Name: DeLynn Bettencourt
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: Wireless Sensor Neworks
Current Project: Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks
Additional information:

• Graduate of California State University, Fresno
• Grew up on a farm in rural central California (central San Joaquin Valley)
• Will be a DSP engineer at 2Wire in San Jose, CA.

Advice:

• Work hard, have fun, and stay confident. Don't get overloaded in the first semester, and if you need additional background, don't be afraid to take an undergraduate class on the topic.
  
• For me, coming from a school that had a different focus than Berkeley does, I found that several of my undergraduate courses didn't provide all the same background that the Berkeley undergraduate courses do. Many of my courses at my undergraduate institution didn't use the standard set of textbooks that many other schools use, etc. I found that the best solution for me was to not worry about plowing through the graduate courses right away, and to instead to take some undergraduate courses first, so that I would be fully prepared for the graduate courses. I feel that there can be a lot of pressure on students to finish the graduate courses quickly, but ultimately it is best for a graduate student to follow the path that will best prepare her for future work.

Name: Greg Gibeling
Division: Computer Science
Research Area: Computer Architecture
Current Project: RAMP (ramp.eecs.berkeley.edu)
Additional Information:

• I like to emphasize on practical solutions to unreasonable problems.
• I chose Berkeley because I had an excellent experience here as an undergraduate, and was already integrated with an existing research project.
• I pursued doctoral work because it gave me the ability to work on interesting, perhaps even vital projects which have longer and grander goals than normally permissible in a professional environment. In other words: to work on things which wont directly make money.
• Homepage: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~gdgib/

Advice:

• Talk to current graduate students, they won't always go out of their way to talk to you, but find them and ask them for advice--unsolicited advice isn't always well balanced.
• When working with non-native English speakers, never assume you know what each other mean, always be careful to ask clarifying questions and your discussions will be more meaningful and less frustrating.
• Find a project you like, and then integrate your new ideas with it.

Name: Bharathwaj "Bart Simpson" Muthuswamy
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: Nonlinear Electronics
Current Project: Investigation of Chaos and Cellular Automata using EECS. Please visit our lab homepage: http://nonlinear.eecs.berkeley.edu for more details.
Additional Information:

• I choose UC Berkeley because I loved it here as an undergrad and, from a personal standpoint, my high school education took place in 3 countries so I didn't want to move around anymore.
• I like the plethora of research interests in our program. There is something for everyone here.
  

Advice:

• Spend some time browsing through professor's webpages to make sure your research interest is available. Of course the best option is to come and talk to a professor during their office hours.

Name: Pratik Patel
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: Solid State Devices
Current Project: Low Power Tunneling Based Devices

Advice:

• Be sure to get know other first year grads.

Name: Mark Hoemmen
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: Scientific computing
Current Project: Communication-avoiding Krylov subspace methods
Additional Information:

• I chose Berkeley because I wanted to work with my current advisor.
• I pursued doctorate work because it's a ticket into good research.
• Homepage: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~mhoemmen/

Advice:

• Go into scientific computing. There's plenty of research dollars and lots of interesting projects, ranging from systems to software engineering to machine learning to more traditional numerical analysis, and they tend to involve a mix of these disciplines, which will make your resume look good. Besides, you'll have a chance to play with big machines and work with scientists and engineers from many fields.
• Don't let classes distract you from research! Try to make every class project tie back into your research interests.
• Make sure that you have the emotional support you need. Join a club centered around a common interest so you can make friends right away.
• If you get stressed out and overwhelmed by classes, talk to your professors about it; if it gets really bad, get help from the Tang Center and ask to take an incomplete so you have more time to finish.

Name: Juliet Holwill
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: CAD for Lithography
Current Project: Hot spot identification using pattern matching, and electrical testing for lens aberrations
Additional Information:

• Reasons for choosing Berkeley: Highly ranked school for my area, beautiful weather, friendly professors and peers, relaxed atmosphere.
• What I like about the program: The courses are of a very high quality, and consequently I've learned a lot here at Berkeley. My advisor, Prof. Neureuther, is also very supportive and encouraging.
• Motivation for pursuing doctoral work: I wanted to be able to pursue a more interesting job, rather than just programming or something like that. I wanted to be able to make a difference.

Advice:

• Come and see Berkeley for yourself on the open day. I decided that I wanted to come here after seeing it for myself.
• For international students: I myself am an international student. I really enjoy it here at Berkeley. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming, and there are plenty of other international students here also. There's so much to see and do in California, from skiing at Tahoe to the beach at Santa Cruz.

Name: Asako Toda
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: Integrated Circuits
Current Project: Ultra Low Power Clock Generation
Additional Information:

• What I like about the program is that there are a lot of smart people around me.

Advice:

• It is tough school, so you should fully enjoy the summers!
• For international students: I lived in International House for the first year because the ISSC recommended it, but it is really expensive, and I got into finantial trouble. So unless you have extra money in your savings and you are desperate for socialized life, you should look for housing by yourself after coming here.

