UVa Related Questions

Current Indian Students

See the list of current Indian Students at UVa

Financial Resources

The most important thing you have to know is that, if you have some sort of financial aid, the University does not pay you till about 2 weeks after the official beginning of the semester. You will have to bring enough money to last you till then and cover initial expenses, which may be high for an international student.

Some governments impose limits on the amount of foreign currency you are permitted to take out of the country, but try to come here with $1200-$1500 in addition to your tuition bill to tide you over till the first paycheck.
UVa has a honor loan facility by which you can borrow up to $600 interest free and repay it within 30 days. You can avail of it in the first week of September in case you cannot bring enough money.

Health Insurance

The United States does not have any national health insurance program. Therefore, medical bills must be paid by the individual or by private insurance. Medical care in the United States is very expensive, so it is important for you and your family to have some sort of insurance. The University requires you to enroll in some kind of plan, one of which is sponsored by the University. Most students opt for this one, but this plan does not cover eye or dental care. Hence, it is best to take care of these in your home country before you come here. If you wear glasses or contact lenses, its a good idea to bring an extra pair of glasses. The forms for medical insurance would either be mailed to you, or you can procure them after coming here during the orientation organized by the International Student Affairs Office. Insurance can be taken care of after you arrive here, but it must be done soon.

Do NOT buy a policy from India. You'll get an inexpensive and valid insurance here. UVa probably dislikes international insurance. Besides, if you did get injured here, the insurance limit in India will be too small, because medical expenses here are high. Also, you will need quick reimbursement, which suggests that you want to take local insurance.

The University recommended plan is one by Chickering. The University provides health insurance to all graduate students.

Books

Books for core courses should cost you around $100-120 if you purchase the books in the stores here. Books in the US typically cost $40-$50 or more a book. A good idea to save quite a lot of money is to buy the economy editions, if such are available, in India and get them over here.

Biomedical Engineering (BME):
- information on BME courses.
- information on Non-BME, but related courses.
- The core courses are Instrumentation I & II, and Physiology I & II. You may get a waiver for any of the courses if you demonstrate adequate coursework in the related subject during your undergraduate years.
- Books for Core Courses:
  - Phsiology I & II: Physiology by Berne & Levy, 4th edition
  - Instrumentation I: Signals & Systems by Oppenheim, Willsky, & Nawab, 2nd edition
  - Circuits (Schaum Series) as a part of Instrumentation I.
  - Instrumenation II: Medical Instrumentation by John G. Webster, 3rd edition
- Books for other courses: (recommended by Deepa Narayanan)
  - Medical Imaging Modalities by Christensens
  - Medical Image Analysis by Kenneth Castleman
  - Digital Signal Processing Boaz Porat
  - Digital Signal Processing Proakis, Manolakis
  - Digital Image Processing Gonsales
  - Digital Image Processing A.K. Jain
  - Genetic Engineering Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, Third Edition
Civil Engineering (Transportation):
- Prof.Demetsky's planning courses - Meyer and Miller
- Prof.Garber's Courses - Garber and Hoel, Traffic Engineering
- Prof.Smith's GIS - "Michael N.DeMers", GIS
Computer Science:
- Books recommended by Neelima Putrevu:
  - For core courses:
    - Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach. 2nd ed., by Hennesy and Patterson
    - Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Michael Sipser, PWS Publishing Company. 1997
  - For Elective courses:
    - Bring these books IF you are interested in those areas:
      - Introduction to Algorithms by, Cormen, Leiserson & Rivest, McGraw Hill
      - Computer Networking: A Top down Approach Featuring the Internet, by J Kurose, K W Ross, Addison Wesley 2000
      - Distributed Operating Systems, by A S Tanenbaum, Prentice Hall
      - Computer Graphics: Principles and Practise, Foley, van Dam, Feiner & Huges
    - Other Books:
      - Any other book you have used and consider worthwhile ( C Programming - K&R,
      - reference for Java - CS650 (core course) requires quite a bit of programming in Java, Unix programming ENvironment - K&P....)
- Books recommended by Anand Natrajan:
  - Computer Architecture - A Quantitative Approach: Hennessey and Patterson
  - Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation: Hopcroft and Ullman
  - Introduction to Algorithms: Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest
  - Programming Languages - Concepts and Constructs: Sethi
  - Operating Systems OR Modern Operating Systems: Tanenbaum
  - Advanced Concepts in Operating Systems: Singhal and Shivaratri
  - Computer Networks: Tanenbaum
  - Compilers - Principles, Techniques and Tools: Aho, Sethi and Ullman
Electrical Engineering (recommended by Sheetal Chanderkar):
- Jan Rabaey - Digital ICs
- Behzad Razavi - Design of Analog ICs
- Larry Peterson, Bruce Davie - Computer Networks

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