Question from Sidharth : Course Selection, MS vs PhD, Future scope for VLSI Design

I'll try to address the question Sidharth brought up in the comments for the last post. So first a quick note on course selection at American universities.

Mechanics of Course Selection
In grad schools in the US, you have almost an unlimited choice of courses to take. You could take courses in virtually any field within your department and outside. A lot of students try to learn how to play tennis, golf or ball-room dancing while in grad school, although these courses don't get you any closer to getting a degree. So a lot of students take one such course every semester. One constraint for course selection is that if you are working with a professor for your research, you may be required to take the course your professor is teaching that semester.

At UW's ECE Department students frequently took courses in Computer Science. For instance if you are trying to learn Computer Architecture, you might want to take courses in Operating Systems or Compilers in the CS Department. You are the boss. You decide how you want to complete your course requirements. You could ask professors for course advice too, but you make the final decision on course selection. So in Sidharth's case, you could take courses in VLSI Design and Networking as well.

Deciding what you want to do
Before I get to the question of future scope, an important question you need to answer is whether you want to do an MS or PhD. Honest advice if you want to do a PhD, do it right away. It gets much harder if you leave with an MS, to return for a PhD. If you want to head to a higher ranked university, apply in the second year of your Master's so that you can leave at the end of your MS.

A second question you should consider is are you interested in research or in a development job? Although semiconductor chip makers do very high-tech work, not all of it can be classified as research. (in fact most of it is not research). My definition of research is the pursuit of new knowledge, new truths. The intention is only to prototype and publish some new techniques or inventions, but not really to make a product out of them. Development engineering starts out at these ideas that came out of research and creating products out of them. While there is a lot of thought needed in development jobs and there are challenging tasks, there is also a lot of drudgery. If you are looking to become a researcher, you need a PhD in nearly every case because these days 33% of engineers have Master's degrees in the US. (Source EDN Survey 2008) Also the field you choose for your research has a big impact on your future. Entering nascent fields like nanotechnology, quantum electronics, bio computation, EUV lithography, natural language processing could ensure that you do get to do research eventually. VLSI Design as a broad field does include a lot of different areas, but they have been around for a couple of decades now. So it is a good field to be in if you plan to get a development engineering job.

The scope for semiconductors : VLSI Design
We all hear about how computing has changed our world and how this is just the beginning. There are a lot of interesting problems that still need to be solved. Networking all the devices in your home, creating faster computers, 3D stereo vision displays, personal robots, the list is long and the only limit is your imagination. A lot of prominent experts are sounding cautionary notes about the future of silicon CMOS technology though. There have been a lot of reports in EE Times about challenges to continued integration and there are some indications that creating transistors at 32nm feature sizes and beyond might be very expensive. This might prevent a lot of companies from creating chips if the costs become prohibitive. I am no expert in how this will all work out but there are varying predictions for the future of semiconductor scaling for 5 year or 10 years. Shekhar Borkar of Intel claims that there will be a lot of problems, higher degree of variability, higher failure rates, higher transient error rates and how we might have to add a lot of redundancy to the logic on chips to correct the errors. Short answer is that until some big breakthroughs are made the future doesn't look without risk. We could be optimistic and assume that some smart scientists will be able to solve the question of lithography and create an EUV technology that works, find ways to minimize error rates, but things definitely won't be as easy as the last 20 odd years in the chip business.

A Survey

I see a few repeat visitors to this blog. I know not a lot, but if you like what you have read so far on this blog, I need your help. What would you like to read about on this space? If I know someone cares about the content here, I'd be more motivated to continue writing. So do chime in with suggestions for the next topic to tackle. Thanks.

A Recommendation for your Recommendation Letters

An important part of your applications to grad school include 2-3 recommendations. Universities prefer references from your teachers, who have some idea about your academic ability, but if you have work experience you can get references from your supervisors at work too. Here are a few suggestions about recommendation letters.

1. Get recommendations from the most qualified people
If you have a choice between references with a PhD and without a PhD, it should help to choose more qualified teachers. People assume that more qualified people are smarter.

2. Do some volunteer work
I volunteered to help in the organization of 2 technical festivals in college. That helped me get one of my recommendations. Also you develop more material to put in the letter, if you can point to some of the positive attributes that the teacher might have learnt about you through the event. Volunteer for part-time projects with your teachers. May be they need someone to code something for their own research. It doesn't hurt to ask. It shows initiative.

