Lately, a big part of my life has been preparing grad school applications and submitting them. If you’ve never gone through it, it’s easy to think it’s just filling out forms and sending transcripts. But in reality, it’s a lot more personal than that. The whole process forces you to slow down and think about what you actually want, which is harder than it sounds.
One of the first questions I had to answer was what I really wanted to study. “Computer Science” is huge, and even “Machine Learning” and “AI” can mean a dozen different things depending on who you ask. Theory, applications, NLP, computer vision. Picking a direction matters more than I initially thought, because it shapes everything that comes after.
Imposter syndrome showed up pretty quickly in the process. Reading about cutting-edge research at big, well-known schools and looking at LinkedIn and Google scholars of the students who attend these schools can make you feel like everyone else is already miles ahead. For a while, I felt pressure to apply anyway, almost to prove that I belonged, that I was worth it. But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became that not applying to certain programs didn’t mean I was giving up. In many cases, it just wasn’t a good fit. Applying for the wrong reasons would have helped no one.
The Statement of Purpose was another reality check. It’s not a resume in paragraph form. It’s a story about how your experiences connect and where you want to go next. Writing it forced me to reflect on my path in a way I hadn’t before, from small personal projects to more structured research experiences.
Having someone in academia read my Statement of Purpose made a huge difference. Their feedback helped me understand what admissions committees actually look for and where my story needed more clarity. Trying to do this part alone makes the process much harder than it needs to be.
Then comes the waiting. After months of researching, writing, and submitting, everything goes quiet. You start checking your email and application portals more often than you’d like to admit, even though you know it won’t change anything. I’m definitely guilty of that. Learning to step back during this phase has been just as important as any other part of the process.
What I’ve realized is that research doesn’t start after you get accepted and walk into a lab. It starts much earlier. It starts when you’re learning about programs, reading faculty work, comparing labs, and asking yourself where you would actually grow. Applying to grad school is research in its own way, and it deserves time and care.
My only advice for folks applying to grad school is this: give yourself that space. It isn’t a delay. It’s part of the work.
Learning with Data 
Leave a comment