Photo by Charles Jeffrey Danoff

Adam and I were recently discussing our lack of posts on our blog.  Between working full-time as a teacher and part time as a master’s degree student, I try not to beat my self up too much over lack of posts.  Adam has a similar time commitment, just in reverse (full time PhD student, part time teacher).  However, even with these time consuming responsibilities, we still feel guilty.  Blog posts from the pros like this and this and this (and more) say blog often.  In fact they all advise blogging a minimum of once a week.  We average a post a month.  If we’re lucky.  Can you say blogging fail?  Now with summer approaching, time is being put into both of our laps.  Time helps.  Of course, thinking that since you have “time” you are going to post more is a fallacy. I’ve been there.  And so has Adam.  So what is going to push us over the edge to start posting more?  What do you think would help?

I am obviously not an expert, but I analyzed the areas of life where I am most productive and I have come to this conclusion.  It is all about feeling obligated.  Responsible.  Accountable.  (I’m trying to find the perfect word to describe the feeling I think I should have, but I’m at a loss.)  Currently, I do not  feel compelled to post to my blog regularly.  It is a side thing, a hobby.  Obligation, responsibility, and accountability seem incongruous with hobby.  But passion can drive a hobby and lead you to accomplish great things.  It is happened to me before (even if right now it feels fizzled).  How do I begin to feel intrinsic motivation to blog?  I decided I need to figure out why I wanted to blog in the first place.

My reasons to blog (a.k.a “Why I wanted to blog in the first place…”)

1. Build Awareness for my Business, SheekGeek (which is also a side hobby!)
2. Share DIY Projects I’ve Completed (like this one – which is my current favorite post thus far)
3. Teach Others (Adam and I are both teachers after all!)
4. Become a Better Writer
5. Make Money (I didn’t want to put this, but I am just being honest with myself.)
6. Document My Life

Looking at this list, I’m trying to find my spark of motivation.  Surprisingly, Number 3 is really what is getting me going right now.  Good writing evolves.  The best writers write all the time. Every day.  I don’t write every day! I can’t reach my goals if I am not working towards them.  Adam and I both have writing a book on our bucket list (hehe, who doesn’t have writing a book on their bucket list these days!).  I get a slight adrenaline high when I write.  Ideas start flowing and it is a good feeling.  That means there is positive reinforcement for writing.  I definitely need to get into the habit of writing/posting.  I think goals need to be said aloud (or in this case typed).  I want to become a better writer. Ah, who am I kidding.  I said it aloud too.  I WANT TO BECOME A BETTER WRITER! Man, that feeling of accountability is growing.

I think if lesson number one of blogging 101 is “blog often” then potential bloggers need to analyze why they would want to blog often.  Especially if they need a kick in the backside like me!

For the design, I was inspired by two owls.  First I liked this guy from iStockphoto.  You can definitely see the similarities.  Second I was inspired by this owl on Disney’s Family Fun:

Of course, I liked the spin on the word always as “owl-ways”.  I think the pencil idea is great too, but I had already bought some sour crybaby gumballs.  I am planning to put the gumballs I already purchased over the eyeballs of the owl.  Here is the owl I created:

I have it two to a page to make for easier copying and distribution.  I will put my email on the back of each owl valentine so students can contact me in the future if they need to for any reason.  I also intentionally kept it as a line drawing so students can color it in if they wish.  Enjoy the freebie!  Happy Valentine’s Day!

1. Get an updated eye exam.  It is no good buying new glasses if your prescription information is different from your last visit.
2. Have your doctor measure your Pupillary Distance (PD).  This measurement from one pupil to the next is generally recorded in millimeters (mm).  Eye doctors will take this measurement but they will not share it unless you ask.  Ask for your PD measurement!  Write it down.
3. If you do not already own a pair of glasses, try on glasses at the doctor’s office.  Write down the name and style of the glasses you like so you can look up the measurement specification of those glasses online later.  The alternative to this is to measure (in millimeters) the overall distance of the frame, the bridge width, and the width of each lens using a ruler.  Write these numbers down.  If you already have glasses, you can measure the glasses you already own or look up those measurements online.  For example, I found the specs to my previous pair of “Thalia Amada” glasses here.  To acquaint yourself with common eyeglass measurements, visit sites like this.
4. Have your eye doctor print off your prescription information so you can put in your order right away.
5. Set aside a couple of hours. No joke!  Adam and I perused through all the eyeglass selections for much longer than we anticipated.  We ended up using EyeBuyDirect.  There are also similar sites like Zenni Optical or  $39 Dollar Glasses.  We went with EyeBuyDirect because their final costs were the cheapest with the glasses options we wanted.  Read about our experience with EyeBuyDirect here.
6. Find glasses that match your measurement specs. This is where I went awry with my first order.  I figured the 126mm total lens width of the glasses I wanted to order was close enough to the 120mm of my current glasses.  Wrong!  My driving glasses fall down to the tip of my nose if my head moves too quickly forward.  Pay attention to the sizes no matter how much you like the frame (or the price)!  The glasses you order will not look good if they do not fit your face.
7. Put in your order using your prescription information.  Triple check the numbers you type in.  Adam and I checked each other’s information twice just to be safe. Yay for a quadruple check.
8. Look for coupon codes.  After you place an order, EyeBuyDirect gives their customers a coupon code to share with friends and family that saves you $5 whenever someone uses the code.  Our code for 15% off at EyeBuyDirect is: IFT2Q1B7BB.  You can also check out their gift vouchers if the offer is still valid, but be sure to read about using gift vouchers here.
9. Place your order and expect to wait.  Even ordering glasses through a doctor’s office can take several weeks.

