Using Industry experience to recover from bad undergrad record I graduated 2 years ago from a (frankly shitty) US state school with a 2.9 GPA and a Bachelor's of Arts in Computer science and no research experience.   I am well aware that this is a very poor undergraduate record. My mental health has has improved markedly since I left undergraduate and I have continued educating myself (self study/undergraduate courses).  I have the opportunity to move to a group within my company that does machine learning and statistics. Provided I take this position, will this experience be a positive mark on an application to a Master's program in a related field (comp. sci, statistics)? If so, how can I maximize the utility of this work experience in terms of admission?   More generally, what can I do to prevent myself from being permanently locked out of acceptance into graduate studies?
How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? When applying to a PhD program in the US, how does the admissions process work? If an applicant is weak in a particular area, is it possible to offset that by being strong in a different area?  Note that this question originated from this . Please feel free to edit the question to improve it.
Can I include the completion of Udacity and Coursera classes I have attended in an academic CV? Can I include in my academic CV that I have attended and completed the  and  classes I have been taking? I understand that these are not anything major, but the courses definitely gives a good overview and starting formal study on the subject becomes less cryptic. If I can include them without any negative impacts, then under what section should I include them?