person. And it is very good that I did not get to this earlier, now I can already evaluate everything relatively objectively. Although I am here only 4 with a small tail of the month ... I study in graduate school (graduate school) for a PhD (Philosophy Doctor, PhD) ... no ... I did not give up in philosophy, just so the Americans call this title, which is their highest title because they don’t have any candidates and doctors of science. Those who know me probably would have thought that I was studying Computer Science or something like that ... no again ... six months ago I could not even imagine that I would study at the automotive engineering department, but this is true ... and Now I am a PhD student in the University of Clemson University. If I had read this post myself a year ago, I would have believed it with great difficulty ...

It all started like this: in 2004 I entered SevNTU (Sevastopol, Ukraine) at the Faculty of Automation and Computing Engineering, the department of Technical Cybernetics, and studied myself quietly and peacefully. As practice has shown, or rather study in the USA, I studied (with a capital letter) I, like all the others, only 2 years from strength, and then began cheating, handing over someone else's laboratory, etc. and so on. Partly, the students are to blame for this (after all, it was up to us that ultimately depended on what we did), partly the teachers (who could not explain WHY we learn all this and how it is used in practice), partly the education system and the leadership (who persistently tried not to introduce anything new, removed the introduction to the specialty and ... about financing and honesty, this is a separate big story ...). In the second year I decided to become a freelancer and write programs for the order, since I always enjoyed programming and I worked on it for quite a long time by that time, starting from school. One of the projects that I got there was an interesting project about video recognition and counting the number of pedestrians who cross the road. Already, in the middle of 2010, I understand how difficult that project was and that it was unrealistic to get> 95% accuracy on that video, but then it was interesting for me and I got to do it. I then spent about 3 months on it, did not receive any money! (this line should be re-read 10 times to those beginning megaprogrammers who want a lot of money at once, without introducing themselves because of their lack of experience). But I learned a lot of interesting things about image processing and video, about why we taught probability theory, about how a part of this incomprehensible university mathematics is used in real life, and I am very glad that I got such a project. At that time, I talked with people on the forums about how to implement all this and once a fellow like Tim Burr, the owner of Scopic Software, knocked on me for ICQ, he looked through the forums and came across me there. So I got the second very useful thing from this project (and still not a penny of money! This is again for those megaprogrammers) Yes, and I got a job for a reason, and after quite a cheerful interview in English chat (I knew him very much it is very bad that Fourier Transform and Fourier Transform are the same at once and did not guess, and that was during that interview) and the execution of the test task. That's how I became an employee of Scopic in February 2007, where I worked in parallel with my studies until the very end of 2009, i.e. 3 years, to which I am very pleased, because not every company can do so many different projects (from online video players to calculating orthopedic insoles and from 3D editors to transferring money to the iPhone) using such different means ... Sometime in 2006 I I worked summer at SunBay in Simferopol, all summer we were doing only one big project, at first it was interesting, then weary ... I don’t imagine how you can do all your life with one project, but it was also a very useful experience. Once in Skopik I could be said to have been sold into slavery, more precisely, I was leased to comrade Tommy Tucker, the owner of Tucker Innovation, where I was doing a project for one office from Switzerland. At this point I will finish the autobiography section.
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And here is the next paragraph describing how I became a car mechanic (well, or a slightly more advanced version of it). Communicating with Tommy showed that the easiest option to get abroad and not to distribute pizza is to study and receive their education. It was he who gave me this idea then. He told me that he was involved in a research project at Clemson University, and would have been happy to work with me on it. He also said that they will most likely have money for this business and they will be able to pay for my work (this should be highlighted in bold and emphasized, since for the PhD it is one of the few legal sources of income and the only one for me). Studying at SevNTU came to an end, I had to get my specialist in June and become a free person (for reference, a specialist abroad is not recognized, the master admits, but there is no sense from a Ukrainian master, therefore it is more logical to finish bachelor if you want to study abroad further). It is time to explore the possibilities to enter and leave. By the way, another event that allowed me to believe that all this was possible was the receipt a year earlier than my former colleague from Skopik, who was studying in Zurich by that time. It seems that in the first sentence I lied ... I will not tell you in this paragraph why I joined the motorists ... the paragraph should be finished, and up to this point another 2 months.