Name: Douglas Densmore
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: CAD
Current Project: Heterogeneous Embedded System Design
Additional Information:

• Reasons for choosing Berkeley:
  • Location and climate
  • Open, friendly, and helpful department administration.
  • Great Faculty
  • Opportunities in the South Bay for Internships
  • Future Employment Reputation
• Motivation for PhD:
  • Freedom in selecting job.
  • Wanting to learn additional information beyond Masters and Bachelors.
  • Opportunity to be a professor at a major University
  • Challenge
• What I like about the program:
  • Freedom to work with other groups/departments.
  • Funding is available often
  • Great atmosphere of collaboration with other Universities.
  • Top notch other students

Advice:

• Find place where you can be successful. Only you know what you need to be successful (freedom vs. structure, city vs. rural, etc).
• Don't compare yourself to other students for the purposes of gaging your progress. You are going to have your own unique path through grad school.
• Set goals each semester for your research.
• Talk frequently with other students. Get involved in group research; don't isolate yourself.
• Take a gym class.
• "Work hard, play hard".

Name: Gilad Arnold
Division: Computer Science
Research Area: Programming Languages, Software synthesis with Prof. Bodik
Current Project: The SKETCH language / compiler.
Additional Information:

• Your Reasons for choosing Berkeley: Among my two options, Berkeley had the better reputation, better weather, and better chances for getting along with a family. And you can't beat the area! >
• What you like about the program: A graduate student is required (and trained) to have a solid breadth knowledge of the general area in which he/she is about to conduct research. The atmosphere is both open-minded and highly demanding at the same time, which is great for people like me. And there's the interaction with EE people, which is often fruitful to both sides.
• Your motivation for pursing doctoral work: I like CS research way more than plain software engineering, so I figured a doctoral program (and what follows it) would be a good fit for me.

Advice For International Students:

• Berkeley can generally sponsor a J-1 visa, which has it's advantages over the common F-1 (e.g. work permit for a spouse), so be sure to check it out
• Try to provide evidence for sufficient funds for as long as you can, so your visa is issued for the longest possible period (you can generally do that for even 5-6 years, given the average time it takes to complete the program), this can save a lot of hassle involved with visa extensions
• Be sure to open a bank account (plus secured credit card), get a driver's license, and apply for social security as soon as you arrive
• Be sure to get here with all your identity-related documents translated and notarized (at least the crucial ones), e.g. birth certificate for kids, marriage certificate, etc;
• Plan on purchasing health insurance for dependents, and start your survey asap -- Berkeley does not provide insurance for dependents!
• Most important: if you're qualified for family housing and/or childcare, be sure to apply as soon as possible (namely, way before you plan to arrive), as waiting lists can be long! (that's mainly true for housing though)
• For questions regarding being an international student and/or having a family, please feel free to contact me at: arnold at eecs dot berkeley dot edu.

Name: Ryan White
Division: Electrical Engineering
Research Area: Computer Vision
Current Project: Cloth Shape Capture
Additional Information:

Advice:

I think that one of the most important aspects of grad school is picking an advisor. For me, this meant finding an advisor that was a personality match. I started by meeting professors in different areas and attending research group meetings to learn about how the group interacted. This was a good time to learn what each advisor expects out of their students: Do students regularly work at home or are they in the office every day? How long does it take in this group to complete a PhD? How does the advisor interact with their students? regular weekly meetings? hallway discussions? email? Is the professor in the beginning, middle or end of their career? What do students in this group typically do after they graduate?

After going to lunch with the students in different labs, I discovered that the best person for me was in a different research area. Although no paperwork was required, I effectively switched from EE to CS (moving from signal processing to computer vision) during the later part of my first year. Now, in my fifth (and probably final) year of grad school, I still feel that I made the right decision. I enjoy the regular meetings and animated discussions I have with my advisor about research directions.

Name: Simon Lacoste-Julien
Division: Computer Science
Research Area: Artificial Intelligence
Current Project: Structured prediction in machine learning, applied to machine translation, hierarchical text classification and object recognition.
Additional Information:

• Homepage: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~slacoste

Advice:

1. Don't be afraid to ask for advice from other students and staff!
2. Get to know your fellow colleagues: the quality of students is one of the biggest assets of UC Berkeley; you can learn a lot from them, and those relationships will help you for a long time in the future as these people will probably have a lot of influence in your field.
3. Don't think about classes like you did as an undergrad: you're main focus in grad school should be research, not getting A's in classes!
4. Take advantage of a world-class university: cheap tickets for amazing concerts (Cal Performance); inspiring talks by leaders in their field; mingle with people from other departments.

Reasons for choosing Berkeley:

I liked the flexibility they give us in the first year before picking an advisor (I didn't know yet which field I wanted to focus on); I loved the interdisciplinary focus of the department; I was also impressed by their mention of contributing to society (via CITRIS e.g.) and Jitendra Malik saying that they judge the quality of a PhD program not by the number of publications, but by the quality of students who graduate from it. The students seemed the happiest of the places I visited. And of course, top rated professors, amazing weather, and a nice city!

What I like about the program:

That you are encouraged to shop around in your first year before choosing an advisor. That breadth is encouraged through the requirements. The students are top rate. A nice friendly atmosphere in the department, and several collaborations between different departments.

My motivation for pursing doctoral work:

I love to learn, do research and teach, and so I wanted to develop a deeper understanding of how to do research, as well as gain more teaching experience in prevision of a faculty position.

Comments/advice regarding international students:

Work on your English, it will help tremendously for your academic success! There are several resources at UC Berkeley to help improve your English; don't assume that because you passed the SPEAK test, you are done... Great communication skills are fundamental for great collaborations. Attend the workshops at the International House, they are quite helpful to help you get acclimated to this new culture. Don't be afraid to ask locals about things which are obvious for them but different in your own country (but be courteous!). Make friends, don't isolate yourself! Also stay in touch with elements of your own country in order to keep a sense of self. It will help you stay sane when everything is changing around you.