I hope your experience ordering glasses online goes well!  Read about my experience here.

While writing my thesis, I’ve come across a set of applications that I believe can be useful for almost any and everyone who is writing a paper.

To start with, you likely have a ton of PDFs saved to your computer from previous research. Don’t worry, I have the perfect tool for that. Mendeley has an amazing tool that combines lots of great services into one application. It allows you sort, highlight and annotate PDFs, scans PDFs for bibliographical information, syncs the PDFs with an online space (so you can use it across multiple computers such as home, office and lab) and has plugins for Microsoft Word and Openoffice Writer to quickly and easily insert references and automatically generates bibliographies in any of the many prepackaged journal styles. Mendeley works on Windows, Mac and Linux as well as iOS devices. This application has a great interface. You can set a folder on your computer as a “watch folder” and any time an item is dropped into that folder it is automatically scanned for bibliographical info and added to your list of documents. It can also export the references as BibTex, RIS or Endnote XML. It has many other options as well, but these are the main ones I use.

Next, you need something that will allow you to cite items from the web. This is useful because many scientific journals have all of their bibliographical information available on the web pages of the paper you might be interested in. This information can be scraped by a browser plugin and exported to any format you need, or piped directly into Mendeley. For this task, I have selected two tools. The first is Zotero. It is amazingly good at scraping info. There’s a firefox plugin that autodetects different types of source material and placed a tiny icon in the address bar of the webpage. Clicking this icon automatically saves the source. If the website you are using doesn’t have the correct information in the reference, you can search the papers DOI number in Zotero and it will automatically fill out all the information and store the reference. This is a requirement for using Zotero with IEEE Xplore as Zotero has a problem scraping that particular database. Using the “add by DOI” button is invaluable for these papers. Zotero also allows you to create a source form any webpage you might be on by clicking the “Create new Item From Current Page” button. This saves an HTML snapshot of the page as well as fills in access date and Page Title information. Again the resulting sources can be exported in several format, can be synched between computers and can even be piped directly to Mendeley.

The second tool for citing things on the web is the Mendeley bookmarklet that you can install in your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. Simply click this while you are on the page you are currently looking at and it will automatically send it to Mendeley. I haven’t had a lot of exerience with this tool just yet as I only recently found it.

As I mentioned before, Mendeley has a plugin for Openoffice. Simple click “insert citation” button in the Openoffice toolbar, go to the Mendeley application window, select the source you want to cite, and click “Send Citation to OpenOffice.” Once this is done, the citation pops up in openoffice. I recommends placing the cursor at the end of your document and clicking “Insert Bibliography” after your first reference is made.  This will automatically update with every reference you add, and it will even renumber and rearrange the references if you add more references within your documents.

You can change the style by selecting the “Choose Citation Style” from the Mendeley Toolbar in OpenOffice. Mendeley uses Citation Style Language (CSL) to format citations. You can edit this code yourself, it is very easy. The citations are in the installation directory of Mendeley (C:/Program Files/MendeleyDesktop/citationStyles-1.0 on Windows,  <installation folder>/mendeleydesktop-0.9.7.1-linux-i486/share/mendeleydesktop/citationStyles-1.0 in Linux ). In fact, I modified the IEEE format to include web addresses and access dates. You can download my style here. (Right click and save as.) To use it, download it to the styles directory I mentioned above and replace  the “.txt” file extension with “.csl” and restart Mendeley for the change to take affect. You can find the style in either Mendeley or in the OpenOffice plugin “Choose Citation Style.”

If you are interested in what these styles look like, you can check out Zotero’s online style guide. Place your mouse over the style you are interested in to see an example of the format.

I hope this helps some of you figure out a workable method for citations in your papers. I fumbled around for along time until I found these applications, and since, references have been MUCH less stressful.

The first step is to gather materials. Here we have most of the materials required for making 20 WASP original and 20 WASPS Solderless kits.

The magical box of WASP boards.

New pack of motors. Mmm, still has that “new motors” smell…

One of our boxes with 2,000 phototransistors in it; I love ebay.

One of the first things to be done is to cut and bend the motor mounts. We cut ours from a large spool and bend them with pliers.

Wheels are then cut from glow in the dark glue sticks. I hand cut these with a razor blade to about 0.5 inches. I have to hand cut these because I haven’t found a better method to get consistently good results. I had built a melting wire device, but it left the edges of the wheels all messy and the resulting WASPs didn’t roll well. I’ve envisioned a simple metal guillotine that would cut an entire glue stick at once, but I don’t have a machine shop to play with, nor the real need to build such a device. For now I just roll the razor on the gluestick about half way through, then push the blade the rest of the way. This gives pretty good results and the wheels roll as expected on the final product.

Then the wires are all cut. I wish I had a wire cutting machine but again, I don’t really have the need for such a device. Each WASP needs a three-inch red and three-inch black wire for the power connectors. This is plenty for the WASP Solderless, but the WASP Original kits need an additional 2 three-inch black wires as well as 2 three-inch wires for the motor connectors. These wires are cut then placed in parts bags (pink antistatic bags shown in the pics) as the parts are collected.