3. Get recommendations for your best courses
If you have done well at all the courses you took with a certain professor, definitely ask them for a recommendation. If the courses are related to the field you are applying for, it will definitely help your case.

4. Vary styles
If you have been asked to write all 3 of your recommendations, try to vary the style of the letter. Ask your father to write a letter for you based on some points, use different indentation , sizes of paragraphs. It shouldn't appear that you have written all 3 recommendations. Obviously you should vary the content as well. Again in this case it helps if you did many different things so that you have different things to talk about in the 3 letters and the SOP. Trust me 4 full pages is a lot of space to fill up.

5. Work for a well-known company
They say that if a professor in America reads a recommendation letter from a person he/she knows and respects, you are assured admission. If that isn't a possibility, do work for a company he may know, to improve your chances. This does favor the large companies like IBM, Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Intel...

6. Talk about your projects
Work from your final year or third year project is another good topic to allude to in the reference letters.

7. Mention percentiles
Say whether you were in the top 2%, 5% or 10% of the class even for particular courses if the numbers look impressive. Ranks and percentiles make you stand out of the crowd.

Visa basics for international students

Here is a simple overview of the various visa types that an international student will typically care about.

F1 Visa - The usual student visa. Allows you to work part-time up to 20 hours a week, so your RA/TA/PA/Grader positions shouldn't exceed this number. If you want to do an internship, you will need to apply for an OPT, Optional Practical Training, from the USCIS. The student is expected to have finished at least 2 semesters worth of coursework before an OPT is granted. So if you start in the Fall of 2009, you can only go for an internship in the Summer of 2010.

F2 Visa - Dependent student visa. This is a rare visa category. If you are a married student, then your spouse can enter the US on this visa type. Be forewarned though that F2 holders cannot work, study or drive.

H1B Visa - Temporary work permit. Usually is granted in 3 year stretches. You can renew it once without pre-conditions, so that gives you about 6 years of work permission. However if you have applied for your Green Card and applied for the second step, then you can keep renewing your H1B visa every year. The visa is tied to employment. If you switch jobs, the employer has to apply for an H1B visa again, but you won't have to compete in the brand new H1B applicant pool. Historically in the last 2 years this has turned into a lottery, because demand far outstrips supply. Many employees of BPO companies use this visa to work in the US.

H4 Visa - Dependent visa for H1B workers. For spouses. Allows spouses to study and drive but not work in the US. A step up from the F2 visa but not as good at L2 visas dependent on L1 visa holders, where spouses are even allowed to work.

EAD/AP - H1B visa holders who have completed the third stage of their Green Card applications get these documents. The EAD card allows you to work for any employer in the selected field and change jobs without losing your number in the Green Card line. Advance Parole (AP) is used for entering or leaving the United States for travel.

Grad Student Car Buying Guide

So you have saved up enough money to buy a used car. What next?

1. Find a car
Many such sources:
- Advertisements from fellow students on notice boards.
- Newspaper Ads from private parties.
- www.ebaymotors.com
- Used car lots close to campus.

Usually most Indian graduate students steer towards the Japanese cars because of their good gas mileage, lower rate of depreciation and their reliability late in their lives. Honda, Toyota, Nissan...

2. CARFAX
Every car in the US has a VIN number that uniquely identifies it. CARFAX gives you access to a car's vehicle history report. It will tell you whether a car has been in an accident, how many owners it has had, and other such juicy details. This is a great tool when you are conducting the search, to weed out bad cars. Try to avoid cars with accidents, as they could have higher maintenance costs.

3. Kelley Blue Book
The way to know whether you are getting a good deal is to find the price of a similar car, of the same year, mileage, features at www.kbb.com

3. Get it inspected
If you are buying a relatively expensive used car, get it checked from a mechanic. Since you won't know anyone in town, you can go to some of the renowned chains, such as MEINEKE or MIDAS. For around $50 someone will inspect the car for you.

4. Do the paperwork
If your used car passes the above checks, go ahead and negotiate on the price a little. It doesn't hurt to ask if the price can be lowered. Make a list of all the negatives in the car for the negotiation. If everything works out, go to the DMV to register the car. You will be asked to pay sales tax on the car. So be careful not to spend all your money on the car.

4. Don't drive without insurance
A very important rule. Get car insurance before you drive the car. You probably cannot afford comprehensive and collision insurance. So just get simple liability insurance, which means if you run into another car, the insurance will pay for the other person's damage. Comprehensive and collision will cover your car as well, but costs a little more. AAA and Geico are good companies to get car insurance from.