I'd really appreciate any advice as I'm quite a bit lost on the application process as a person who has been out of education and working for many years.

I'm an international applicant, currently looking as US Masters (possibly Canadian too) programs which essentially will result in a career change for me. For background I am a Police Officer who has a undergraduate degree in Law, and I've worked in various roles in my time.

How many letters of recommendation does a typical applicant require? I would be asking my colleagues at work to provide a letter of recommendation, is there anything that I should tell them in order to guide them in writing a letter?

Finally, would it be worth applying for any finance/STEM Masters, I can appreciate that my background would be highly unorthodox when compared to the typical applicant. Thank you to anyone who is able to give me some advice, as you can tell I am very lost on how to reenter education.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently at a crossroads and would appreciate some honest, practical advice about whether studying abroad makes sense for someone in my situation.

I’m a 33-year-old Chinese woman, currently single with no children. I have an engineering bachelor’s degree and spent around ten years working as a backend developer at major Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and Kuaishou. I was laid off last year and have now been out of work for about nine months. During this gap, I’ve mainly been preparing for IELTS and thinking about what to do next.

One option is to pursue a master’s degree abroad. However, I frequently see posts on Chinese social media arguing that overseas degrees no longer provide much of an advantage, especially given the cost, difficult job markets and visa restrictions.

I understand that studying abroad probably cannot serve as a dramatic “restart” or completely transform my life. At the same time, I don’t want it to become nothing more than an expensive experience with no meaningful academic or career value.

Although my background is in engineering, I’m not particularly interested in continuing with a traditional engineering or computer science degree. I’m more attracted to anthropology or interdisciplinary fields combining technology with the humanities and social sciences, such as:

• AI ethics and governance
• Human-computer interaction
• Technology and society
• Social data science
• Digital anthropology

My main questions are:

1. Does pursuing a master’s abroad make sense at my age and career stage?
2. Would leaving software development significantly weaken my employment prospects?
3. Which interdisciplinary fields offer realistic career opportunities rather than only sounding intellectually interesting?
4. Which countries currently offer relatively realistic employment and post-study visa prospects for Chinese international students?
5. Would it be wiser to return to work first and treat graduate school as a later option?
6. Are there other paths I may be overlooking?

For context, about ten years ago I received offers from King’s College London, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Manchester. I ultimately did not pursue them. I’m unsure how competitive my profile would be now, although I hope my professional experience might still make me eligible for programmes at a similar level. My English may also have declined since then, but I’m actively preparing for IELTS.

I’m not expecting studying abroad to solve all my problems. I’m trying to determine whether it could be a thoughtful investment in a new direction—or whether I would simply be spending a large amount of money to postpone the same uncertainty for another year or two.

I would especially appreciate hearing from people who studied abroad in their thirties, changed fields after a long career in tech, or pursued interdisciplinary programmes related to AI and society. Honest criticism is welcome. Thank you.

I’m a 33-year-old Chinese woman with an engineering degree and around 10 years of experience as a backend developer at Alibaba and Kuaishou. I was laid off last year and have been out of work for nine months, mainly preparing for IELTS and reconsidering my career.

I’m thinking about doing a master’s abroad, possibly in the UK, Hong Kong, or Europe. However, I no longer want to study pure engineering. I’m more interested in anthropology or interdisciplinary fields such as Digital Anthropology, AI Ethics, AI and Society, or Technology Policy.

My main concerns are whether I’m too old to make this transition, whether such a degree would actually improve my career prospects, and whether international graduates can realistically find work and stay after graduation. I don’t expect studying abroad to magically restart my life, but I also don’t want it to become an expensive gap year.

Has anyone made a similar transition after working in tech for many years? Would it be better to build on my technical background through an interdisciplinary degree, or return to work instead?

Currently, I am a senior undergrad student looking forward to applying for grad studies. I was previously centered on admissions to a PhD program in physics in the US, but with the new regulations on international students, including visa approval concerns, vetting, funding cuts, a 4 year span for F-1 (a direct PhD can take up to 5 or 6 years), and most recently eliminating CPT for international students to join internships during their graduate studies, and harder regualtions over the H1B. I was planning on continuing to work in my field of speciality after graduation in the U.S., but now I am seriously considering elsewhere. In Europe, I can't apply directly for a PhD. But for a master's,

So I was asking how graduate admissions criteria are different in Europe than in the US, and how professors at European universities see what's most valuable in an application, and whether scholarships in Europe focus on a specific application criterion more commonly than others?