The WASP original kits are basically a bag of parts. Once the motor mounts have been made and the wires cut to size, the only thing left to do is gather the other parts. All the tiny things in the kit such as glue stick wheels, chip, socket, phototransistors, wires, PCB and tape are put into pink antistatic bags. The chips and sockets go onto antistatic foam first, of course. These pink bags as well as the larger components such as the battery pack, the motors, zip ties, chenille stems and the motor mount are collected and placed in the final retail bags. The WASP Original is then finished. All that is left is a color manual and a box, and these guys are ready to fly.

*** Now for the hard part ***
The Solderless kits require a good amount of work before they can be bagged.
First, the 3” power leads are soldered onto the WASP boards using lead free solder. I use Kester lead free solder. Rarely, I’ll have to use flux on this part, just because the wires don’t take the solder well.

Next I solder on the chip socket, and then the “eye” holders which are actually LED plugs. Here you can see some of the finished boards.

The Motor connectors need to be cut to length. We buy these at 12 inches, but we cut them to 6 inches for the kits. In this case I had to cut 40 of them.

Once the motor connectors are cut to size, they are soldered onto the PCBs.

The wires of the motor connectors are removed to make the boards easier to handle, and the boards are soldered to the 9V battery holders. Again, flux is used here but only needed in certain cases.

All the soldering on the bodies is done. The bodies are washed in warm water and scrubbed with a toothbrush to remove all the flux.

Now we can focus on the motors themselves. The first step here is to cut the heatshrink and put it on the wires of the motor connectors. There have been quite a few times when I forgot this step, and was half way finished soldering the wires to the motors before I realized my mistake, and had to redo the whole batch.

Once the heatshrink is on the wires, they are stripped and tinned with lead free solder. Flux is used here more than in any other step.

Next, the motor leads are tinned. I lay out all 40 motors and tin the leads on the top side, then flip them and do the other side.

Then I realign the motors to make it easier to solder on the wires. Making sure the motor vent is facing up, I attach the black wire to the top lead then flip the motors and attach the red lead. When they are all finished, I use an old toothbrush to clean off the remaining flux the best I can.

Here are some cool artistic pics of the motors before the heatshrink is applied:

Then I slide the heatshrink over the motor leads and use a heat gun to shrink them to size.

Once everything is built, each new candidate for the title of “WASP Solderless” must pass a system test. All the components are connected up and power is applied. The robot must respond to light by having only one motor on at a time, and changing which motor spins depending on which phototransistor gets more light.

Only once a robot passes the test will the brain be attached to the body using 2-sided thick foam tape.

Below are a bunch of newly passed bugs:

Now the motor mounts must be attached. Here you can see all the motor mounts with think foam 2-sided tape on them awaiting bodies.

Then the glue stick wheels are put on the motors. To accomplish this task, a little ingenuity was required. (And when I say “a little” I really mean it, haha.) Instead of using a candle to heat a paperclip to melt a hole in the glue stick for the motor shaft, I rigged up a simple device consisting of an old dollar store soldering iron, and a piece of steel coat hanger. Of course I attach this to my soldering stand to adjust the power settings.

I adjust the power so that the glue will melt, but not burn. I then use the tip to melt a hole about 0.25 inches deep in the end of the glue stick.  Once the glue stick is melted to the proper depth, I stick it on the motor, and spin it to make sure it is as centered as possible. This ensures the final WASP will roll evenly on both sides.

Here are some artistic pictures of the motors with their new wheels:

Now a new swarm of WASP Solderless kits are about ready to take flight.  Yup, I went there.  Deal with it.

All the parts are collected in bags, and all the bags are heat sealed. We got the impulse sealer from ebay for fairly cheap. I expected it to be broken, but it was actually perfect.

The bags are then stored until a WASP is bought.  At that point, a box is made up and the bag of parts, color manual, and sometimes a flashlight are packaged in the box, and the box is wrapped and shipped. We also take 5-10 of each kit to shows we do (like Bugfest and Geekfest).

I recently had an MRI and wanted to make an animated GIF out of the images. I found a couple of great little programs that made this task a breeze.

To make an animated GIF of your MRI, we’ll first want to strip off your name and personal info from each of the images. This makes the resulting images look cooler. This step is optional, but highly recommended as your personal info will stay private, but you’ll end up with a wicked set of images.

Open your CD, navigate to “Data.” Within this folder you should see one or more folders with a name like EXP000**. These are where the actual views are stored. They should each contain some .jpg files, some HTML files and some .dcm files. We are interested in the .dcm files; they are called DICOM images. We need some software that can view and edit and convert DICOM images. A great free medical viewing program is called ezDICOM. This same website has details on the format as well as suggestions for many other editors, but I won’t cover any of those.

I’m running ezDICOM in Linux under WINE for this tutorial.

Make sure you are viewing thumbnails in your folder (View–>Thumbnails). Look at the .jpg files to see which ones are from the same series of images. Sometimes many different views are mixed together in these folders. You may want to create a folder on your desktop to organize files that are from the same view. You can also run the program that came with the CD to see which views are from the same series.

In ezDICOM, go to File–> Open and hold the shift key as you select all the correct DICOM images.

