tip3r

It's hard to say. Usually it will have negligable impact. As victorydance mentioned it may be a bit of a bonus if it is related to your research area. However, there is a bit of a trend for people who get laid off in the bad economy going to grad school to fill in the void in their resume. You don't want to look like those people. I have 1.5 years of industry experience between my M.S. and PhD and that actually was what lead me to getting into my current program. I think mostly because my employer was a "big name" company.

Hi, I'm also a MechE interested in robotics. I think your best bet is to try schools which have robotics graduate programs (I think NASA has a list if you want to google it). Usually these programs take ME, EE, and CS students. If you get into one of these you should be able to speak to your adviser to steer your degree in the coding direction. Oregon State University has recently started a robotics program that has branched off of the ME and CS departments. You might want to check it out. Some of the professors there have good connectinos.

That may be true. However, the top five he is talking about is 3-4 and the top 10 is 6-7. I think the those are pretty close and to be honest reputation wise UIUC and UMich are equal (some may argue UMich to be better). To the OP. This rank difference is negligible. Everyone treats those two schools would see them as equal. I would go with the better research fit. Another thing to consider is location. Ann Arbor is waaaay better than Urbana/Champaign. I know it is likely that you don't really care about where you will be living for grad school, but Urbana/Champaign is one of the most boring places on the planet. I have lived in plenty small college towns too, so I know how it compares. Ann Arbor on the other hand is one of the best college towns in the country. I don't have any ties to either of them, and I'm not biased about it.

I didn't finally switch to PhD, I switched from PhD to MS. I told him I don't want to be his PhD student. I had never applied for PhD at that University. Although I wanted to eventually get a PhD I didn't want one from that specific university (for various reasons including rank and prestige). The university had admitted me to a PhD program despite me applying for a MS admission. After the university realized their error they didn't immediately switch me to MS, they told me I should give it time and test the PhD program, and if I decide I don't want to stay then they'll switch me to MS. So I gave it time and after a year I told my adviser that I've made up my mind and that I want to be a MS student. That is when he got mad. Mostly because I wanted to get an MS and pursue a PhD somewhere else, not because he was losing me.

Yes, I was funded. Although my adviser did cut me off after I told him I wanted to switch to master's but I was still able to get TA support for the remainder of my time there. I think the main issue was that my adviser was offended that I wanted to pursue a PhD elsewhere. There was another student in a situation similar to me who switched but he had no issues with my adviser, the only difference was that he didn't want to pursue a PhD and was quitting because he wanted to find a job. The funny thing was this student was on a project that was funded for NASA specifically for one PhD student while I was on a project that was suppose to be for two PhD students and a master's student (there were two other PhD students on the project so it would be totally fine for me to switch to a master's). My adviser had also got his PhD from a top 10 school so you would think he would understand. Ironically, that professor is now becoming a professor at the university I'm currently at.

It's also possible he won't get a straight answer. I applied for a M.S. admission and was admitted to the PhD program (error on the university side), however, the admission letter only said "graduate education" and I didn't realize until a potential adviser sent me an email inviting me to join his lab. By then I had turned down my other offers. I had only applied for M.S. at this school because I felt it was not ranked as highly as I would have liked for PhD education (~60). When I asked to have it switched to a M.S. admission they told me that there would be no issues but I should start as PhD and see if I change my mind and decide to stay for PhD first. I would be able to switch any time later on. Well, everything blew up when I told my adviser I wanted to permanently switch to PhD. I lost his recommendation letter and he made sure I don't get any publications or good work done. In fact, he made sure I get a course-based degree to further hurt my chances of getting admitted into a good program. When I told the dean of this his explanation was that he said all he had gauranteed was that I would be able to switch which I was able to do, despite the repurcussions. I got lucky and was able to get into a decently ranked program (~30 in my major) however, I had turned down programs ranked at about 20 two years earlier in favor of the master's program I attended. Long story short. You life will be much simpler if you do not attempt this.

I'm reviving this thread again. I will be attending UC Davis this fall. I've never visited Davis and I have already leased an apartment (without seeing it :s). It's at University village (one bed/bath in a four bed/bath apartment). My wife will be joining me half way through the year and we'd like to move into a two bedroom. I noticed that apartments are pretty pricey. Would it be possible to find a decent two bedroom around $1000 - $1200? Thanks,

It feels good to know I'm not the only one I started my job a year ago with the intention of leaving for a PhD. I will need to leave late September or sooner. I have a great relationship with my boss and coworkers. When I started I decided that I'm going to work really hard to give the company their money's worth so that I wouldn't feel guilty when I needed to leave. Now they all have big plans for me and they feel I was such a steal! I feel even worse about telling them that I'll be leaving!

Since you mention the lab option isn't your ideal aspiration maybe you can take the job, get some experience, and then go back and try to get into a lab which IS your ideal aspiration. If the company is so huge and the job is related to your field the experience might be impressive for adcoms. My work experience in a similar tech company helped me in a similar way.

I would definitely go with UDub. The school is generally more reputable in engineering programs than UPenn. It is also better ranked in Mechanical engineering. I have known some of the thermal sciences professors and may of them do good research. Is the location not a factor for you? Everything else aside, visit UDub once and you'll fall in love with it...

I think you made a mistake assuming your past admissions experience was a good base for how you should fare this time around. I made the same exact mistake as you did. Luckily I got admitted to two places out of the 10 I applied to, they were the last two. Honestly, I think that having already gotten an MS degree hurts your chances of getting into a PhD program. The professors risk much less by taking recent B.S. graduates. They can keep the student much longer, and if the student doesn't turn out to be good, or if funding the student becomes difficult the student can easily change their program of study to an M.S. program and graduate where as things would get a little ugly for someone who already had an M.S. I applied directly for PhD when I got my B.S. degree. I started my undergrad on the wrong foot and failed two math courses which is a bad sign for an engineering student. I bounced back and had excellent grades for the rest of my undergrad and I even got some research experience and a conference presentation out. But the two failed math courses were on my transcripts for all adcoms to see. I got several admits from prestigious universities offering me full funding. I ended up going to a lower ranked school for M.S. due to family matters thinking that after my M.S. I will get into even better schools. Alas, even the schools who had admitted me last time would not give me an offer this time around... P.S. I was also an international applicant. However I see that undergrad students from my B.S. institute are still being admitted to first rated institutes. However, I admit that I think that something has changed since last year. Last year students from my institute got way better results...

I'm no expert but I would say Columbia.

I would say your chances are good if you are looking to get into a master's program without a scholarship. Some schools don't fund MS students. Other schools like Stanford prefer to fund their MS students and keep them for PhD. Keep in mind admission to all of these schools is very competitive.

I would suggest you take a couple of classes before changing your whole career at this point. You may realize it isn't all you thought it would be. I started studying mechanical engineering for my love of cars and airplanes and ended up getting into MEMS and microfluidics and somewhat regretting I haven't been more involved in electronics and computer engineering. I'm saying all this to say that once you get into the field you may not be as interested as you think you are. Don't throw away what you already have for something you are not sure about. Another thing is that many universities will not accept PhD applicants who already have a PhD degree.

I understand how difficult it is to choose here. In my opinion, if you are looking for engineering jobs (not research) your school will not matter much. For research jobs and many high tech R&D jobs a school name may help, however, the research experience you gain at UC Merced will help you even more. Probably a PhD degree would help you the most in this area. I think UC Merced would be a better choice. If money really doesn't matter than go with USC. I have known several people in similar situations who went to USC. None ever got funding.