Letter of Intent

The letter of intent is an interesting concept, isn't it?

With the national letter of intent early signing period for collegiate athletics such as basketball recently concluding, I was reminded of something I wrote for a fellowship application in response to the question, "What are the considerations involved in your choice of graduate school?" and I thought it would be interesting to revisit four years later.

First, what I wrote four years ago:
I am approaching my choice of graduate school in much the same way a high school basketball recruit would choose a college. If I were a basketball player, I would choose to join the national champion Syracuse University Orangemen because of many factors. The program has a rich heritage, but is also highly regarded today. The facilities are of high quality and unparalleled in the nation. My peers would be diverse, talented, and likable. The coaching staff (the faculty) has a good mix of ageless hall-of-famers, and up and coming younger members. There is a certain stability in the teaching philosophy, but also innovation to keep up with the times. There is freedom for students to pursue their interests within general guidelines and have fun doing it. The coaching instills confidence to follow instincts rather than always looking to the bench for instruction. There is marked improvement in individual ability from the first day to the last, and good placement afterwards. There is also a commitment to community involvement.

Now, the revisiting:

• Rich heritage - check
• Highly regarded today - check
• Facilities - unparalleled: yes; high quality: debatable
• Peers - check
• Faculty - double check
• Teaching - stability: I think so; innovation: yes
• Freedom - I would say so
• Instilling confidence - I have enough confidence to post blog entries as a representative of the lab for the world's consumption without running them by faculty members, so that's something
• Improvement - I would not have been able to make any sense of the Heine-Borel theorem, but now I can.  I had no idea what the simplex algorithm was, but now I do.  I can understand and summarize complicated concepts much better than I could.  And so on.
• Placement - graduates seem to be doing well for themselves
• Community involvement - getting there, but room for improvement

Good overall.

On another note, although there is no signed letter of intent, Srikanth Jagabathula and Vincent Tan will be joining the roster of the LIDS-Blog very soon, so be on the lookout for their posts.