What are the differences between being part of the VIP program vs. being an undergraduate researcher in a lab (for credit) through emailing a professor? Does it make a meaningful difference/is one better than the other?

how to study with the lecture videos, outline docs, and online quizlets

Hi everyone!

I’m hoping to connect with anyone who has experience combining an ORISE fellowship at CDC with graduate studies at Georgia Tech.

I’ll be becoming an ORISE fellow at CDC toward the end of this year, but even before that opportunity came up, I had already been seriously considering pursuing an MSc at Georgia Tech, particularly in Computer Science or Bioinformatics.

A couple of years ago, I remember hearing about a few ORISE fellows who were also studying at Georgia Tech at the same time. From what I remember, some or perhaps all of them were PhD students but I think there was a MSc student as well. This made me wonder whether a similar arrangement has ever been possible for more MSc students.

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have actually done this, either at the MSc or PhD level. How did you make the arrangement work between CDC/ORISE and Georgia Tech? Was your graduate program full-time or part-time? Were there restrictions related to fellowship hours, funding, tuition, or student status? Did you need specific approval from your CDC mentor, ORISE, Georgia Tech, or all of them?

I’m also curious whether anything has changed recently regarding these types of arrangements, particularly with changes in federal policies, funding, or agreements.

I realize every fellowship and academic program can have different requirements, so I’m not assuming that what worked for someone else would automatically apply to me. I would just really appreciate hearing about real experiences from people who successfully combined the two.

If you’ve done something similar and would rather not share the details publicly, I’d also be very happy to chat privately.

Any advice, recommendations, or things you wish you had known before trying to balance both would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

so i’m currently an undergrad from India. i’m doing my bachelors in computer science and my cgpa currently is an 7.89 which translates to a 3.1-3.2. i’ll probably get an solid 8 by the end of this year which is a 3.25. it’s a pretty low cgpa but my college uses relative grading which lowkey fucked up half the kids in my batch. i wanna do a career change into the space sector and wanna go for my masters in the USA. im thinking of either applying for the Masters in Computational Science Engineering with Physics as my home unit and focus on Astro side. or i’m thinking of applying to the Masters in Earth and Space Science.

for my research side, i have one Astro + ML paper accepted by the FastML 2026 conference but i couldn’t present in person because it was lowkey last minute and visa isn’t easy to get. i have 2 research projects with a ready paper and im looking to put it as a preprint on somewhere. and currently im doing a 11 week space research program with an organization.

also for my extracurriculars ive been in a community service organization called Rotaract for 3 years where i also managed to cultivate leadership skills and organize events on my own. and i’ve been a part of a lot of clubs in college, and was almost always on the management side of events.

i know my cgpa is pretty low and the lack of research papers published also kinda pulls my profile down. so i’m planning to take the GRE and hopefully get a 165+ on Quants section.

so yeah what are my chances of getting in? i everyone around me say georgia tech is way too competitive and with my low gpa there’s no way im getting in 🥲

any advice is welcome thank you!

I am taking ACCT 2101 with Ryan Blunck and I dont have a textbook as of now and I cant find it online. Do i need it for the class or can I get by using his lecture notes for each chapter that he gives out and goes over.

I had a bad experience with ECE 2031 ( gave an insane amount of time but got my only B at Tech with a 89.5)

Today was the 3rd lecture of 3651 and Skill Demo 0 is out. Im a CS major and have no idea how to use all these tools in the lab...

Any tips on how to survive this class with an A?

I have 24 transfer credits from AP for my first semester at ksu and, from what other people have told me, it is enough to transfer to gt. My friends at gt say I can apply to transfer next semester if I wanted to but I was under the assumption I needed to wait 2 years to transfer. Also if I transfer, would fafsa and hope(didnt get zell) be enough to cover tuition? How do I know what classes I should take for credits to transfer like doing gen ed or major specific classes. I’m sorry for all the questions I’m just really not sure about most of this but I do want to transfer, so I’m asking these for some clarification.

Thank you for your time

Hi everyone,

I am interested in applying to a master’s program at Georgia Tech, especially the MS in Computer Science – On Campus, but I am a little confused by the number of related programs available.

I have seen several Computational Science & Engineering options associated with different departments, including Chemistry, Civil & Environmental Engineering, the College of Computing, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Industrial & Systems Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics, in addition to the on-campus and online Computer Science programs.

I understand that these are different degrees/programs, but I am having a hard time figuring out what genuinely distinguishes them beyond the department names.

