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Consider graduate school

Ram M. Narayanan

hile still in the undergraduate

program, many students think
about attending graduate school
sometime in their lives, some immediately after graduation and some perhaps
after a few years of experience. However,studentshaveseveralmajor
concerns about finances, grade-pointaverage (GPA) requirements, and contacting professors.
As a faculty member, I find that the
following are the most important questions that arise in students minds when
considering graduate school after their
undergraduate degree.
I will spend two to five additional
years being poor instead of making money after I graduate. Is it profitable in the
long run?
My GPA is not very high. Will I be
accepted to graduate school?
I am already in debt. How can I
afford to pay for graduate school?
I heard that you need a professors
support to go to graduate school. How
do I get one to support my application?

he or she will have earned US$12.3 million with an M.S. and US$18.45 million
with a Ph.D.
Now lets look at expenditures. Say the
starting expenditure is about US$50,000
(mortgage/rent, car payments, food, fun,
etc.). This rises according to inflation, say
2.5%. Over 50 years, expenditures will be
+ US$5 million.
With a B.S. degree, your net worth at
age 71 will be US$3.2 million in todays dollars, which will be a mere US$930,000 in
circa 2063 dollars. However, with an M.S.
degree, your net worth will be US$7.3 million (US$2.1 million in 2063 dollars), while

with a Ph.D. degree, it will be US$13.45 million (US$3.9 million in 2063 dollars). Your
expenditures generally wont go up too
much. Thus, I believe that grad school is a
moneymaker in the long run!

GPA considerations
While a good GPA (better than 3.0
and preferably better than 3.5 out of
4.0) is mostly recommended, GPA is not
the sole criterion for being admitted to
grad school. Actually, there are several
criteria used to evaluate applicants, and
GPA is only one of them. Admittedly, a
higher GPA better enhances your chances,

Financial considerations
It has been determined that someone
with an M.S. degree will earn (on average) about 1.5 times more over their
career compared to his or her classmate
who holds only a B.S. degree. If you
earn a Ph.D. degree, you stand to reap
almost 2.25 times more.
Lets do some simple math. Say someone graduating with a B.S. in 2013 earns
about US$60,000 starting at age 21. Given
the current life expectancy, he or she
works until the age of 71. Thus, he or she
works for 50 years. Let us say that the
salary rises, on average, at a rate of 3.5%
each year. This person will earn a total of
about US$8.2 million over his or her lifetime. However, with advanced degrees,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPOT.2013.2272858

can stock photo/adrenalina

Date of publication: 30 April 2014

10

0278-6648/14/$31.002014IEEE

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have interacted with you closely and

but there are other measures also used,
who remember you well. The informawhich you need to know.
tion usually complements what is in your
An important document that will
transcript. While only three are generally
determine your admission and financial
required, you can submit more, and up
assistance is the statement of purpose
to five are generally desirable. Letters
(SOP). It is also known as a personal
must primarily be from faculty members
statement. This is where you try to conbut it is fine to include one letter from
vince the admissions committee about
your company supervisor if you have, or
how and why you became interested in
had, a job (or an internship) in industry.
electrical engineering, what you have
An industry letter is most useful if it is
accomplished in this field that make you
relevant to the research area for which
stand out (over your peers), and what
you are applying.
your vision is for your professional
future. It covers the past,
present, and future. This
essay is used by the admisWhile a good GPA (better than 3.0 and
sions committee to determine your motivation for
preferably better than 3.5 out of 4.0) is
graduate study. You must
mostly recommended, GPA is
therefore spend quality time
in perfecting it and make
not the sole criterion for being admitted
sure you tailor the SOP to
to grad school.
your area of interest.
Letters of recommendation from your current professors are very important
A recommendation from a professor
and play a crucial role in your admission
under whose supervision and guidance
and financial aid decision. The most
you performed some research or
helpful letters come from professors who

MAy/June 2014

worked on a project at the undergraduate level is considered very favorably. A

recommendation letter from the faculty
member supervising your research project is weighed significantly higher compared to one from a faculty member
under whom you merely took a course
or two.

The good news

There is a pathway! Consider taking
an independent studies course (preferably for three credits). Most universities
have such a course at the undergraduate
level. The course description will generally state something to the effect of:
Creative projects, including research
and design, which are supervised on an
individual basis and that fall outside the
scope of formal courses. This is a real
course that you can use to fulfill graduation requirements. Take it under the
guidance of a faculty member in an area
of study in which you are most interested. In many cases, participation in
undergraduate research through such a
course and a great letter from the concerned faculty member can overcome
the effects of a low GPA.

11

Paying for graduate school

It is generally possible to attend
graduate school without paying a
single dime out of your pocket. Whats
more, you can also get a tidy sum of
pocket money to attend grad school.
No, I am not talking about funding
provided by rich parents or generous
employers.
From where does the funding come?
Quite a large percentage of grad students are funded by the engineering
departments. How is this possible?
Well, thats what graduate assistantships are for. These come in two types:
teaching assistantships (TAs) and
research assistantships (RAs). A student supported on a TA is known as a
teaching assistant (note that the same
TA acronym is used to refer to such a
student), while a student supported on
an RA is known as a research assistant
(again, the same RA acronym is used).
The context will determine whether I
am talking about the assistantship or
the assistant.
Lets talk about TAs since you may
have some contact with them already. A
TA assists the electrical engineering
department in undergraduate course-

