Most students and beginning researchers do not fully understand what a research proposal means, nor do they understand its importance. To put it bluntly, one's research is only as a good as one's proposal. An ill­ conceived proposal dooms the project even if it somehow gets through the Thesis Supervisory Committee. A high quality proposal, on the other hand, not only promises success for the project, but also impresses your Thesis Committee about your potential as a researcher.

A research proposal is intended to convince others that you have a worthwhile research project and that you have the competence and the work­plan to complete it. Generally, a research proposal should contain all the key elements involved in the research process and include sufficient information for the readers to evaluate the proposed study.

Regardless of your research area and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions: What you plan to accomplish, why you want to do it and how you are going to do it.

The proposal should have sufficient information to convince your readers that you have an important research idea, that you have a good grasp of the relevant literature and the major issues, and that your methodology is sound.

The quality of your research proposal depends not only on the quality of your proposed project, but also on the quality of your proposal writing. A good research project may run the risk of rejection simply because the proposal is poorly written. Therefore, it pays if your writing is coherent, clear and compelling.

I second the anonymous answer. The MS program is like a lottery.

Much of your success hinges on your supervisor. Some departments are notorious for bad supervisors. Many people do not graduate even at the end of three years. You will hear a lot of preaching in the form of, This is your research. You get the degree, not me. Agreed, but research as a graduate student is like a partnership. You need a good partner to do well. You can only do so much on your own. Try to go abroad. You might again not get the best of supervisors. However, your career options are much wider.

I was also MS student from IIT M. The usefulness of MS program depends heavily on your supervisor. As some mentioned before, you can reach certain heights on your own. But you will surely need help of good supervisor to reach further. By the way, you can't select your supervisor in many departments. It will take unneccesarily long time to graduate and it's really a painful process. So, I would suggest you to go for M.Tech in India or MS in US.