From here you can edit the size and contrast of the images if you choose. The main point is to eliminate any data or text on the images in preparation of the next step. From here I usually save all the files as images to a separate folder. Do this by hitting “Ctrl+s” then selecting .jpeg as the filetype. Name the file what number in the series it is using the name of the DICOM it came from. Be sure to name the first 9 images with a leading 0 as in 01, 02,03, etc. This helps keep the images in the correct order later on.

I ran through 24 images very quickly using this approach. Additionally, there is a standalone DICOM to jpeg converter in the ezDICOM package called “dcm2jpg.exe” This is a command line program that says you simply have to drag and drop .dcm files on top of it and it’ll convert them to jpeg for you. This can likely do batches of files and speed up your process, but since I only had 24 images I was interested in here, I did it manually.

The next step is to get the images into a GIF animation.

For this I used a program called GiftedMotion. This dead simple JAVA program allows you to easily make animated GIF images on any platform. Simply go to File–>Load and Shift-select the .jpeg images you just made. Once all the images are loaded, you can hit the “Play” button to see what the GIF will look like. If things are out of order you can use the arrow buttons in the Sequence editor to move stuff around. You can also play with the length of time each frame is shown and move them around somewhat.

When you are happy with the results, hit the “Record” button to save the resulting GIF. It will take some time, and the larger your images are and the higher the number you have, the longer it will take, but the results are a wicked animated GIF of your brain scan.

From a teacher’s perspective, four makers in particular presented things I just “need” to have in my classroom.  This is my wish list:

• Classroom Visits for “Scrap” from the ScrapExchange
• Leatherbound Books
• ShopBot Tyro
• DIY Multi-Touch Screen

Find reasons and more information about each of my choices after the jump.

“Scrap” from the ScrapExchange

The pre-party for all the makers involved was held at The Scrap Exchange, and I admit I spent over three hours in this creative reuse center perusing all of their wonderful and random items.  Some items of interest for potential classroom application range from the obvious to the obscure:

• Lab Equipment (All teachers that teach science need to use tools scientists use!)
• Paper (Large Rolls for Art Projects or Collaborative Group Planning)
• Folders (I like to use folders with educational programs like MathPals)
• Notebooks (For taking notes, duh!)
• Stickers (I couldn’t resist buying some sparkly sticker paper myself!)
• Corks (One of the many materials you can find there to test bu0yancy or density)
• Old Posters, Newspapers, and Magazines (Comparing yesterday to today.)
• Mylar (Creating kites to study the physics of flight)
• Doodads & Whatnots (Whatever your mind can imagine!)

I think either a teacher field trip or student field trip to the scrap exchange could be an amazing creative journey.  They have giant blue bins that contain all sorts of random items you knew (and never knew) you wanted and needed.  All of their prices are very reasonable, and for a mere $3.50 you can fill a shopping bag size bag with all the bin items you could ever want.  The only stipulation is there is a item limit for each of the bins.

Leatherbound Books

Of course a name like Leatherbound Book Works is bound to get an educator excited.  The books here are bound by bookbinder and shop owner, Michael Greer.  The journals he creates are sure to inspire any child and would make great writer’s or reader’s notebooks.  Michael shared that the maps in the stories by famous author J.R.R. Tolkien influenced him to go into book making, and he now even creates his own maps to be included in the pages of the books he binds.  His passion for bookbinding makes me want to help my students create their own professional books from scratch, much like this instructables post I found.  Have you embarked on a similar venture?  I would like to here how your own bookbinding endeavor turned out.

ShopBot Tyro

I don’t know how anyone could NOT want a CNC Router.  With such a piece of machinery, you could create virtually anything.  The ShopBot Tyro is looking to release in the next few weeks for about $3995.  Every middle and high school shop class should have one of these in their classroom.

DIY Multi-Touch Screen

Already having a promethean board (which means I essentially have all the more expensive raw materials already available – like a projector and computer), I am VERY much wanting to create one of these to use in my classroom.  Can you imagine fifth graders working together with such a surface to share and create?  It would be impractical to use everyday, but this surface makes it ideal for groups to share computer resources.  The software is open-source (free!) and active support is available through the NUI Group Community.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think the best impression that any teacher, or person, can take away from the Maker Faire is that if you can dream it, you can create it -  so go out there and make!

In the first part of this two-part series, I went over some of the basics of graduate school applications.  In this part, I’ll go over some more detailed aspects you should consider when choosing a program and tell you some tips that might help you get in even if you don’t fully meet the requirements.

After each detailed section, there’s a “TLDR” notice. This stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Read” and gives just the basics of the section.

Program Selection based on Financial Support:

Graduate schools in America are considered “Extra schooling.” By that I mean that many times Undergraduates can qualify for financial aid in the form of grants. Graduate students, however, don’t get this option very often. Unless you get a fellowship, or assistantship (and even if you do many times) you will likely be taking loans to pay for school, and it ain’t cheap.

If your program has enough money (and if they want you bad enough) they’ll offer you a fellowship. This is basically a grant, but it isn’t from the state. It is directly from the school. Sometimes you have to meet certain requirements for them, such as promise to work on certain projects for a certain time period, etc. Be careful and read the fine print some require light work duty, but pretty much all of them say how many credit hours you must be registered for.

You should look for programs that have lots of active projects and grants going on. These programs will likely be able to hire you as either a Teaching Assistant (TA) or a Research Assistant (RA.)

