Self Intro

Hello! I am Rei Meguro, a Japanese student who just graduated from a bachelor’s in engineering of computer science from University of Michigan Ann Arbor. (INSERT LINK TO UNDERGRAD ARTICLE HERE). After graduation, I am heading to Cornell University for my masters, focusing on engineering in Computer Science.

Why do a Master’s?

There were two main factors of why I chose to pursue a Master’s, but the biggest reason was time. After doing IB in my high school, I received a lot of transfer credits for my undergraduate courses. This added up to almost a year’s worth of college credit, allowing me to graduate in three years instead of the traditional four. While I was able to graduate quicker, it also reduced the time I had to do internships and other related experiences. As these experiences are essential for job applications, I wanted to buy myself some more time to gain them, thus leading me to pursue a master’s.

Additionally, I just simply enjoyed learning, and wanted to learn more about various AI technologies and machine learning algorithms.

My Choices

As I did my undergrad in Michigan, and wanted to work here, I only applied to US grad schools. I applied to four schools – Stanford, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Cornell – and I was accepted into Cornell and UMich.

In the end, I chose Cornell because it had the most interesting courses and offered a Master of Engineering. This meant the master’s program was more tailored for someone like me who was looking to work in the CS industry, rather than pursuing a PHD.

Although, I was also given the opportunity to work as a graduate student instructor (full time teaching assistant) at UMich, which would have made my tuition free had I accepted.

Despite this, I still ultimately chose Cornell University.

My Stats/Resume

For my stats, I only need to submit my undergrad GPA, which was a 4.0/4.0. I wasn’t required to take the TOEFL and GRE as I had done my bachelor’s at a US institution and was applying to a STEM program.

During my time at UMich, I was also involved in numerous activities that I included in my resume. I was vice president of the Japan Student Association, as well as a teaching assistant (TA) for a linear algebra class. I also did my first internship at a research lab on campus, where I worked on developing a toolkit for robot motion planning.

Externally, I did several internships at various startups, where I worked on full stack engineering as well as natural language processing. Finally, I completed an internship in the United Nations, where I developed a phishing detection pipeline, and published my research at an IEEE conference, winning the 2nd best research paper award!

My Essays

For my master’s, I was only required to write two essays for each university. For my statement of purpose, where you describe your background and reasons for pursuing a master’s, I mainly focused on my research experience at the UN and my side project of developing a chess AI. For my other essays about culture and diversity, I focused on my experiences working as the VP of the Japan Student Association and the impact I made.

The Application Process

In total, I spent about 3 months on my essays. Although the content remained the same, I was constantly refining and adding more details throughout the process. Unlike my undergrad application process, which required writing numerous essays, my master’s application process was a lot steadier, spending about an hour or two every day to write and polish my essays.

I used a lot of online resources for my statement of purpose, such as

• https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/statement-of-purpose_revised_4.pdf

• https://grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/steps-to-apply/requirements/statement-purpose/

For the personal statement (the one about diversity), I mainly used this resource. Lastly, I used this resource about the graduate admission process at Stanford to know what sort of things I had to pay attention to. As shown, essay guides (often on school websites) are really helpful!

The application process was technically free, as all I did was write essays on my own, though,h like applying to undergraduate programs, they usually take an application fee of around $100 per school.

My Message