What's the computer science term for increase in timeouts?

What does an electrical engineering graduate with 2.2 G.P.A. need to do to get into a computer science graduate program?

• I have a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering and worked as a programmer for a year. I am preparing for the GRE, so that I can pursue a Masters in Computer Science (MS CS) in the U.S.. My GPA is 2.4/4.0. My accomplishments in extra curricular activities are winning some LAN gaming tournaments. Will getting a good GRE score suffice? (320+ score) Will giving subject GRE in CS help in my application process? Will doing anything in short term help increase the chance my application goes through? Also, if I am not picky with the universities, how should I go choosing one? ps:- A word or two about scholarship options might be useful too.

• Answer:

  NB : Edited the answer to account for the discontinuation of the subject test. Lets see if I can answer this in a structured fashion. Your profile strength is that you have some experience working as a programmer. So you have some know-how about writing large scale software. This will suit your purpose well in an advanced degree program. Your weaknesses are : 1. Your GPA. 2. You are from ECE 3. You have no academic projects/internships. Let us see if we can systematically circumvent each of these : 1. GPA is a boat already sailed. There is nothing you can do about this. What you can do is supplement your profile by other means. Having a very good GRE score is one way of showing academic prowess. By very good I mean 160+ in English and 170/170 in Mathematics. 2. You are from ECE. Demonstrate your CS competence by either 1. showing detailed description (syllabi and transcripts) of the CS based core courses such as algorithms, Data structures  OS, Compilers (all or any of these) that you have taken as an ECE undergraduate. 2. Since the subject test is outdated you may want to prove your CS competence by religiously taking some of the Massively Open Online Courses such as those offered on Udacity or Coursera. Some of them even provide rankings. This is an informal way of proving your CS skills to the admissions committee. 3. Talk to the professors in some premier research institute in your vicinity. Ask him if he is willing to take you as an unpaid research help. Try to get some published research under him. This will take a toll on you as you will have jobs, exams and research to balance but a reco from him will circumvent any academic barrier that you may have. Finally some bonus points : 1. If you are a programmer in a service-sector company, try to shift to a renowned product-based company instead. This can only happen after some experience in your old job so you may need to be patient. But applicants from renowned CS companies like Microsoft, Google, Adobe have a lot of edge. 2. As regards to scholarship, you may apply for TA/RA after you join the respective universities, take classes under a professor and impress him/her with your academic interests. 3. Finally for university selections, when you have substantially build up your profile using the methods suggested above, you can go to any premier forum such as Edulix, look up profiles of people with similar background and  pick a list of  5 universities to apply. Best of luck for the path ahead.