Here’s how it works:

A professor or group of professors at your program will write a grant. If they are awarded the grant, they must research what they wrote in the grant request. For instance: A professor writes a grant to work on a flexible tentacle robot. He gets the grant, and now he has a a few hundred thousand dollars a semester to spend on parts and labor. The labor includes paying someone to do menial tasks such as grade papers (the job of the TA) and it includes paying people to actually actively work on the grant (the job of an RA). RA positions pay more than TA positions, and the work that is done on an RA benefits the worker. If you are an RA working on the tentacle robot, any research you produce that is published has your name on it, and can help you get jobs, money, women, etc. (Joking, but only slightly.) Many times the research you do helps you with your thesis.

When you are a TA, you have to take time away from your current studies to grade some undergraduate’s midterm. Clearly RAs are the rock stars in this scenario. The good thing about a TA is that you can work for any professor, while an RA usually works for their advisor, or another professor on the grant.

You should research who has money, and what kind of money they have. You can speak with professors directly and ask them if they think they’ll have any positions available, and you can see the Graduate Student Services Coordinator to ask about fellowships. Here is some more information and some tips on fellowships and assistantships.

The last thing to consider here is not in any rulebook. Make sure you can write coherently and speak good English. This isn’t a racist thing, but you are less likely to be hired if simple communication with your boss is hard. If you are a RA, make sure that your writing skills are up to par as well. You need good grammar and good style to write effective papers. Your Adviser doesn’t want to have to rewrite everything you send him before he submits it to a conference or journal. These are little things but they must be taken into account. Too many students are passed over for jobs because of this. Again, its not racist, its usually subconscious on the professor’s part.

I was forced to take loans for Grad school, and my very first semester cost me more than all 5 of my undergrad years together. This was in addition to the fact that I was luck and already had an assistantship lined up.

• TLDR
• Look for where you can afford to go.
• See if you can get a Fellowship.
• Try to find Assistantships (RA is better than TA)
• Speak and write well, and in English.

Portfolio, Resume, Curriculum Vitae (CV):

A portfolio shows you past projects and in a way your experience and proficiency in whatever you do. In this type of portfolio, I’m including a resume and a CV.

The resume is simply your past work experience. It should be about a page or two long and it basically shows what you’ve done, how long you did it and who was paying you to do it. You can even add what skills you have and past class experience. I always add this because if a professor sees what you’ve done professionally, then he gets a better sense about you. If he likes you he can pass this resume along to people he knows in industry.

If all you have to write about is that you worked fast food during high school, don’t bother. This is more focused on work in your field. But if you’ve started a company, then by all means, write that down. You want to have 3-4 good jobs at least on there, and list out tasks you performed at each job and how long you worked at it. Spend some time with you school’s career adviser. Mine was a huge help.

The Curriculum Vitae (CV) is basically your academic resume. Whereas the resume is only work experience and should only be a page or two long, the CV shows academic as well as industry work experience, teaching experience, community service, achievements, awards, publications, conferences attended, the name of your sister’s cousin’s uncle, etc (joking again of course.) Where the goal of the resume was to be only a page or two, it seems like the goal of a CV is to be as long as possible but without being redundant or extraneous. Again, have your school’s career adviser look it over and give you tips.

My portfolio is one of the main things that got me into Grad school. I may not have had the best GPA, or the best GRE scores but throughout my entire undergraduate career I had been designing and building projects that were on the level of most people’s Senior Design projects. I still had all these projects, and I searched through all my hard drives to find images, videos, code, descriptions, anything at all on them.

I went to Open Source Web Designs, picked out a nice design and stared hacking on it until I had made myself a well organized portfolio website. I uploaded it to a web address and burned copies of it (as well as an autorun script) to CDs. It included contact information, a general introduction, resume, CV, videos, pictures, and even presentations of past projects and my publications. I linked this in my Personal Response and handed a CD out to any professors I met in a program. Since most people don’t do this, its rather impressive to have a full body of work there. The professor just pops it in the CD drive, and the webpage automatically runs off the CD.

Even if you haven’t done a lot of outside work, you can still put projects and presentations from your undergrad classes. Any big project with a powerpoint file or a final paper should be documented and used. In my case on the CD, I actually provided PDFs of descriptions of what each project was. You can browse the files to find more projects than were presented on the HTML pages.

Don’t worry if you don’t know HTML, neither do I. You can use a WYSIWYG editor to drag and drop things. Kompozer, Nvu, Seamonkey are all great free WYSIWYG editors for every platform.

• TLDR
• Make a good resume
• Make a good CV
• Collect some projects form undergrad you are proud of
• Create a simple but appealing and well organized website showing all this.
• Put it online as well as burn it to CDs to hand out when you meet people.

Face to Face Meetings:

One big thing that I feel helped me get into Grad school was face time with the professors in the program. These are the people who will be on the graduate committee. They are the ones who go through all the applications, read all the personally responses and will ultimately decide who gets in and who doesn’t. The best thing you can do is to meet with these people and make a good impression on them. This is quite possibly the most important thing you can do.

The first step here is to research the professor on the school’s website. See what kinds of projects they have. You have to do your research, otherwise you’ll just waste their time and that can piss them off. You should be able to ask intelligent questions about their projects, etc. Many times their websites are out of date. Be prepared for this as well. Search for their names in Google Scholar and try to find some papers they’ve published.