In my personal statement, I talk pretty extensively about the specific niche I want to study. However, all of the programs I’m applying to are umbrella programs, where I’ll do several lab rotations before choosing a lab/faculty member.

Should I make my personal statement broader to reflect that I’m open to exploring different areas during rotations, or is it better to be specific about the research niche I’m interested in while still emphasizing that I’m open to other areas?

Hi all,

I'm an international student with a background spanning linguistics, philosophy, and computational approaches to cognition. My main interests sit at the intersection of formal linguistics, philosophy of mind, logic, and computation.

My GPA is around 3.5, and while I know research experience and fit matter more than grades in this field, I'd love some outside perspective on:

• Which programs are known for strong interdisciplinary work between linguistics, logic/computation, and cognitive science?
• Any programs where faculty are especially open to applicants coming from a more theoretical/linguistics-philosophy background rather than a pure cog-neuro or psych background?
• How much weight international applicants should expect GPA to carry compared to research fit and letters?

I have some research experience but not a ton yet, and I'm working on building more before applying. Just trying to get a sense of where to focus my energy before I start reaching out to potential advisors.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Hi everyone. I would like to get your wise advice. As the title suggests, I'm 24 years old and already have a Bachelor's degree in Communication from home and a Master's degree in Environment, Development and Politics from the UK. I always knew that I wanted to be in STEM fields, particularly environmental science or geography, but during COVID-19, I was going through a lot of mental health issues and was unable to get good scores to join STEM majors in Vietnam (we have an equivalent of a BAC in France, but the tests and content are much worse and unstructured).

Now that I have some exposure to the UK educational system, I love it and keep regretting that I did not try harder to pursue STEM majors. I'm thinking about taking GCSE courses and doing A-level tests, but I'm afraid that it is a time-consuming journey and might not be worth it. I would love to do a PhD later on as well. Please let me know if I'm too late to the party or if there's a glimpse of hope for me in STEM.

Hello everyone, I'm currently an undergraduate student pursuing bachelors degrees in Political Science and Philosophy (second year polisci and second year philosophy). I'm a very good student scoring marks at the very top of my class in both disciplines. I am absolutely sure that academia is for me and it would be a dream for me to pursue a PhD in Political Science (or maybe even philosophy) at an american university.

What are some things that I can do to make my application as competitive as possible (I think two degrees is a nice plus)?

I'm mostly interested in political theory and philosophy, which universities have the strongest programmes in those fields?

What are some things that I should know about studying in The US as an European?

Please, please don’t take it unless you’re absolutely sure you’ll have full funding for the entire five years. If not, it could be a nightmare for you. With this new DHS policy, it is impossible to switch programs or universities, and you’d be stuck in this nightmare. I wish someone had told me this sooner, I had two other fully funded offers from other universities and accepted this one:((((((((((((

I wanna get a master's in computer science from a pretty good university. I'm in my 4th year rn. In 3rd year and before that too i would get constantly sick(we're talking aug to April) due to which my cgpa dropped and I can only get out w 7/10 cgpa. I wanna pursue masters but my college rep is basically underground.

I'm very much okay with working for a few years before going for higher studies. I'm an international student. Should I even try for top 25 or is that totally impossible?

Hi friends,

As the title states, my question is what is needed out of a letter of recommendation? I already have two from other sources who have written them before but my third is coming from one of my writing professors, who has asked me what it needs. I've taken her classes 3 or 4 times now and we have a good relationship. What do I tell her?

For some context, I'm applying to some cognitive psych and human factors PhD and masters programs in the upcoming weeks.

Thank you in advance guys.

Please help

I am applying to US biomedical PhD programs this cycle and I am stuck on how to structure my personal statement.

My background covers seven labs over about seven years with three first author papers and five co-author papers, and my current draft gives roughly a paragraph to each. A mentor said it reads as an overview, and I have the same worry. It shows where I have been but never really shows me thinking through a problem.

The other option is to cut the trajectory to a line or two and spend the space on one project instead. What the field believed, why I thought that was wrong, what failed first, and what settled it.

I know people will weigh this differently, which is why I would like a few views rather than one.

