What Students Say
Likes
- Research Opportunities:- ASU has a lot of highly funded research labs like CASCADE (Center for Assured and Scalable Data Engineering)
- Campus GYM: Sun devil Fitness complex is really huge and has a lot of facilities
- Lecture Halls: Halls are well maintained
Dislikes
- Student population is very high
- ASU has a party school environment which is really distracting
- Parking permits are really expensive
Course Curriculum
- The difficulty level of the course curriculum depends on the classes you're choosing. Overall, the course curriculum is on the easier side. Almost all my classes are 70% theoretical and 30% practical.
- The positive side is I can explore courses in various concentrations like big data, distributed systems, etc. There are a lot of courses to choose from. The negative side is some faculty just read from slides and are not interested. So, it is important to look at the ratings of the professor before taking the class.
- Most of the faculty members don't assist students in their professional careers, whether they are part-time or full-time.
- I like Fish Wang. His software security course is really challenging and he is really good at making students understand difficult concepts.
Admission Experience
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I applied for the following universities:
- University of Texas Dallas—Accepted
- Arizona State University—Accepted
- University of California Riverside—Accepted
- SUNY Buffalo—Accepted
- Texas A&M - Rejected
- Northeastern University—Rejected
- I got acceptance from the University of Texas at Dallas, Arizona State University, the University of California Riverside and SUNY Buffalo.
- I got rejected from Texas A&M and Northeastern University.
- I believe my GRE score (310) was not quite good enough to be admitted to those colleges.
- I chose ASU because in rankings, job opportunities, and overall fee structure, it was slightly better than other colleges I got admission from.
- Admission process: I applied to ASU with my resume, statement of purpose, and undergraduate transcript. I also sent them my GRE scores. After 2 months, I got my acceptance letter.
- The eligibility criteria for GPA was a minimum 3.0 GPA on the scale of 4. GRE and IELTS/TOEFL are accepted and there isn't any minimum scores for these tests.
- My overall admission experience was great; the application was not lengthy and it took minutes to fill. One challenge was the application deadline was very early and they required undergraduate transcripts. So, I had to get transcripts from my college very early.
- I applied for the Fall 2023 intake. I completed my undergraduate in April 2023 and I wanted to start my master's right away. Also, fall intake is generally better because you will be able to do internships during summer using CPT. If you go for spring intake, you can only do an internship during winter break, which is really hard to get compared to summer.
- The admission process took 3 months in total. I took 1 month to prepare my resume and statement of purpose. Then I applied on November 1st, 2022. I got my acceptance on Jan 7th, 2023.
Class Schedule
- Typically, 1 or 2 classes are scheduled in a day and most of them will be in the afternoons and evenings, like 4:30-5:45 pm. Some classes take place really early, like 7:30 to 8:45 am
Faculty
- The average number is around 120 people
- Around 900 indian students are present in my course
- 18:1 is the faculty-to-student ratio. A lower ratio means that a student can get a lot of individual attention from the professor, which improves the quality of education.
- Teaching methodology is a combination of theoretical and practical. So, it will be beneficial for securing a job in my field as well as useful in research.
Campus Life
- ASU has 4 campuses. The main campus is located at Tempe, the Polytechnic campus is located at Mesa, the West campus is located at Glendale and the Downtown Phoenix campus is located at Phoenix.
- My campus is the main campus (Tempe) that has 2 libraries, a fitness complex, and a health services building.
- Devilpalooza, Sol Power Hip-Hop Festival, and CultureFest are some of the popular events that take place. Also, we have a lot of football games that take place at Mullet Arena.
- There are a lot of sports clubs, like the pickleball club, etc. Cultural events happen a lot here since ASU is a party school. There are a lot of student organisations that anyone can join, like SODA (Software Developer Association).
Part Time Jobs
- A lot of students secure TA positions. The only requirement is you need to have taken the course before. Whereas the RA positions are generally reserved for thesis or PhD students, so they are really rare.
- The pay range is around $20 an hour.
- There are a lot of on-campus jobs like librarian, help desk assistant, food service worker, etc.
- The hourly wages are around $15 an hour
- Students can work 20 hours a week
- Due to the large number of students at ASU, getting an on-campus job is really difficult.
- Students typically earn $15 an hour. It is really difficult to get a part-time job due to the volume of international students. The process starts with searching for job openings in the ASU job search portal; then we need to tailor our resume and cover letter and submit the application. And after that, if the student is selected, they will schedule an online interview, which would be mostly nontechnical.
Placement
- Almost 90% of the students from the graduating batch secure employment
- $100,000 a year is the average salary for this area for computer science master's students.
- Online job portals and campus events like career fairs are the common methods to find jobs.
- Many of my seniors have secured placements in companies like Intel, Meta, Amazon, Honeywell, etc.
- Amazon, AMD, Microchip, and NXP Semiconductors generally mass hire students from ASU.
Accommodation
- For finding accommodation, I used online platforms like rent.com and groups on Discord and whats-app.
- The monthly rent for the entire unit is $1600, including utilities like water, trash, etc.
- The main challenge was finding roommates and sending money for the application fee and leasing documents before coming to the US.
- My recommendation for future students is to start early, as good apartments that are close to campus are in high demand.
- My apartment is 1.5 miles from the campus. Most of the Indians stay within 2 miles of the main campus.
Exams
- An English proficiency test is required, like TOEFL or IELTS. GRE is accepted but not required for my program.
- A statement of purpose, CV, and unofficial transcript of an undergraduate degree are required. LOR is not required for a master's in computer science.
- No, there was not any form of interview as a part of my application process. After I submitted my application, I got the acceptance in 2 months without an interview.
Fees
- The entire fees for my course is 54,000 dollars, including tuition, health insurance, miscellaneous fees, etc.
- It is charged semester wise and it is credit-based.
- My monthly expenses come to around 600 dollars. My rent is $400 a month for a shared room. Transportation is $0 since we have campus shuttles and Orbit buses, which are free of cost. Groceries come around $100. Electricity and Wi-Fi combined come to around $70, and the rest is miscellaneous.
Scholarship
- Yes, I received the New American University Scholarship and it is merit-based. There aren't any specific eligibility criteria.
- I received $7000 for the entire course duration.
- Very few received any form of scholarship or financial aid.
- For a master's in computer science, around 500 people receive scholarships each year and the typical amount is $6000 for the entire course.