For instance, when I was checking out Clemson’s Intelligent Systems Program I got online and researched every professor in the program. I set a day that I could go to Clemson, and meet with them. I set up appointments with each and every professor in the program. Basically I sent a cold email or made a cold phone call to each one of them.

Dr. X

I am an Undergraduate student in <topic> at <your university> and am interested in pursuing <Dr. X’s program> in graduate studies. By searching the <Dr. X’s school name> website I found your project on <whatever Dr. X is working on> and am interested in learning more about it. If you have the time, I would really appreciate a meeting at which we can discuss your project and my prospective Graduate school plans. I will be visiting the <Dr. X’s school> campus on <give a date.> Please let me know at your earliest convenience whether or not we can meet that day; and if so, what time would be best for you.

Regards,

Name

This isn’t exactly what I wrote, but it’s close. You need to be professional and state exactly what you mean to discuss. Most professors will reply favorable to you taking the initiative like this.

I set up 7 meetings for the one day I planned on visiting the campus. I gave 30-45 minutes per meeting with time for lunch. I left my house at 4:00AM, drove straight there, wore a suite, met with some people, ate lunch, met with more people, and left campus at 5:00PM and arrived home at like 9:00PM. The entire night before I had stayed up putting finishing touches on my portfolios.

At each meeting I introduced myself and knew exactly what topics to discuss with each person I was meeting with. I even met with some people I didn’t expect, such as the Graduate Student Services Coordinator and the Chair of the program. Be prepared for this kind of stuff too. I was taken on tours of research labs and met with a few RAs.

They may ask you questions such as “Why do you want to work in <whatever they teach>?” Be prepared also to mention some projects you want to work on. Don’t be afraid to get kind of specific, these people know your field, and can easily carry on a conversation. Don’t B.S. them either.

I was once chatting with the head of a Computer Science program I was applying to. I was talking about neural networks and image recognition, and talking way over my head. Someone interrupted our meeting for a few seconds and while they chatted up the professor, I looked at her bookshelf. There were titles such as “Neural networks and Vision recognition.” The bad part was that these were book she had authored! She had literally written the book on what I was trying to B.S. about. Imaging my surprise. Once we were alone again, I quickly changed the subject to more familiar territory. (That program accepted me in the end, and had I gone there I would have had to do a lot of extra work to keep up with my B.S. I was talking.)

I ended up not even applying to Clemson, as I wouldn’t be able to afford to move there at the time. That was a mistake because I would have lost nothing in applying but had I gotten in, I’m sure I could have found a way to work things out. I think with fair certainty that all my work would have paid off and I would have been accepted there.

The whole trip took its toll on me, as that weekend, I had a pretty bad panic attack from all the stress it put me under. I had chosen a terrible time to go, I had an exam that week, as well as Valentines day, and a huge project for work the same week. Be smart and plan ahead on all this stuff, to avoid the same fate.

The best thing I can say is to imagine you have their job. What would make you remember someone, and make you want to work with them?

After you meet with the professors, way a few days and send a personalized “Thank You” email to each of them. Mention how you appreciate their time and effort, and thank them for mentioning <whatever thing you talked about that you hadn’t heard about yet but are now really interested in>, etc. This goes a long way with them as well.

• TLDR
• Research each professor in the program you are interested in
• Try to meet with them in person, otherwise through email (this is why your portfolio should also be online.) It is easy for them not accept a name on an application form, but much harder for them to deny someone they’ve actually met.
• Dress nice, don’t look like you’ve stayed up all night.
• Be genuine and don’t lie (you should do this always anyway).
• Introduce yourself and be confident and self assured while meeting with them.
• Ask the right questions.
• Get their names and projects right.
• Be ready to answer questions yourself, as if in an job interview.
• Be ready to provide some ideas you’d like to work on that are similar to their projects.
• Plan ahead.
• Send Thank you emails.

Numbers:

While it isn’t free to apply to graduate programs, you should apply to every one you can afford to that you are interested in. I only applied to two programs, and they were from the same school. I should have thrown my hat in the ring at Vanderbilt and Clemson, and even MIT. I might not have been accepted, but I would have gotten some nice letterhead at least.

On a whim, Jessica sent her GRE scored to Harvard. A couple of months later, they sent her a letter saying they got her GRE scores, but she had not applied. Based on her score they were surprised that she hadn’t. Word for word: here’s the beginning of the letter they sent her:

Greetings from Harvard… We have received your official GRE score report and believe you to be a strong candidate for graduate study at our school.

The only thing you loose in applying to more schools is the submission costs and costs to send them your GRE scores. The benefits are that you can go to a really great school with innovative projects and interesting people. You loose every possibility for these things by not applying.

• TLDR;
• Apply to all the schools you are interested in, and don’t sell yourself short. You just may get into the school of your dreams.

Conclusion:

All of these tips can only help your chances at getting into graduate school. Strong relationships with the professors are integral, and integral to that is a strong portfolio and some good face time with them. That being said, having good GRE scores and a high GPA, and good letters of recommendation are a lot of what they look for. They also look to see if you are a hard worker, and all of the tips above will prove beyond a doubt that you are. This is also a good exercise in working by yourself for a goal. You’ll be doing this in one way or another all throughout Grad school, so get used to it that kind of mentality.

