I just got accepted to Grad School at UCSB

I've been busy with school here so I haven't been on much more than reading some threads, but I just got the great news and had to share. I applied to UCSB Materials Engineering specifying my interest in semiconductor optical materials. This is the first school I've heard from; I didn't expect to hear so soon. I now have the opportunity to work towards my PhD with some of the best when it comes to Laser Diodes and LEDs. Dr. Nakamura of Nichia fame is there!!!

...and California is so much warmer than upstate NY!

Rock on, brother! Woo-hoo! Welcome to the gauchos! It's a great school, you would love it if you choose to come here. What other schools are you waiting to hear from? And what's your undergraduate background?

The weather is great here, I promise. I assume you're coming to visit next month? I'll be on the lookout for when the visit stuff is happening.

Not sure how many students SSLEC (Nakamura's shared group, 4 professors pool their resources into this one group, Nakamura is the head along with Den Baars, Speck, and Mishra) is planning to bring in next year, but this year they brought in 4 or so, so I'd say you have a good shot at getting into SSLEC if they're taking any. And, our new building should be done next year, as well.

Sorry for rambling and so many questions, but it brings back memories of how excited I was to get that acceptance e-mail a year ago. I had to wake my fiance up in the middle of the night to tell her, I was too excited to wait until morning.

I'm waiting on Caltech, RPI, Univ. of Rochester (Institute of Optics), SUNY Stony Brook and the School of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at Univ. at Albany.

I'm finishing up my Physics B.S. this semester. I'm done with requirements (# of credits and research) so I just need to fill my 4 semester residency since I transferred to RPI. I've been focusing on Optics and Quantum Mechanics courses. I'm currently taking Graduate Quantum Mechanics II, Light Emitting Diodes (another Grad course), Methods of Partial Differential Equations for Mathematical Physics and General Relativity. I'm also working as an undergrad 'researcher', more of a helper I guess, in the Nitirde LED lab here. WE have two MOVPE untis, but we're only using one for some reason. I'm currently assisting in the assembly of a cryostat in order to conduct photo luminescence measurements at <3K. Most of my free time in the lab I really spend observing and asking more questions than the Grads would probably like to hear. It's fun and interesting.

I'm psyched at the opportunity and really surprised at the decision so early. I got the email from professor Van de Walle earlier and had to quick go on the UCSB site to check that the email was legit. Looks like the recruiting weekend is March 5-7. I'm gonna start contacting professor's to try and get myself a place in an interesting group. I'd like to focus on Electro-optic and/or photonic materials such as III-V nitrides.

Congrats!  Are you going for MS or PhD?

This is really early for a school to admit you, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a nice offer attached!  I don't think I got my admission letters until late February/early March if even then.

The good news is you can use this as leverage to the other universities, especially if there's a funding offer attached.

Edit: I've heard that Dr. Nakamura doesn't know any English. Is this true?

Congratulations from me & I'm sure ALL of LPF also WELL DONE

I'm not chopper, but I can answer most of those.  

phoenix3200 said:

Congrats!  Are you going for MS or PhD?

Materials admissions at UCSB are for MS AND Ph.D, in materials the schools don't generally like to do MS only if they're going to invest so much in your education.  If you're going for MS only, you have to pay for yourself, which sucks.  They generally won't fund you if you're going for MS only, so nobody does that.  You can always leave early though if you change your mind and finish with the MS, I know a couple of people doing that.

This is really early for a school to admit you, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a nice offer attached!  

That's the great thing about being in a good materials department with good funding.  The standard offer, just by being accepted into materials at UCSB, is full payment of all tuition and fees PLUS $26k per year in stipend paid to you.  If you get admitted, that's what you'll be getting, although you may get more if you get a fellowship or something like that, but the full tuition+26k is the baseline.  That also goes up a little when you pass your prelim (beginning of 2nd year) and again when you pass your qualifier (beginning of 3rd year), and they raise it for inflation and such every few years.

I don't think I got my admission letters until late February/early March if even then.

I think it was about this time last year when I got accepted.  Remember materials is a smaller area, they only accept about 50 students, maybe only 100 applications to read MAX.  I think I remember CalTech saying when I visited they only got about 50 or 60 applications for materials, I think it's similar for UCSB, but it varies every year.  So really, there aren't many applications for them to read or weed out.

The good news is you can use this as leverage to the other universities, especially if there's a funding offer attached.

For well-funded departments like all the high-end materials departments, they'll all be giving similar stipend offers, just depending on local cost of living.

Edit:  I've heard that Dr. Nakamura doesn't know any English.  Is this true?

Nah, he speaks English.  It's very accented, but you can follow it, you just have to pay extra attention.  In the conversations I've had with him so far (he's my advisor), it's been fine.  I'm in his class next quarter, so I can let you know more then when I have full lectures every week.