So, searching for information on the Internet showed that in any case, the first thing I need to pass is two exams: GRE and TOEFL. The first exam shows the general knowledge that we have left after school, it consists of 3 parts: composition, mathematics, English (this English is not important for techies, it maps the specific knowledge of English, and not the spoken language). This exam is passed by EVERYTHING, both by mathematicians and philologists, so it is important for techies to pass mathematics well, and to get a small ball in the language part is completely normal (I suspect that not every American will pass it well, and its analogue in Russian will not be passed by every Russian) . Mathematics in GRE is elementary school (it is school, not university) with some dirty tricks, so you have to learn everything that is forgotten, and how to add 2 + 2 and how to multiply, the main thing is to get used to the English mathematical terms and not to forget the multiplication table. The second TOEFL exam is already a test of knowledge of spoken English. Once a person travels to a country, they should be able to communicate with people there, which is logical. The test is quite serious, it is necessary and it is necessary to prepare for it well (in any case, to me, since I have never spoken English in real life with a living American, and I taught English normally for a lifetime of 5 months with a tutor). The test lasted 4 hours and when I came out, I had a feeling that the brain was just squeezed out, I wanted to lie down on the grass and pretend to be a TOEFL leaf in Simferopol. But for the sake of GRE I had to go to Kiev. It is necessary to sign up for exams in advance (everything via the Internet and the pleasure is not very cheap, GRE - $ 185, TOEFL - $ 165), since there can be such a situation that there are no places. Yes, and the exam results do not appear instantly (there are exact dates on the sites, it takes about 2-3 weeks to check). In general, it is necessary to start preparing for admission about 9 months before the beginning of the semester (and not like me, all at the last moment).

The next step is to apply for admission. This is done now via the Internet, you do not need to call and write anywhere (almost). In the same way the application is paid. Yes, everything is paid for here, with quite a decent amount of about $ 70, so there is no problem with the fact that students send documents to each university for each specialty, that is, you can send something, but you have to pay for each application. In the application form (application form), registration numbers of examinations are indicated, and after passing the examinations, 4 universities are indicated where the results should be sent, so the results are automatically transferred to the applicant's own file. Upon receipt, I also need to send an OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT by mail, here I had a lot of difficulties. At first it was necessary to understand what kind of a beast it was, it turned out that the transcript is a diploma supplement with an extract of all the grades. It goes without saying that it needs to be translated and reassured by a notary. I went to the nearest translation bureau, they translated it, they assured me, they made a mistake, they translated again, they assured me again, and they gave me the words, you can make copies with any notary. This is called a photocopy. When trying to make a photocopy, the results were the following: one notary assured that it was impossible in principle, as illegal, but offered to be translated from his translator once again (this is already translated text), another said that everything was OK, but it would cost about 100 ($ 15) UAH for a copy, the third one said that everything is good and it is only 20 UAH ($ 2.5) per copy. Here they are so different, our notaries. Then I had to send a transcript to the university. (I acted by the way only in Clemson, as it turned out that all other universities do not accept more students in the winter, even ETH in Zurich, which last year accepted, stopped this year). To send a letter, I went to ... (no, not where we usually go, although the result is about the same) postmaster. Before that, I never sent paper mail and always thought it was the last century, so the experience of sending a letter was something completely new. In the window, they gave me an envelope and a pen and was told to sign from where and where. Of course, that I signed wrongly, it turns out I had to think that this is an album sheet, and not as usual (before the sender / recipient can be printed and inscribed, our mail has not reached yet, or such dark people like me ... although a number of the guy just looked at this strange paper product called an envelope and tried to find the send button ...). But I signed it, put the documents in, asked the girl how quickly it would reach the states, received the answer 1 week, believed her, paid 40 UAH ($ 5) and sent it. In the previous sentence there is one of my big mistakes mentioned ... I believed her ... believed that our mail could deliver a letter to the states in a week ... but then I was still naive and believed in miracles ... With this faith, I left to ride around Europe, periodically checking state of my statement. At first, the state “Expected” in the graph of the transcript was normal, then it became suspicious, and then I understood everything ... There was very little time, I returned to Ukraine, I immediately ran to send another transcript, this time I used EMS, exactly 10 times more expensive but reliable. And this time it did reach ... They sent me a letter, thanked for the unofficial transcript and asked now to send the official ... Then a number of letters followed with an attempt to understand how to distinguish a non-official transcript from the official one with the naked eye. On the other side, apparently, they also did not understand what I want from them, asking about such elementary things. As a result, I learned that the transcript should be the same, but sealed in an envelope with a uni stamp. And then a new quest began ...

