Note to Prospective PhD Students

Because of the high volume of emails I receive every day, unfortunately I cannot respond to most e-mails indicating interest in joining my research group. I do, however, understand the significance of initial discussions between prospective students and professors. I put together a few tips that will increase your chances of getting a response, as follows:

• Indicating that you have actually formally applied to the PhD program at Boston University ECE Department and that your application is already in the system (this can obviously happen only after you applied);

• Pointing out to two of our recent research papers you are interested in along with a very brief explanation on why you are interested in each of them;

• Highlighting your relevant project or research experience briefly but as precisely as possible (e.g., Have you contributed substantially to a software development project, and if so roughly how many lines of code and in which environment did you develop? Have you worked in an embedded system design project, and what components did you design exactly? Do you have work/internship experience; what were your tasks? Did you design any hardware? Do you have any published work, and if so, what is your contribution in the paper?);

• Attaching a 1-page resume to your email;

• Including the phrase “PeacLab – Prospective PhD” in your subject line;

• Keeping the email as short as possible and only including highly relevant information.

Thank you for your interest, and good luck with the pursuit of finding the right PhD program and advisor!

Prof. Ayse Coskun