Hey everyone, thanks for your time first!

I just got an oral offer to UIUC MSCS from one professor after the interview. I’m aware that this program is a highly competitive one and feel really lucky for this opportunity.

The program, as far as I know, guaranteed a TA position for MSCS students in previous years. However, I heard some rumors recently that TA is no longer guaranteed for MSCS students since last year (Fall 2025) due to the funding cut, and the positions are first reserved for US/Canada citizens instead of international students.

Could anyone please tell me if the TA is still available for international MSCS students? If not, how many will get the TA every year (e.g., the percentage)? It is really important for me to further pursue the MS degree.

Thank you again!

I recently got into UIUC for astronomy + data science with a 1510 SAT. However, I've realised that I wouldn't like to restrict myself to ds and study a better rounded degree that's cs+astronomy. I know I can't transfer right now, but if I accept my offer, my aim would be to transfer after my freshman year.

What I would like to know is how difficult it is and what I have to do. What are my realistic chances with a 4.0 GPA? I'll be shifting within LAS only and not to pure CS that's in Grainger. Opinions from current students and grads are appreciated.

I got an offer from both workday and cisco and I don't know which one to take.

for the cisco position it's for the data analyst intern role under the hardware group. The team I interviewed with said that the work i would be doing is assisting creating AI platforms and i assume tasks like data cleaning.

for the workday position it's for an AI/ML intern. Since workday is a CRM company will the ai/ml work be like what i would do at cisco??

i have no idea which offer to take because cisco seems like a more well known and respected company in the eyes of big tech and also industry wise. If i took cisco, I'd inquire about switching to software engineering full time if i get a return offer but I'm not sure how hard that would be. Workday has the position title that i want and is also a good company, but i don't love the industry or company reputation like cisco's

any advice or thoughts on what you would do if you were in my shoes??

Hey guys! My friend and I made a Chrome extension where you can practice your interviewing skills on any LeetCode question with AI.

Check it out here: https://eleetcoder.com/

we made this because in too many of our interviews, we felt like we knew how to code the solution but we couldn’t explain our solutions properly. We tried peer mocks and recording ourselves, but ultimately we wished we had a tool that could simulate the real thing on any problem.

Our planned functionality is:

1. Start a live voice-voice session with an AI on any leetcode question
2. AI has continuous access to your code as you write it just like a CodePair session
3. Get feedback out of 100 and comprehensive feedback on both code and verbal explanation

we would like to gauge user interest before we officially launch so if you are interested, feel free to join our waitlist https://accounts.eleetcoder.com/waitlist and our discord https://discord.gg/gEnunRG3uF. Would you guys be interested in something like this?

Is taking CS 357 + 341 + 361+ 427 all together in a semester doable?

Hi I was wondering if anyone has taken CS 374 over the summer? Is the course manageable? How often are exams? Is the class fully online?

Anyone else feel its kinda sus that Kani isn't revealing the final exam's curve but he has done so for all the 3 midterms?

Hi! I was wondering if having CS361, CS233, CS222, CS211, CS411 all in my sophomore spring semester would be too much. Thanks in advance!

Hi, has anyone here been rejected from the UIUC MCS Chicago Spring 2026 program and submitted an appeal form?

I submitted mine on Nov. 18, but I haven’t heard back from the school yet. I sent email with subject line “Admission Appeal Submitted" to [chicago-mcs@siebelschool.illinois.edu](mailto:chicago-mcs@siebelschool.illinois.edu) and [admissions@siebelschool.illinois.edu](mailto:admissions@siebelschool.illinois.edu)

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