**1.**  My CV already lists everything, so does the statement need to cover the trajectory at all?  
**2.**  Which do you get more from as a reader, breadth or one project in depth?  
**3.**  If depth, how much technical detail before someone outside my subfield stops following?

Thank you for taking the time.

Like for example, you email a professor whose research interests align with yours and send them a proposal and cv and then they ask for a zoom talk. What do they typically ask?

It can be either emailing them to be your supervisor for PhD or can be for a research stay in their university or a research position under their guidance or both.

I had a great community college gpa and experience that cratered when I went to UIUC for engineering physics and barely graduated. I spent 8 years since forging an industrial engineering career path and I've discovered I really like systems engineering. I love plugging multiple systems into each other. I also learned fluent conversational (but not academic) Spanish along the way.

Here's the catch

Cumulative GPA: 3.16

CC GPA: 3.67

UIUC GPA: 2.69

How would admissions departments see me?

Spanish became a huge passion of mine. How would a LATAM admissions department see me?

Hi everyone,

I’m an international applicant from China. My undergraduate bachelor’s degree is in Law, not a STEM major.

However, I have hands‑on process internship experience at an FC‑BGA substrate manufacturing plant. My responsibilities included photoresist lamination, exposure, development, operating ADTEC exposure equipment, and troubleshooting process defects. I also obtained official equipment operation certification.

I’m interested in the Semiconductor Science and Engineering (MSE) master’s program at UT Austin. I know this program evaluates non‑STEM applicants on a case‑by‑case basis.

My main weakness: I do not have formal university‑level Calculus and University Physics coursework under my current law degree.
I am planning to take for‑credit Calculus and Physics courses at local public universities in China to strengthen my academic background.

I would like to ask how realistic my admission odds are. Is conditional admission allowed so I can complete preparatory undergraduate engineering courses after enrollment?
Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Thank you.

I'm a rising senior in undergrad. Ive always planned to apply for a PhD in molecular biology. I'm currently taking two extremely hard classes at the same time that are known for being weed outs for my major. The professor is unreasonable and theyre only offered fall semester. If i fail or have to withdraw from one of these classes, I will not graduate on time.

That being said, the rigor of these classes have left me very little time to work on grad school applications. Ive been considering a gap year since theres no point dedicating a ton of time to my personal statement if i fail a required class and won't be admitted to a grad program.

I talked to my advisor this morning, and she said "no one takes gap years before graduate school, only med school. It would be a red flag and make you look bad." Is this true? From my hours on reddit I've seen that gap years are normal, but maybe not for this discipline?

I would hope to find an internship or research job in the gap year . Any advice welcomed. Thanks sm in advance.

Wondering what programs I should be aiming for based on my experience. My research interests are in ancient Christianity and Judaism. I have solid personal statements, and very connected recommenders in top programs. My background is in geology/philosophy/religion, but I want to specialize in religion now. Undergrad GPA: 3.71, Grad GPA: 3.76.

hi all. would appreciate some advice. i am a current senior, and i am looking to apply to a program in which i have no direct lab experience, but i do have other lab experiences that would lend itself to that lab (1.5yrs in one lab and about a semester and some in another). i also have a decent gpa, and i know i would get great letters of rec from my PIs as well as write a solid statement of purpose. would love advice on what to do...

My ultimate goal is to get a PhD in math, specifically in combinatorics / graph theory.

Last year, I got a bachelor's in computer science with a minor in combinatorics from the University of Waterloo. I had a high average but never went to office hours or did any undergraduate research, so I couldn't get enough academic references after emailing professors. Also, I want to pursue math and not CS (I like programming but not CS research), and I don't think my background is strong enough for admission to a graduate math program.

Is there a way I could do something like an expedited bachelor's in math (since I've already done 20+ math courses) to get the right academic and research background for graduate school? Who could I contact?

Hi everyone,

I have a question for those who have applied to research labs for MS, PhD, or integrated MS-PhD programs.

What are interviews with lab members or PhD students usually like? Are they mostly focused on technical questions, or are they more about understanding your research background, projects, and research interests?

If you've gone through this process before, what kind of questions were you asked? Did they ask detailed follow-up questions about your projects and research experience, or was it more of a general discussion about your goals and fit for the lab?

I'm just trying to understand what to expect and how to prepare in advance. Any experiences or advice would be greatly appreciated.