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What Students Say
Likes
- The amazing faculty in my department, they were all super talented professionals, researchers and incredibly kind, respectful. They were all very responsive too.
- Access to a lot of resources that promotes inclusivity, that are not restricted to your department alone. For example, there were people who couldn't have their own laptop, the University had a loaning program where you could use a laptop for free throughout the semester.
- Great connectivity. Ann Arbor public buses (in addition to UM buses) are free for students, the university also offers super cheap rides to the airport for holiday seasons. The International Center also offers to ride students for short trips, visiting the mall, etc sometimes.
Dislikes
- Super expensive in comparison to other colleges in the US, even though it is a public institution. You can waive off fees if you get a research assistant or teaching assistant position though (unfortunately super competitive in comparison to places like UT Austin, Georgia Tech, Purdue, UIUC etc). I got by because of that.
- Location is not great. I work in tech, there aren't a lot of opportunities in the MidWest as compared to the East and West Coasts. But attending remote networking events were my solution to this issue.
- The winters are super cold and harsh, it can get very gloomy at times, especially when the sun sets at 4PM and you have to walk back home through the snow.
Course Curriculum
- It was a mix of theory and practical work.
- We were paired up with a lot of organizations to solve their UX based problems.
- There weren't a lot of Indian students in the course
Admission Experience
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I applied to maybe 6 colleges. Got accepted at 3, rejected by 4. I feel that the rejections were mainly because of lack of experience, I applied directly from undergrad, and I was also moving from CS to UX. I would have gotten an admit if I had at least one year of experience and also some guidance on how to make my portfolio. There weren't a lot of people in my college who went from CS to UX at the time I applied, so I just went with my gut. Would do things a lot differently now.
1. University of Washington HCDE - Rejected
2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor - Accepted
3. Georgia Tech - Rejected
4. Rochester Institute of Technology - Accepted with Scholarship
5. IUPUI - Accepted with Scholarship
6. UMCP - RejectedBecause of the brand, talking to people who were enrolled in those programs also helped me with getting perspective in whether or not to accept. Looking at alumni, the places that they worked at, their career journey also helped me. Admission process involved standard things like having an SOP (statement of purpose), three LORs (letter of recommendation), giving the GRE (not compulsory), giving the TOEFL. As GRE wasn't compulsory, there isn't a minimum score, but I guess minimum score for TOEFL was around 100. You also had to share your undergrad transcripts, no minimum GPA requirements, but I feel they wanted 3.0 and above (convert to Indian number, using online calculators). Admission process is super easy, you can also attend information sessions, email the admissions office, they are very responsive and helpful.
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One of my friends wrote an article about the whole process, for getting admit in MS CS (a little different from mine, as I did UX Design, but still helpful). You can check it out here: https://medium.com/@prathameshsonawane/how-what-when-a-guide-to-ms-923b456c0560
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Fall '22. Applied in December '21 and got the admit in April '22. Most programs in my field did not have a Spring timeline, so I had no option there. I also applied to a 2 year college degree because I felt 1 year is not enough time and I had just graduated from undergraduate without any full-time work experience. So I wanted time and space to also do an internship over the summer.
Class Schedule
- The classes scheduled are sporadic depending on the semester, etc. It can be early morning, night or the evenings or the afternoons - you can't predict that.
- The number of times the class is scheduled also depends on the professor, how they want the class to be structured, there is no set 9-5 schedule here.
Faculty
- I admire Kentaro Toyama, Joyojeet Pal a lot - you can look up their LinkedIn or their websites.
- Faculty members can help with research assistant positions, instructional aide position if you talk to them or email them - not other part-time jobs though.
- Teaching is really good, we had faculty who is more research oriented and also people who were intermittent professors, who had a job in the industry and also taught at the University. It was a good mix of perspectives.
Campus Life
- Three, Ann Arbor is the main campus and there is also Dearborn and Flint.
- A number of libraries (a little too many, you can study at a new library every month for two years literally), sports facilities (two recreational facilities on campus and a number of other paid options), and medical services (there is a big Michigan Medicine hospital) are available.
- Football is major here, the Michigan stadium is the biggest one in the US, so it gets super crazy during football season. You can participate in a snow fight at the Diag, go tailgating, get a lot of free food, attend opera shows, do a zipline all for free on the campus.
Part Time Jobs
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I have already answered these questions before. The pay range for TA/RA/DA positions is about 3000 USD per month. Everyone works different jobs - people work in dining, in cafes, desk jobs, grader jobs etc etc. The time allowed is a maximum of 20 hours every week, and you can apply online on the University portal. I think it is careers.umich.edu. You can also email professors to get research jobs.
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I think the minimum wage is around 18$ per hour and it is super easy to get these part time jobs here. Everyone works different jobs - people work in dining, in cafes, desk jobs, grader jobs etc. You can apply online on the University portal. I think it is careers.umich.edu. You can also email professors to get research jobs and the pay for this is a little higher, based on the grant funding.
Placement
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All of this heavily depends on the market.
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A lot of people who graduated from my course haven't secured a full-time job but that wasn't the case in 2020, 21, 22 when the tech market was booming. I would expect someone to earn 100k after graduation.
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People usually look for jobs online - on LinkedIn, Handshake, Indeed and also attend conferences for networking that are funded by the University.
Accommodation
- Using WhatsApp groups, people used spreadsheets to capture their information and find roommates. For the first year, my rent was 500$ including utilities for a shared bedroom in Central Campus.
- I was living with someone I already knew in Michigan, so I did not face any challenges when it came to finding accommodation. The North Campus is relatively cheaper, and bus service is also very reliant.
- I would suggest looking there instead of Central Campus if you are okay with things not being super lively in your immediate vicinity.
Exams
- Interview was not a part of the process. Apart from all the standard documents, design portfolio was the most important part.
- I would suggest that making a website portfolio is super helpful and also having a couple of internships on your CV is also important as the field is getting more and more competitive every day.
Fees
- It was 26,000 USD per semester (also paid semester-wise), based on the number of credits you take. So in the last semester, if you don't take a full-credit course load, then you have to pay less fess. Minimum of 9 credits and a maximum of 18 were required in one semester.
- Total required credits for the whole course were 48 to graduate. So you can take extra credits and have lesser credits in the last semester and pay less tuition, or else graduate in 3 semesters (advised if you have a job offer).
Scholarship
- Only 2 international students receive scholarships in our department (either full or partial), the number is very low.
- I got awarded a Graduate Student Instructor position, for which I had to apply and interview. It is basically a teaching position, where you have to teach lab sections, grade papers, etc.
- I got my semester tuition waived under that and also received a monthly stipend of around 3000 USD something approximately for working 20 hours every week.