If anyone is currently enrolled in one of these programs or has completed one, I would really appreciate hearing about your experience. In particular, I am trying to understand:

• What does the coursework normally look like for each program? If possible, I would love to see an example of the courses someone might take semester by semester.
• What are the main differences between the CSE programs and the MS in Computer Science – On Campus in terms of programming, algorithms, machine learning, statistics, numerical methods, research, and electives?
• How much does the curriculum change depending on the home department of the CSE degree?
• Are some of these programs considerably more competitive or difficult to get into than others?
• Does applying through a particular CSE department generally require a stronger background in that specific field?

I am especially interested in the on-campus MS in Computer Science, but I would like to understand the alternatives before deciding where I am actually the best fit.

Part of the reason I am asking is that I do not want to apply to a program for which my background is not competitive simply because I misunderstood what the degree focuses on, especially if another Georgia Tech program might fit my previous skills and experience much better.

I apologize if some of these questions have already been answered in older posts. I have been trying to find a clear comparison and especially semester-by-semester coursework examples, but I am still pretty confused.

Any advice from current students, alumni, or people who applied to more than one of these programs would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi fellow engineers (at Georgia Tech and beyond),

I used to regularly teach ECE 2026 (Introduction to Digital Signal Processing) (as a recitation professor) and ECE 3025 (Introduction to Electromagnetics).

A student recently told me that my notes for both courses are still floating around and helping people, mostly through word of mouth.

In an effort to make the notes easier to find, I'm posting links to them here so that more people can find them. If I move them somewhere else, I will revisit this post and modify accordingly.

If there are local "watering holes" where I can raise awareness about these resources, please let me know as a comment or DM. I hear the ECE Discord is a good spot but I'm not allowed there as faculty.

----

ECE 2026 (Intro to DSP):

You can find the notes that I used to teach recitation sections here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Zb9wYgIFiD28W308y2KMDYP15WplLIro?usp=drive_link

The goal was to make them self-contained. From talking to students, I've heard that the big lectures are hard to follow for some so I've attempted to make it so that the recitations (and these notes) alone can carry you through the course on their own.

I hope to make "Kahn Academy Style" videos in the future. I'm making progress towards that goal but time is limited at this stage of my life for passion projects. I will update here when they are up and post them on my YouTube channel (see below).

----

ECE 3025 (Intro to Electromagnetics)

You can find the notes that I used to teach the course here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13bEZeUZy1jJuKMKxXFysPbhzasm5bfnV?usp=drive_link

I taught this course in the tradition at the time of using a textbook as Hayt and Buck for the conventional electromagnetics curriculum with a slight tangent to a book called Transient Signals and Transmission Lines for some exploration of time-domain transmission lines.

I taught this course during the pandemic, which resulted in making lecture videos that I've endeavored to make as Kahn-Academy-Style as possible. You can find them on my YouTube channel as a collection of playlists:
https://www.youtube.com/@benbyang

----

I hope this helps some of you. Right now, I teach Junior Design regularly (ECE 3011). I wish you the best and hope you crush ECE 2026, ECE 3025, and that our paths cross someday. If you have a choice, I encourage you to consider taking Junior Design. It's been a good platform to exercise skills that I consider to have been more impactful to my career as a working engineer.

Don't hesitate to look me up and reach out if there are other ways I can help you succeed. The world needs what you have to offer!

Ben Yang

Im a prospective student interested in attending gatech.

I am interested in the math and computing degree.

I attended university at one point but had to drop out due to financial reasons.

I took a year off to save up money and attended a community college to get my gpa up.

Im close to getting my associates degree in computer programming and my GPA so far is a 3.85.

I didn't do any extracurricular but I've got this semester and another where I can attempt an extra curricular.

I also have some coding projects I work on in my spare time. What are my chances of getting in as a transfer?

Hi! I’m a grad student at GT looking for a new laptop with a budget of around $1,200.
I’ll mainly use it for coursework, MATLAB, Python, job applications, Office, and possibly some engineering software. I’d also love a touchscreen/2-in-1 if possible.
What laptops would you recommend ?
Is 16GB RAM enough, or should I go for 32GB? And do I need a dedicated GPU for typical engineering coursework?
Thanks!

Title

I'd really appreciate your guidance. Thanks!

This is my current plan for 2026 Fall. I've seen CS3220 has become stricter/harder (there has been in-class time-limited labs, a 5% entrence exam)

, probablly so as CS3251 (homeworks are all completion based, so I guess exams could be harder).

This way, I feel CS3220 is even having some exam components.

Should I move ECE4122 to this sem and CS3251 to last sem? This way, I could save some time for a harder CS3220. Also maybe ECE4122 could make me better prepared for CS3210?