This is in the US, I can just go in and ask me to make such a transcript, paying a bit of money or even for free. And we have more fun ... I bought envelopes, made a copy and went to the university. I went to the dean, someone told me that the Americans did not distinguish the seal of the dean from the seal of the university. Our dean made an impression on me very thoroughly ... then it seemed to me that he wanted to eat me, moreover alive ... Either I didn’t get enough sleep, or envy, or some other anger ... but I had to see the expression on his face ... But he I finally put the stamp and said that the next task of the quest and the envelope itself, I can get in the office of XXX. I came to this office, they sent me to YYY's office, and there they told me that I would not be given an envelope for that, I had to receive an order from above. And I went to look for a higher power ... I had a vice-rector as my supervisor, I went to him. But the higher forces were at a meeting at the super-highs, that is, at the rector, where I went. There, the secretary of the rector said that foreigners have new requirements every year, but everything can be done. I waited for the vice-rector, he said to go and ask for help from his secretary on his behalf, and I moved into the next office. There, the secretary, because of the absence of the vice-rector, played the role of God, so I had to wait another hour, but I did wait. It goes without saying that we went to the next office and there was an aunt, the manager of envelopes, another local god (and why you can’t just do your job, like the Americans do? Politely, clearly, affably, user friendly. And they have their own problems, but ours are far away for them ...) Then I had to listen to how these incoming students in foreign universities got her (how much does she give these envelopes ... 1 per year ... 2 ... maybe even 5 ...) then she realized that she had to put a brand for the states and she doesn't have one. Another 10 minutes I explained that I would glue it myself, another 10 minutes to prove that I did not want to glue the stamp of another country, etc., etc. As a result, I was told that I received an envelope for free from her (for 14 kopecks) to go to another university, all at the expense of our uni ... I was silent that I had spent several orders more for the whole thing. So, I received it, this treasured envelope, having spent for it all the day. Sent again and he came, hurray!

Another important (perhaps the most important) point is 3 letters from professors or people who know you well in professional terms. It was easier for me, I just asked for one letter from the head of Skopik, the other from this same Tommy, who is my current boss, that is, a person who was known at the university. Without these letters, I suspect, it is very difficult to do. And finally, the last thing that I wrote long and tedious with many versions, an essay about why I want to go to them and why they need me there. This is a long and complex essay, but it was also written.

So, everything was ready, it's time to apply. And then I realized that I didn’t know where I should go in order to work on this very project with Tommy, I asked him and ... and he didn’t know either, he asked my current second boss (he later turned out to be the dean and my supervisor) and he responded to the automotive industry. This is how I got here, which I don’t regret. That's how I once again had no luck with becoming a programmer. In SevNTU, by the way, I was a submachine engineer, very far from programming, although in the USA my specialty is closest to Computer Engineering.

That's what I did here. Honestly, when I started writing this post, I wanted to describe everything from the beginning to the arrival, together with getting a visa, and how I live here and what kind of shishi, etc. etc. ... there will be quite an interesting story, but already one in the morning, 5 page of the text (and I should have been writing the article now), so I’ll postpone this business for the next Saturday, which I will have nothing to do in the evening. It would also be a good story about those things that I could not even imagine a year ago, but this also next time

To be continued…