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MS in Software Engineering, Technical Track Blog
 | Rahul is a full-time MS Software Engineering, Technical Track student. He loves traveling, trekking, swimming and is a complete movie buff. |
 | Anthony is a 2nd year part time student in the MS Software Engineering, Technical track program and works at OSIsoft as a Software Engineer. He loves spending time with his family, hiking, biking, gardening, cooking, and sometimes photography. |
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Suma is an alumna of the MS Software Engineering, Technical Track program. A Mechanical Engineering undergrad, she loves writing and is passionate about music, shopping and dogs. |
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Minh is a Software Design Engineer at Microsoft and alumnus of the MS Software Engineering program. He is also a Vietnamese community activist, a cat-lover and passionate fan of film music. |
 | Nick is a Software Engineer at Google and a first-year grad student at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. He loves hiking, gaming, and both really extremely good and extremely bad movies. |
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Embarking on the Journey of Carnegie Mellon West
“Congratulations! It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted for admission into the part time Master of Science Software Engineering Technical Track Program at Carnegie Mellon West for the Fall 2006 semester.”
Those were the words of the decision letter that started this all. For the past several years, I have been contemplating about going back to school to obtain a master’s degree in software engineering, to fill in the much needed gap between my very theoretical education from my B.S. degree in computer science and the concrete challenges and idiosyncrasies I faced in Silicon Valley.
Not wanting to quit my job, I narrowed down my search for good engineering schools in the San Francisco bay area that offer part-time master’s programs; topping this list of potential schools was Carnegie Mellon West.
First, I must admit that I actually stumbled upon Carnegie Mellon West’s program at the very last minute. I was not even aware of Carnegie Mellon University’s presence here in the heart of Silicon Valley until I noticed a Carnegie Mellon West poster in the kitchen area at my work.
However, after talking with the director of admissions and comparing this program with similar programs offered at other schools, I realized that there could not be any better program suited for me at this point in my life, for a multitude of reasons:
- This is a part-time program, which allows me to keep my full-time job.
- The program is only two years long, so I’ll be graduating August 2008. For a part-time program, that’s very darn short.
- My diploma will say “Carnegie Mellon University.” How cool is that?! The first time I heard about Carnegie Mellon University was way back when I first immigrated to the United States. My schoolmates in junior college would refer to it as “one of the top computer science schools on the east coast.”
- This is a very practical program emphasizing on completing software projects in small teams. There are no official classes, nor exams—just deliverables—which is exactly what I am good at and what I have been doing for the past years at my work.
- The campus (located on the NASA complex) is one mile away from my work. I can easily (and probably should) jog or bike there.
I only had two concerns with choosing CMU West. One was the financial burden of paying for graduate school, but that’s what home equity line of credits are for.
The second concern was the intensity of the program. During my admissions interview and with discussions with other CMU West students, I had been told to kiss my weekends good-bye. CMU West would be a very tough program, given that I would be working full-time while getting my degree on a part-time basis. I therefore decided to take a leave of absence from my community work that previously occupied most of my spare time.
So far, the balance between work, school and personal life is holding up (though this will be the topic of a future blog entry).
PS: If it seems to you that I am overly excited to embark on this journey—well, that’s because I am.
Next time: Orientation Weekend, Foundations, classmates and faculty, oh my!
posted by Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley @ 1:50 PM
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