12

related activities such as grading homeworkandtests,teachingrecitation

sections, and teaching lab sections.
Occasionally, a TA may help in graduate
education, such as organizing department colloquia. TAs are paid by the
department to perform the above duties
(since no one will work for free).
An RA, on the other hand, performs
research under the guidance of a professor, usually toward his/her M.S. or Ph.D.
thesis. The funds to pay RAs to do the
research come from the professors
research grant, which is funded by external sponsors in government (e.g., the
National Science Foundation) or industry
(e.g., Intel).
Typically, TAs and RAs officially work
20 h per week maximum, with the
remaining 20 h to take up to nine credits
of coursework (three courses). This is
why such TAs and RAs are called halftime assistantships, since a normal work
week has 40 h.
Typically, a half-time TA or RA gets
paid approximately as follows during
the semester at Penn State University:
Grade 12: US$8,460 per semester,
i.e., US$1,692.00/month for five months
Grade13: US$8,842.50 per semester, i.e.,
US$1,768.50/month
for five months.
RAs usually work
during the summer
as well (paid by the
professors research
grant), and they may
earn the following
additional amount:
G r a d e 12 :
US$5,637.0 0 during summer, i.e.,
U S $2 , 818 .5 0 p e r
mont h for t wo
months
G r a d e 13 :
US$5,919.0 0 during summer, i.e.,
U S $2 ,9 59.5 0 p e r
mont h for t wo
months.
Therefore, a halftime RA can make a
total of US$22,557
in Grade 12 and
US$23,604 in Grade
13 over the year.
Generally, at Penn
State, M.S. students
are on Grade 12
while Ph.D. students are on Grade

13, although this is not always a

requirement.
If you get a TA or an RA, you also do
not have to pay for tuition for the
courses you are taking. Tuition is free
for TAs and RAs. Annual tuition amounts
to US$7,002 for in-state and US$11,817
for out-of-state students but your tuition
bill will show zero. If you are a TA, the
Electrical Engineering Department pays
your tuition, while RA tuition is paid by
the sponsor who funds the research.
Whats the difference between a TA
and an RA? If you are an RA, the work
you do to get paid usually is your thesis
topic. The downside of this is that you
must do the work the sponsor wants
you to do, as the sponsor is paying for
the research. You have some freedom
but you cannot work on a topic unrelated to the grant even if it is what you
enjoy. On the other hand, the grading/
recitations you do as a TA cannot be
used for your thesis research, for which
you will need to find additional time.
However, since your work is not externally sponsored, you, in consultation
with your advisor, can work on a topic
of your interest freely.

Contacting professors
Even if you have no interest in graduate school, I am sure that you want to
succeed and make a mark as a future
industry leader. You are learning plenty
of good stuff in the classroom, but most
classroom learning is established and
foundational material. New discoveries
and techniques are constantly being
researched by our faculty, which go way
beyond traditional classroom stuff. Being
aware of these developments will give
you a leg up over your competition even
if you take up a job after earning your
undergraduate degree.
Electrical engineering or electrical
and computer engineering professors
everywhere are engaged in research in
all areas of electrical engineering and
related subjects, such as computer science and engineering, physics, and
mathematics. You pick a hot topic, any
hot topic, and you can be sure to find an
electrical engineering or electrical and
computer engineering professor in your
university working in that area. Faculty
receive quite a lot of funding for research
because theyre so good.
Look at the electrical engineering or
electrical and computer engineering faculty research Web site for your university.
(continued on page 22)
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Consider graduate school

You will find several areas listed. Just out
of curiosity, click on an areaofinterestyouwouldliketo explore. You will
see a list of professors working in that area
and their specific research interests. Clicking on a professors name will take you to
his or her Web site. Now, you can explore
what research he or she is doing. If you
find a particular professors research
intriguing, send an e-mail asking for an
appointment to find out more about his or
her work. No commitment is needed
herejust say you are interested in their
research. Ask to see their research labs.
Professors wont bite! On the contrary,
they will be most happy to talk about their
research, show you around their labs, and
discuss exciting new developments in
their area. They may even buy you coffee.
I therefore encourage everyone who
has not done so to look at their Electrical
Engineering or Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department Web site, iden22

(continued from page 12)

tify a professor in their area of interest,

and schedule a one-on-one meeting. This
will help you not only for grad school
applications but also for job openings.
Professors receive frequent e-mails from
former students, companies with which
they collaborate, and headhunters, asking
for names of graduating students, so its
to your benefit to meet with professors
and let them know of your capabilities
and interests. It may also be beneficial if
you contact more than one professor,
including those in your secondary area of
interest, as there is a lot of cross-fertilization of ideas within various electrical
engineering disciplines.

Conclusion
The ideas I have presented are based
upon my personal experience as a faculty member for over 25 years talking to
numerous undergraduate and graduate
students. I hope you will actively con-

sider going to graduate school. Whats

holding you back, now that you have all
the facts? Good luck!

Read more about it

R. M. Narayanan and R. S. Adve,
Application guidelines for graduate
schools in the United States and Canada, IETE J. Educ., vol. 53, no. 2, pp.
97103, JulyDec. 2012.

About the author

Ram M. Narayanan (ram@engr.psu.
edu) earned his B.Tech. degree from the
Indian Institute of Technology Madras in
1976 and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1988.
He is currently a professor of electrical
engineering at The Pennsylvania State
University. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the
Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, and the Society of
Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.
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