If you they let you in it is because they believe in your potential. They don’t want you to fail. Your success helps your adviser get raises and promotions so they will do what they can for you. Your adviser is a great ally.

Good luck in your Graduate Program Search and I hope you get it!

Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children ages five to twelve, and free for children four and under.  It is a great deal considering it provides several hours of amusement and learning.

If you are looking for a specific reptile or other exotic pet, it is a perfect venue to meet the breeder and haggle a price.  Here is a photographic journey of our experience.

When first visiting an animal convention, we were surprised at how animals were displayed.

Acrylic cases and plastic tubs were ubiquitous.

The plastic containers housed frogs.  I think this picture is a great candidate for speech bubbles!

The containers also housed tarantulas and other eight legged creatures.  This particular specimen, a “Cameroon Giant Red Baboon”, turned upside down for his (or her!) picture.  It turns out this particular tarantula like to burrow.

This leopard gecko also appeared to be a lover of the camera.  I was also a lover of his “tangerine” color.

This bearded dragon gets a healthy diet.  I was very impressed by the passion and obviously well taken care of dragons from the breeders at Carolina Designer Dragons.  Our next future addition to our household may be one of their sweet dragons!

Vendors unknowingly (or perhaps very knowingly) put on a free show.  This albino python was a hefty weight to carry.

One of my favorite aspects of Repticon is the educational aspect.  There are informational shows every 2 hours about reptiles and other creatures.  You are also able to interact with many different types of animals during the show (if you volunteer).  “Hey kids, want to hold a corn snake?”

Overall it was a great experience and well worth the admission price.  It makes me wonder what other type of lovely conventions are out there for me to attend…  My dad and uncle “in-law” recently attended an orchid convention, so obviously they have them for a myriad of interests.   If I attend another random convention, I will post.  If you have a convention suggestion, let me know about it.

Here is a gallery of the images from the Charlotte Repticon January 2010 and 2009.

]]> http://sheekgeek.org/2010/jessicasheekgeek/charlotte-repticon-january-2010/feed 1 http://sheekgeek.org/2010/adamsheekgeek/tips-on-getting-into-grad-school-part-1 http://sheekgeek.org/2010/adamsheekgeek/tips-on-getting-into-grad-school-part-1#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:27:16 +0000 Adam@SheekGeek http://sheekgeek.org/?p=184 From time to time, people ask my advice for how to get accepted into Graduate school. Reading the school websites, and talking to professors and administrators isn’t enough.  Not to mention you need people skills to get in.  In this, the first of a two-part series, I’ll break down the very basics of what many programs require, and give you tips and tricks to help out.  The second half will be advanced tips, that show that you really want in the program.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert on this subject. I don’t have the best people skills, and I don’t know all there is to know about Grad school, but I do know what worked for me, and my advice has helped a few people to get accepted so far.

I’ll begin with some general questions I get asked.  The second part of this series will go into more advanced aspects of Grad school selection and even some tips that may help you get in even if you don’t meet the requirements.

After each detailed section, there’s a “TLDR” notice. This stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Read” and gives just the basics of the section.

Timing:

This is a pretty simple one. Start Early! If you are interested in starting Graduate school in the Fall, then you should do all your research and apply as early as possible for that program. Another benefit of applying early is you may get your results faster. Many times a Graduate school might accept you into a program, on the contingency that you take some classes to bring you up to speed with their program. If your acceptance has a such a contingency, applying early give you a chance to make it up.

Degree Selection:

One of the biggest questions I get is “I got my undergraduate degree in X, what do I need to get into a Y grad program?”. The answer I give applies to all degrees, but my answer is going to involve a specific example.

Let’s look at a Bachelors degree student in Electrical Engineering Technologist (EET) trying to get into an Electrical Engineering (EE) program. You would think these two things are very similar, and in many aspects they are, however, there is one MAJOR factor separating the two degrees. Calculus. EEs have to take Calculus 1, 2, 3 and Differential Equations, then the Calc-based Physics classes. EETs on the other hand generally take a class that combines only the topics required for the degree from Calc 1 and Calc2 classes. EETs going for an EE graduate degree are many times in a bad situation, where they are required to take all those math classes Post Baccalaureate before being accepted into a Grad program. I only know of 2 cases in my Grad program that a B.S. EET was accepted. Both of us had first taken our first 2 years of our undergrad in EE, then changed majors. This is critical as we already had the math required. In fact I had to take Calculus 3 the summer before my first Graduate semester to make up the deficiency.

• TLDR

• Basically the rule here is try to find what programs your undergraduate degree works best with. For most EETs, Engineering Management is a great choice, and for those that like to program, Computer Science is good. I know people who I graduated with who have done both. Don’t fool yourself into thinking your B.A. in History will help you get into a Biology program or vice versa.

• No matter what program you are in you will likely have to take a deficiency class. It usually won’t apply to your graduating credits either but many times Graduate Directors use this to see how serious you are and how hard you are willing to work.

GRE and Acceptance Exams:

Usually, to get into a graduate program, you have to take an exam like the GRE. The GRE is basically like the college version of the SAT. Many schools require a certain score, but this is flexible. If you lack in this area, they will look at other aspects of your college career to decide your Graduate School fate.

There are other Exams, but I only have experience with the GRE.