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chopper said:

I'm waiting on Caltech, RPI, Univ. of Rochester (Institute of Optics), SUNY Stony Brook and the School of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at Univ. at Albany.

I'm finishing up my Physics B.S. this semester.  I'm done with requirements  (# of credits and research) so I just need to fill my 4 semester residency since I transferred to RPI.  I've been focusing on Optics and Quantum Mechanics courses.  I'm currently taking Graduate Quantum Mechanics II, Light Emitting Diodes (another Grad course), Methods of Partial Differential Equations for Mathematical Physics and General Relativity.  I'm also working as an undergrad 'researcher', more of a helper I guess, in the Nitirde LED lab here.  WE have two MOVPE untis, but we're only using one for some reason.  I'm currently assisting in the assembly of a cryostat in order to conduct photo luminescence measurements at <3K.   Most of my free time in the lab I really spend observing and asking more questions than the Grads would probably like to hear.  It's fun and interesting.

I'm psyched at the opportunity and really surprised at the decision so early.  I got the email from professor Van de Walle earlier and had to quick go on the UCSB site to check that the email was legit.  Looks like the recruiting weekend is March 5-7.   I'm gonna start contacting professor's to try and get myself a place in an interesting group.  I'd like to focus on Electro-optic and/or photonic materials such as III-V nitrides.

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Awesome.  I visited CalTech as well, and honestly, it wasn't for me.  All theory, no applications.  If you want to make devices (LEDs, LDs, solar cells, whatever), then it's not the place.  And ESPECIALLY if you want III-nitrides, UCSB is a whole different level.  Atwater at Caltech does electronic materials, but EVERYBODY wants to work for him it seems like.  After visiting both, there was no question for me personally which I wanted.  (And you'll probably get to visit both, CalTech did visits/interviews before making final decisions.  They did an initial cut for people who clearly weren't good enough, and then brought everybody else in to visit before deciding.  At least that's what they did last year, although they could change).  I admittedly don't know much about the other schools (I wanted California for the weather, so I only applied to the good materials schools here: Caltech, UCSB, Berkeley, Stanford), but I know UCSB is just awesome.  Don't decide til you visit though, you have to make sure it's a good fit for YOU, that's all that matters.

E-mail professors and all, but don't be surprised if they don't answer, they stay busy. You should get ample opportunity to meet them over the visit weekend, and they'll eventually answer, especially once people start committing to attending and are ready to pick advisers.

But if you want nitrides, SSLEC is the place to be, the Nakamura/Speck/DenBaars trio.  Speck does MBE and more TEM, DenBaars and Nakamura do MOCVD/MOVPE/Whatever you want to call it.  But they're all the same group really, you're likely to even have joint advisers between some combination of the 3 if you come into SSLEC.

Van de Walle, who is on the admission committee I assume, is also a nice guy, does all simulations.  My officemate is a fellow 1st year that works for him, and I eat lunch with his whole group.  Great bunch of guys, doing crazy theory stuff that I don't fully understand when they talk about it.  But it's cool stuff.

That sounds like some great experience, you should be able to get into the flow of research well.  MOCVD/crystal growth isn't something you generally get into immediately, it's always booked solid with so many people doing it and it takes so much training before they turn you loose on the reactors (as I'm sure you know), but there's plenty of opportunity for that.  I think we have something on the order of 6 or 7 MOCVD reactors, on the order of 5 to 7 MBE systems, and when finished with the install (he just moved here from another university), Palmstrom's lab will have about 5 more MBE systems.  So there's plenty of opportunity to work on some COOL stuff.

I should really stop rambling, YOU'RE supposed to be the excited one!  I've already had my turn.   ;D

I posted to share the excitement!

Of all 6 schools I was really planning to stay here at RPI or go to UCSB. The stipend at RPI is ~$16,000.00, though it is roughly equivalent with a cheaper cost of living I assume. I applied to different programs at each school as it seems similar research is in different departments. RPI does semiconductor optics in Physics or ECSE. My Caltech application was for Applied Physics. I expect that to be one of my long shots. The other long shot is the Institute of Optics at the university of Rochester, which only takes 12 Physics PhDs a year. They have a very large group of specialized physics for optics courses. Stony Brook and U Albany were fall backs, that I no longer need unless they offer a big fellowship etc.

I planned to work toward becoming a professor in Physics, which may be harder with a PhD in Materials Engineering. That is something I will be considering in making my decision, but my research interests have brought me to this field and I have now been accepted to the best or very close to the best Materials department. I suppose I could make more money with the Engineering PhD but I do really love teaching.

Regardless of what I decide I will at least have a nice weekend in California at the end of this cold snowy winter. It's snowing here now; were expecting 8-10 inches.. The snow looks nice, but it cripples transportation and I'm really sick of that!

pullbangdead said:

Materials admissions at UCSB are for MS AND Ph.D, in materials the schools don't generally like to do MS only if they're going to invest so much in your education.  If you're going for MS only, you have to pay for yourself, which sucks.  They generally won't fund you if you're going for MS only, so nobody does that.  You can always leave early though if you change your mind and finish with the MS, I know a couple of people doing that.

