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About Applying to Canadian University


*About Applying to Canadian University (specially University of Calgary)*


Many of you are applying for FALL 2011 and I am receiving many mails about what will make a successful application. As much as I will love to answer all those emails but things are getting very busy for me now a days with courses, research and  teaching. So I have decided to cheat and write a blog about it instead.. yay :).

Before giving you any suggestions one big suggestion is graduate study is quite stressful and if you are not really passionate about research you can get bored very soon. So try to select a research area that really interests you!.

It is hard to tell what exactly will make a successful application but I can definitely share my own experience with you.

  1. Firstly, I have contacted with some senior alumni from BUET expressing my interest to apply to University of Calgary. I have requested them to send me some information about the type of research that are going on at U of C and a list of Professor with good funding who are also willing to recruit new grad students.
  2. After receiving that information from kind BUETians, I have sent a brief email to those professor’s about my interest to work with them. I was very lucky to receive positive response from most of them!.
  3. Then, I prepared my application package and applied to U of C. [in Canada it is important to have a positive reply from professor before you apply]
  4. About a months later, I received an email from one of the respected Professor. He expressed his interest to work with me and he wanted to take an interview via Skype. So we make an appointment for the interview.
  5. The Interview was about 40 minutes long and he asked me various questions from basic computer science and software engineering field.
  6. I have done some background study about the research area of that Professor and read some publications from his research lab. So I was quite confident during that interview :).
  7.  A week after the interview, I got a confirmation email from the professor and he also offered me a summer internship if I could come to Calgary in June!. [Which I happily accepted :)]
  8. Alhamdulillah, my application was successful!.

Everyone has his own experience about what makes an application successful and this will certainly be different from person to person. If we share our experience we can learn from each other. This will help us to prepare a strong application package and our chance of getting admission with full funding will definitely increase. So feel free to leave a comment about your experience!

Good luck with your application!.

 Best
-Zabed
--
Md.Zabedul Akbar (Himel)
U of C Grad Student

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