I was admitted into the Masters of Data Science program at UT Austin in May 2023. At that point, I had graduated from UBC a year earlier and was working full-time at GE Vernova. Although I enjoyed the transition to professional life, I realized I missed gaining knowledge about topics I am interested in and applying it in different applications.

I graduated from UBC in June 2022 and I was so excited to get out into the real world and start solving real-world problems and get away from school. I was pretty good at studying and I graduated with a 4.0 GPA from UBC, but I knew that I could not start a Master’s degree right after graduating from my undergraduate degree. I knew I needed a break before pursuing further education.

I started work at GE Vernova in late 2022 and generally enjoyed the work-life without studying for a change. But I slowly found myself occupying my free time with these short form LinkedIn courses that gave me a sense of progression, but it didn’t really make me feel like I was learning anything deeply enough. I was no stranger to studying while working as I had been doing it throughout my co-op terms during undergrad (thanks to COVID), so naturally, the idea of starting a Master’s program that I had put off half a year ago sprang back up.

I was already exploring online masters programs in Canada and the US by January 2023. I was looking for a program that would get me better acquainted with Machine Learning/Artifical Intelligence because I had the intent of breaking into this field. But more importantly, I was looking for a program that was:

  1. Affordability - cheap enough for me to self fund myself during it’s duration
  2. Online/Remote - I had been jumping between Canada and the UAE very frequently, so I couldn’t be tied down to a physical location to complete this degree.
  3. Asynchronous - I wanted to continue working full time while studying - I valued the real-world experience that I was gaining and wanted to balance both work and school.

Canadian universities didn’t offer anything that was accomodating enough for my arrangement - they were all too expensive for an international student to self fund and mainly required in-person attendance. A couple of US universities had some programs that fit my requirements, but the one that stood out was the MSDS program at UT Austin.

The application process wasn’t too complicated and the fact that I had graduated from UBC with a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering and a Minor in Computer Science helped ensure I satisified the main math and programming requirements. I got references from my job and professors I worked with to fulfill that requirement too.

Soon enough, I got the admission email out of nowhere and was due to start in September 2023. This was also around the time that I was moving from Kelowna to Vancouver, so it really signified a new chapter of my life.

Looking back at things now, with the rise of AI and programs like UT Austin’s MSAI, more universities have started offering relevant degrees geared towards AI, including UT Austin with their MSAI program. I would have considered several other options, but UT Austin has proven to be both challenging enough so far, so I’m satisfied enough with my choice :)