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Yea, its about the same for EE. At my school (Purdue), there's a slim chance that you'll get a teaching assistantship if you're a MS student, but that's about it.

pullbangdead said:

I think it was about this time last year when I got accepted.  Remember materials is a smaller area, they only accept about 50 students, maybe only 100 applications to read MAX.  I think I remember CalTech saying when I visited they only got about 50 or 60 applications for materials, I think it's similar for UCSB, but it varies every year.  So really, there aren't many applications for them to read or weed out.

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I was talking with the graduate coordinator and from the sounds of it, they've got over 1000 applications to weed through - and only about 180 of those will make it into the program. I guess I was one of the lucky ones.

Gratz Chopper! High speed, low drag.

chopper said:

I posted to share the excitement!

Of all 6 schools I was really planning to stay here at RPI or go to UCSB.  The stipend at RPI is ~$16,000.00, though it is roughly equivalent with a cheaper cost of living I assume.  I applied to different programs at each school as it seems similar research is in different departments.  RPI does semiconductor optics in Physics or ECSE.  My Caltech application was for Applied Physics.  I expect that to be one of my long shots.  The other long shot is the Institute of Optics at the university of Rochester, which only takes 12 Physics PhDs a year.  They have a very large group of specialized physics for optics courses.  Stony Brook and U Albany were fall backs, that I no longer need unless they offer a big fellowship etc.

I planned to work toward becoming a professor in Physics, which may be harder with a PhD in Materials Engineering.  That is something I will be considering in making my decision, but my research interests have brought me to this field and I have now been accepted to the best or very close to the best Materials department.  I suppose I could make more money with the Engineering PhD but I do really love teaching.

Regardless of what I decide I will at least have a nice weekend in California at the end of this cold snowy winter.  It's snowing here now; were expecting 8-10 inches..    The snow looks nice, but it cripples transportation and I'm really sick of that!

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Yeah, I know what you mean about snow. It's supposed to be 70 today, 76 tomorrow, and even hit 80 on Friday afternoon . And even better, it's the same temperature most of the summer: the average high in July is only 75. My visit weekend last year ended up being one of the few rainy weekends all year, hopefully it'll come out a little better for yours. This weekend is looking great with all sun and mid-70s, hopefully you'll get a similar one in March.

Sounds like you have a great plan worked out, and I don't think you can really go wrong with any of those options. You can always end up as a materials professor . And UCSB is very interdisciplinary, so you can always do work in other areas if you end up here.

Hopefully you get to visit Caltech and the others to help decide. I did my Caltech visit for materials instead of applied physics, so your experience will likely be different. For me, I started the selection process with CalTech as my 1st choice and UCSB as my "least likely" choice. After visiting both, that completely reversed, and UCSB was my clear favorite. Pasadena was cool, the campus was "interesting" and nice, but very different. Without the visits, I definitely would've ended up in the wrong place for me. I'm sure it'll work out great either way, though. Getting in is the hard part, now you just get to decide which great school you want to go to.

Congrats again, major congrats, does it feel like a huge weight off now that you have that first acceptance?

pullbangdead said:

Congrats again, major congrats, does it feel like a huge weight off now that you have that first acceptance?

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Yeah, A HUGE weight has been lifted. As soon as I mentioned my acceptance to some of the grads today, they immediately said "California? GO!". I'm sure today's inclement weather did not effect their advice at all.

I'm working towards staying in academia because I love/crave to learn new things and then teach them to others. Physics has always had a sweet spot in my heart, but I would be happy teaching any subject for which I have an interest. The materials engineering degree may also open up doors outside of academia which a physics degree would not. This would be monetarily advantageous for me career wise. Since I submitted the application I've been thinking what I'd do if I got in. My friends and family are here in NY, but there's been something in me saying how nice it would be to go to CA. Some of my good friends close by still barely see me during the semester anyway, it's like I've already gone 'away' to school. At UCSB, they would at least have a sunny place to come and visit. I say my mind isn't made up yet, some serious consideration is in order to deter me from accepting the offer. As you said, I won't decide until after the visit...It's such a good dilemma to have though!

The snow is piling up as I write, yet the sun is surely shining bright for me today!

Just checking in, seeing how other acceptances are going. Hear from anywhere else yet? Any visits taken?

I got the list of which visiting students are staying with me for the visit weekend, and none are from RPI, so I assume you're not staying with me. Let me know when you find out who you're staying with, and keep us updated on here.

Yay to UCSB members!

I am a freshman (ugrad) here and am working in the Brown lab with a bunch of 1550 and 780nm (both cw and femtosecond) for THz generation.

What are you guys up to now that you are here?