For Potential Students: Frequently Asked Questions

Potential students who carefully read and understand these questions and answers are much more likely to one day work with me in my lab.

Every year, I receive hundreds of emails from potential students. Almost all are really interested in an answer to Question 1.

Question 1: Will you fund my graduate degree?

If I have never met you, and you have not applied to Mississippi State, the answer is no.

You first have to apply to our graduate program, be admitted, accept admission, arrive at Mississippi State, and then take one of my classes or otherwise meet me in person. Then, I might fund your graduate degree.

If you are already at Mississippi State, I will be happy to meet with you.

Among the most consequential components of your application is your statement of purpose. I sometimes read these: see Questions 3 and 4.

Question 2: I am a student at Mississippi State. Will you hire me for the summer, or over some other time period?

No, I only hire students who are working in my lab as part of their degree.

Question 3: Will you review my application materials before I apply?

No.

Question 4: Will you advocate for my admission to Mississippi State’s graduate program?

Perhaps. If your statement of purpose mentions me and discusses the work of the SPAAR lab in a substantial way, then I will be asked to review your application. For students that I have never met, this is the only way that I will see your application materials. Note that the discussion must be substantial: just listing the titles of a few papers will not work. There is no substitute for careful reading and thinking.

How do you find my papers? See Question 5.

Question 5: How do I find out what happens in your lab?

The way to understand what happens in my lab is to read papers that I have published with my students and collaborators. Every paper that I have ever published is available on this website.

If you have made it this far, then see Question 6.

Question 6: Do any potential graduate students receive funding from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Mississippi State?

Yes.

Every year, the admissions committee ranks the admitted students. The Department then offers funding to the top-ranked students. We fund as many top-ranked students as the funding allows.

Students who have a professor who advocates for them are much more likely to be a top-ranked student. How do you get me to advocate for you? See Question 4.

Question 7: What if I would rather study a different topic?

Everything said here applies to any topic, any professor, at any university.

To understand what different technical and scholarly projects students might do with a professor, there is no substitute for carefully reading their papers.

Question 8: How can I successfully be admitted to a quality graduate program?

The way to succeed: Focus in on a few topics where you have genuine passion, find papers on those topics that you find exciting, find a small number of professors behind those papers, and apply to the universities where those professors teach. You must deeply read and consider the papers. There are no shortcuts. This is exactly what I did to become admitted to my own graduate program.

The way to fail: Send an email to hundreds of different professors at different schools, perhaps mentioning the titles of a few of their papers.

Question 9: Are you as grumpy as you sound in this FAQ?

No, I love and deeply value my students, and I am proud of the work that we have accomplished together over many years. I love running a lab, I love teaching classes, and (almost) everything else about being a professor.

The tone of these questions comes from receiving hundreds of emails every year, almost all of which are really interested in Question 1, or maybe Question 2. And yet, only a few of these emails, maybe less than five in a year, convince me that the potential student understands what kinds of projects they would pursue in my lab. These few emails are the ones that convince me the potential student has actually read and understood some of my papers.

If you have actually read and considered everything up to here, then I think you are likely to be admitted to a quality graduate program. You might even end up studying with me. Either way, I wish you the very best as you pursue your educational and career goals.