My friend and I just found this section in the BS/MS for Computer Science web page. Does anyone know if this is while you're still an undergraduate but accepted into the program, or does this only count while you're a Master's student? We know a lot of BS/MS people and have never heard anything of this requirement - wasn't in the FAQ or in the Info Session we watched.

Both of us are under 12 credits as of right now.

EDIT: Update: I ran the Wayback Machine and this has been a "requirement" since 2021. I've never heard of this requirement before

tech comm is lmc 3403 with bunting, 3510 is with mccarty (new prof? 95% exam grades though), 3251 is with hester, 3790 is with mcgreggor, 4400 is with mcdaniel, 4641 is with roozbahani, & 2 credit VIP. All in all it is 20 credits, tomorrow is last day of add/drop so i want to see if this is too much or which classes I should consider dropping first. cs threads are info/intel, I feel like this is definitely too much, especially since I wanted to lock in on recruiting and grind LC for internships but idk if I'm overextending myself here. I'm OOS so graduating early would benefit me a lot financially but idk if this is too much or what, lmk what you think I should do here

Looking for a few people to team up with for 2340. I’m trying to get a group together early so we can split things up evenly and not procrastinate everything until the last minute. Please comment or dm me if interested.

Hey everyone, does anybody have notes from AE 2010 (Thermodynamics and Fluid Fundamentals) that they’d be willing to share?

I don’t have access to the Canvas yet, so I’m trying to keep up with the lectures in the meantime. Any notes would be really helpful.

Thanks!

I’m taking MATH 1554 right now and I’m struggling a lot more than I expected, so I wanted to ask people who have taken the class before what worked for them.

I have a hard time following my professor’s lectures, so I’ve been using Cuyler/Warnock’s recorded lectures from Spring 2025 instead. I’ve heard his lectures are really good, but since they’re from a previous semester I’m not sure if the order lines up exactly with what we’re doing now.

Today I spent around 3-4 hours watching lectures and trying to understand sections 1.1 and 1.2. After that I started the WeBWorK, and after the first 2 questions I basically couldn’t solve any of them correctly on my first try. I ended up needing AI to guide me through most of the problems and I didn't end up finishing.

That’s what’s worrying me. It’s only our second class, and even after putting in several hours, I feel like I understand things while watching someone explain them but then have no idea how to start when I see a new problem by myself.

I’ve never really struggled this much with math before, so I’m not sure if this is normal for the beginning of 1554 or if I need to change how I’m studying before I fall behind.

For people who did well in 1554, what would you recommend?

• What did you actually do to study for the class?
• Are the Warnock recordings good enough to mainly learn the material from?
• What did you do after lectures to get to the point where you could solve problems independently?
• Are there any good on-campus tutoring or help resources for 1554?
• Did anyone else feel this lost at the beginning and eventually get comfortable with it?

I’m definitely willing to put the time in. I just want to make sure I’m putting that time into a strategy/something that actually works.

Thanks for any advice.

Hey all, I’m currently a freshmen at Georgia State and want to transfer into GT for Industrial Engineering. Besides math and physics courses, what should my course work look like? Does GT care of the courses I take besides math and physics. Right now I have most of my gen Ed’s done like English 1/2, social science credits, American government, Econ 2105, and CS 1301.

And this semester I’m taking calc 2, physics 1, SCOM 2050 (humanities credit), NUTR 2100 (health and wellness credit), and Arabic 1 (filler)

GT doesn’t accept a lot of major courses from GSU, and GSU doesn’t offer them either. I do plan on taking accounting either next semester or in the summer. Is it alright to have ‘filler’ courses?

I signed up for MUSI 3450 because it was online, and I honestly thought it would be a pretty easy class. After looking through the modules, though, it seems like there are a ton of videos, readings, and assignments to keep up with.

For anyone who has taken the class, how difficult are the tests? Do I need to take detailed notes on every video, or are the study guides enough to prepare? Can I mostly study a few days before each test, or is this a class where I need to keep up with everything throughout the semester?

Also, are the questions mostly straightforward and based directly on the videos, or do they test very specific details? Any advice on the best way to study would be appreciated.

pls help

I've read that in order to stay in the library late you need to have a Buzzcard (i.e. be a student). What is the minimum requirement to get a Buzzcard? Like can I enroll in a single continuing ed class? I'd like a quiet place to study/work. I like in West Midtown so GA Tech is close. I've also seen some people say to just go in during visitor hours and stay and that no one will ask you to leave. But still curious what minimum Buzzcard requirements are.