There are 3 main sections; Math, Reading Comprehension, and Writing. Many programs have a minimum score you must get to be accepted. To check the program or college you are interest in, scour their websites. You can also check some stats at places like GREexplorer. I also highly recommend searching the net on your own. A simple google search yielded a free site, Number2.

When you sign up for the GRE, know that it takes about3 hours straight (a short break between sections) and must be taken at a test center on a computer. The company that makes the GRE has free software called Powerprep with example GRE tests in it that look and feel exactly like the real test. You can go there now, answer a quick survey, and download it for free before registering to see what it is like.

The fact is that you HAVE to study for this test. You cannot just wing it. Now as far as test preparation, There are many schools of thought. You can buy all the books, do all the practice tests in them, and take classes; or you can use Powerprep and the internet. Jessica and I both used the second method and did well. (I did OK, Jessica did pretty well…) I have a friend who tried to wing it the first time, and whiffed miserably. He bought a book in the campus bookstore, studied it and whiffed again. He said the book was useless.

Jessica and I used Powerprep and the internet to find old GRE-like questions. We each made above average on the exam.

There are classes for the GRE preparation, but I didn’t take one. They go over good test taking skills and how they apply to the GRE specifically. You can generally find classes at local Universities. I really likely should have taken a class, and will if I ever need to take another test like this.

As far as materials selection, go to Amazon or some other site with a lot of reviews and read the reviews for books you are considering. People have likely found that only certain sections of a book are relevant to the test, or that a particular book was completely useless for reviewing.

You can take the GRE multiple times, but there are a few rules. You can only take it once per month. Depending on your grad school they can choose to either take a single score, or the average of your scores. You have to check with them to see what they accept. If you take it more than once, they will only send the scores of your last 3 recent tests to the schools you choose. I took it more than once and it improved my score a good bit.

Since you can take it multiple times, some people study really hard for one section, then the second time they take it they focus on another section. This may get you an overall cumulatively higher score however, Grad schools will look at what makes up the parts of your score too if memory serves. Whether or not they do this, I personally find this method of testing unethical and therefore cannot recommend it.

• TLDR

• Find out what test your college or program requires, study hard using good materials and take it more than once.

• Find out if the Grad program you are interested in accepts multiple GRE scores.

• Take a GRE preparation class before taking the test if possible.

Two kinds of GPA?:

Some schools have a minimum GPA requirement. They might post this online to scare off lazy and timid people. Using the tips in the second part of this article might help you convince them to waive this requirement. But in many cases, if their minimum is a 3.0, and you have a 2.8, you may still be able to get in. These rules are not always written in stone, the decision is in the hands of the Graduate Director and the Graduate Committee. More on these people later, but for now just know, its usually a flexible requirement just like GRE scores.

In lots of cases, cumulative GPA is not taken as seriously as “in the major” GPA. Cumulative GPA counts in stuff like English 101, College Algebra, Calc, Physics, etc. These classes include everything you’ve taken from that art class you never attended to Senior Design. The classes you did poorly in because you hated the material haunts you here. My cumulative GPA is below 3.0 from my undergrad studies. What made up for it was the fact that my “in the major” GPA was higher.

“In the major” GPA comes form the classes that define your major. These are mostly taken your last two years, but can come all the way from freshman classes in certain programs. Since you specialize your knowledge more in Grad school, they look to see that you excel in your field more than in general classes.

Personal Statement:

There’s not too much to say about this aspect of the process. Here they simply want to know what your motivations are to be in their program. They are also checking to see that you are a competent writer (in English usually.) Don’t make it too long and don’t make it too short. I think my statement was about 3 pages.

Make sure to personalize it to their program. They HATE to read something that sounds generic, and they can tell when you’ve used the same statement for every school you applied to. Change it up a bit and if you’ve met with the professors there, mention something you talked about. Mentioning their research is helpful as well. Again the people who read this will be the Graduate Committee of the program you are applying to. If you follow all my tips in the second half of this article, you’ll likely have met some of them already.

They like to get a sense of your experience so far, as well as possible research ideas. Throw in some neat ideas you might have for your field. Don’t make promises, and don’t go crazy with the ideas.

I stressed out more than needed about writing the statements, but a just keeping these things in mind will make it easier to know what they are looking for.

• TLDR

• Don’t stress over this.

• Write in proper English with good grammar.

• Personalize the statement to the school.

• Why do you want to do (whatever field you study?)

• What is your motivation for continuing your education? ( mention life-long learning, improving concepts/projects/ideas/the science of <whatever>, etc.)

• What kinds of ideas do you have for research topics? (Robots for space exploration, sensor fusion, etc.) Don’t B.S. too much here or make your projects too fantastical. They are looking to see that you have ideas, and that you can make reasonably reachable goals.

• You can mention professors you have met in their program and what you may have spoken about.

Letters of Recommendation:

Usually you’ll need a couple recommendations from professors in your undergraduate program. This isn’t bad. Simply ask a few (you should have made friends with a couple of them if you got the most out of your time with them.) Most will be glad to help you if they believe in you and your potential. Its usually a simple process of printing out a PDF, and having them fill in some blanks, write a bit about you, and mail it in. Most schools nowadays offer this service completely online, and the professor can enter it at their leisure.

Conclusion:

These are the basics required of most Graduate program admissions. International students may be required to take a few additional exams to show proficiency in English, or to for placement in the program.

Check out the second part of this article for additional tips on getting into grad school.