Reviewed on Jan 29, 2025(Enrolled 2020)
What Students Say
Likes
- Highly skilled and knowledgeable faculty
- Vicinity to Silicon Valley and tech companies therein
- Cheaper than private colleges by virtue of UCSC being a state university
Dislikes
- Location is somewhat remote and not a lot of shops/businesses on campus
- During a recession, job opportunities may be fewer
- Getting housing is very difficult and relatively expensive in Santa Cruz
Course Curriculum
8
- It really depends upon the courses you take—and even within that, the specialisation that you want to carry out. For my specialisation (Electrical and Electronics Engineering), if you choose the robotics specialisation, there are a lot of hands-on courses where you work on hardware. My specialisation is controls, which is somewhat more theoretical.
- Don't really know a lot of negative aspects; on the positive side, the courses are detailed and prepare you fairly well for a role in industry/research.
Admission Experience
- I applied for the following universities:
- New York University, accepted
- University of California, Santa Cruz—accepted
- Notre Dame University: Shortlisted
- University of California, San Diego—Rejected
- University of Pennsylvania—Rejected
- Queens University: Rejected
- I applied for PhD and whether your prior research experience in Masters matches or not is a huge factor. Furthermore, UCSD and Penn are very reputed schools and I do not think my research experience and/or undergraduate grades were a good fit for them.
- My advisor at UCSC was doing a topic I really liked (ML/AI applications in the electric grid), plus the vicinity of UCSC to Silicon Valley made me choose this program.
- When I was admitted in 2020, I got 159 V/ 162 Q in GRE and 107 in TOEFL. They did not mention a cutoff. A huge factor was my previous research experience rather than standardised test scores. I had an interview with my advisor during the admissions process and I think I suitably impressed him on the technical details of my previous research, which I did during an internship at IISc Bangalore.
- I submitted by January 5—the deadline was January 15—and got an informal result by March and a formal result by April. Most colleges required me to submit 2-3 letters of recommendation along with my CV. My mentor at IISc Bangalore submitted LoRs at each of the colleges, along with teachers from BITS Goa (my undergraduate college). If I remember correctly, the application fees were around $200 at each of the colleges I applied to.
Class Schedule
8
- You can expect around 2 hours of classes per day, 5 days a week. But the self-study component is fairly high.
- Around 20 students per class.
Faculty
10
- Around 10-20 students per course, which is taken by one faculty member. Although some courses like machine learning can have up to 50-60 students enrolled in the course.
- I definitely secured an internship with it, although I'm not yet sure whether I want an industry job or a research career after my PhD.
- If you want to do research, then probably yes. But directly into the industry is difficult even for a professor, unless its their own startup or something. The job market right now is rough.
- Yu Zhang (my advisor), Yang Liu (Machine learning—made the topic a breeze), and Abhishek Halder (Applied math—made the topics really interesting and intuitive)
Campus Life
8
- The University of California system has many campuses; you can check them out on Wikipedia. I am on the Santa Cruz campus.
- There are two fairly well-equipped libraries. There's a gym, swimming pool, track, and field facilities. Our college is not known much for sports, but I've heard the volleyball team is pretty good.
- We do have a pretty cool and edgy student newspaper called Fishrap.
Part Time Jobs
- For the PhD program, typically you are guaranteed funding. This could be by the way of a TA, or it could be by the way of a GSR (Graduate Student Researcher—equivalent to RA).
- Ranges from $2400 to $2800 depending on the number of years you're at the college. If you are in the Master's program, the pay will probably be towards the lower range.
- Nothing else, especially for international students. If you're an American citizen, you can probably pick up other part-time jobs, especially remote ones. 20 hours—visa requirements. PhD students are guaranteed funding, so we will get either a TA, GSR, or some form of fellowship, guaranteed.
- I'm not aware of part-time jobs for Indian students. You can apply for summer jobs in Silicon Valley companies as an internship, for which you have to start submitting applications pretty much the day you start your program. For PhD students, there are a bunch of on-campus summer jobs such as teaching undergraduates and high school students, but the pay is pretty low. On the other hand, if you get a summer job with a tech company, the pay is pretty good and you also get a decent boost to your resume.
Placement
8
- I'm not really sure of the statistics, since PhD students don't really consult each other while applying for jobs in the same way that Masters students do.
- 130K-ish. In California, 70K is the poverty line so you should have at least a 100K+ job for your degree to be worthwhile.
- LinkedIn, cold applications on companies' websites, referrals (it is somewhat rare).
- Google, Meta, Tesla, and bunch of Silicon Valley companies.
Accommodation
Off Campus
8
- I applied for the university's Graduate Student Housing programme and got it.
- $1400 includes internet, water, electricity, and parking
- I personally did not face a lot of challenges. But for students in the Master's program, getting a place in university housing is difficult so they have to search for off-campus housing in Santa Cruz. I've heard this is expensive, and the rents off-campus are also $1400, but WITHOUT utilities.
- GSH is literally next to the Baskin Engineering building where my classes and lab are located.
Exams
- I had to submit GRE and TOEFL scores at each of the schools I applied to, though this has changed after COVID for most colleges significantly (I applied just before COVID). I submitted my applications around January 5, 2020.
- My advisor (Yu Zhang) reached out to me in February for a fairly technical interview. He later informed me that two professors (including himself) were interested in having me as a student, and I was given a choice—I chose my advisor for the reasons mentioned previously.
Fees
- The PhD program is fully funded and I get an approx. ~$2800 per month, post taxes.
- My rent is around $1400 and my other expenses (including stuff such as food/transportation) are around $800-1000.
- In case you own a car, you're looking at additional expenses, including at least $250 per month in insurance, parking, and licensing, apart from the cost of buying a car (obviously!). But you don't necessarily need a car, since the public transportation in Santa Cruz and its connectivity via public transport to the Bay Area is fairly decent.
Scholarship
- For two years (the first year and the final year), my academics were covered by the way of scholarships (Chancellor's Fellowship for the first year, Dissertation-year Fellowship for the final year), which do not require me to do additional jobs.
- Both of these scholarships are awarded to 2-3 students in the whole engineering school per year. In the intervening 3 years, I was either TA (Teaching Assistant), which requires you to help conduct a course, or GSR (Graduate Student Researcher), which requires you to conduct research activity.
