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I graduated in 2016 from one of the best-known private engineering universities in India with 3.97 GPA (just got my WES report). All i knew till Undergraduate is self-study and attend classes and score decent marks in Exams. I was guided in that way.

Unfortunately, No professor of mine encouraged to conduct any research or help publish the research that i have done on my own. Having no experience with research and no support, When I saw research papers i thought they were just more talented and I am not up to the mark.

I have done decent projects in my undergrad and have contributed my work to my company. All my research work has been going into my projects, but not papers. Because I have no experience. May be I am lazy or shy/afraid to ask help.

I am taking my next step in my career, I am currently applying to US universities for MS in CS for Fall'19.

Will Masters program help me get a kick-start for my research experience, leading to PhD program?

If so, should i know anything before going to college?

PS: your answer can change a life, Please answer if you feel you have something to say. Thanks.

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I can only speak for germany and only my own experience as a researcher: I don't know exactly what you mean by "kick-start leading to PhD program", but if you mean "will a masters help me get a PhD?" Then the answer is definitely yes. This should apply anywhere on the globe where bachelor/master is established. Where in general it is possible to do a PhD with "only" a bachelor degree, it is pretty rare and I personally know not a single case.

As for tips: If you want a PhD, do the masters program. Get in touch with people, professors and lecturers. In my group, a lot of people are hired after completing their master thesis here.

So the best tips I can give you are:

  1. Enroll into topics which you are truly interested in
  2. Make a good impression in exercises(talk to the lecturer after the session, don't slack off, get good grades...)
  3. Get a position as research assistant in a working group
  4. Do your master thesis in the group where you are most interested in(and here is the hard part: during this time you should work very hard, make good impressions, try to get good results... since you want to work there later)

Those tips are pretty much the route I took and I guess there are many more tips and life experiences out there to help you.

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    "Where in general it is possible to do a PhD with 'only' a bachelor degree, it is pretty rare and I personally know not a single case." ---- This is field specific. Our department has many graduate students pursuing PhD's without having received a Masters degrees. The basic rationale is that having a Masters degree is trivial once you have a PhD, so students whose end goal is a PhD are often better served by enrolling directly in the PhD program.
    – Christopher
    Commented Nov 8, 2018 at 1:26
  • thanks for pointing this out. Yes that is certainly true. In my case I am in the field of computer science...and as I said those are my experiences as a researcher until now.
    – Captain GouLash
    Commented Nov 8, 2018 at 9:26

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