My Path to PhD: From FUNAAB, Abeokuta, to Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh
On this particular night in late January, I was trying to read for my Human-Computer Interaction exam the following morning. I had written three exams before that night. I had six more exams (including my carryover course) to complete my BSc in Computer Science program at the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB). I was bored with studying, and I checked my email inbox as a distraction. Upon checking, the email at the top was an “Admission to CMU LTI PhD” congratulations email from my potential advisor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), telling me to expect the official acceptance email in the next few days. I screamed once. I then screamed the second time. My roommate, Beloved, rushed into our workstation room to inquire what was happening, and we screamed together for the third time!
I cannot say that the news was unexpected, really. I spent my time in the last month of 2022 submitting PhD applications to 10 schools in the United States. I knew I had an exciting application profile and suspected that my recommenders wrote enthusiastically to support my applications. In the past few weeks before this news, I had interviewed at seven of the ten schools I had applied to, including CMU, Stanford, Rice, UT Austin, Harvard (2x), and Michigan State, on the strength of my profile. So maybe I should have expected my first-choice school, CMU, to extend me an offer despite its ultra-competitive acceptance rate. Still, it took a while to sink in.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’d amuse myself by going over to csrankings.org and fiddling with the parameters — areas of computer science (CS) specializations, locations, and years — and watch CMU stay rigidly at the #1 position while the other institutions bob up and down the standings. It is a pretty silly and vain way of deriving primal pleasure. However, it is a good expression of how I found it hard to accept that I pulled this off while still being an undergraduate at a not-so-rated, agriculture-specialized institution in Nigeria.
It is even more interesting when I put into perspective that I have not been a computer whiz kid since I was a kid. I didn’t start university until a few months before my twentieth birthday, and I didn’t grow up in a socioeconomically advantageous background, even by Nigerian standards. Hence, I need to tell my story, hoping someone out there may find it helpful.
I divided the story into two articles. Both may not be useful for my particular audience’s use case; hence, feel free to skip and focus on the one(s) that suit your needs or curiosity very well.
Disclaimer: The articles are really long, but I really hope they are worth reading.
Part 1: My Background and Motivation Here, I talk about my background and the factors in my background that influenced this journey. I also highlight the inflection points determining my ambition for a PhD in artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML). You should skip this if you only want to focus on my PhD application efforts.
Part 2: My Approach to My PhD Applications In this article, I detail my application process, contrasting what changed between my two attempts at PhD applications. It not only includes my reflections on the application but also tips and lessons on best practices.
So, here’s to new beginnings, to the pursuit of knowledge, and to the unwavering belief that anything is possible. Thank you for reading my story. I wish you all the best in your own endeavors.
Extra credit: My heartfelt gratitude to Damilola Adesina, Mardiyyah Oduwole, and Temiloluwa Adelowo for lending their expertise in proofreading these writeups and taking the time to help me refine my thoughts.
