meditatingmuse

I guess the biggest benefit of Stanford the way I see it is the entrepreneurship culture. Does the exposure to VC funding and similarly minded peers seem to help? Although I have heard that Stanford MSCS is seen as a "cash cow", which might undermine the effect of this exposure.

@blacknighterrant That sounds reasonable. However, most of my experience in robotics so far has been on the software side (at a robotics club in my undergrad and during my current research internship at CMU). I am concerned whether 2 years is "enough" bootstrap time to get a job in robotics after graduation (if I decide not to go for PhD)? Or whether PhD would become a requirement if I want a job in Robotics. Any thoughts?

@svent Yes, that seems true. From my experience at CMU so far (I am here for a research internship), it seems the program is more invested in MS students than Stanford.

Neither programs ensure guaranteed funding. Although on scanning the student list of the websites of both programs, it seems that about 5% of Stanford MS students have RA ship. I am not sure about TA ship, but a current student mentioned that many (if not most) students are able to TA their way through the program. On the other hand, most current students that I spoke with at CMU RI have funding from 2nd semester as an RA. This is not surprising, since the ratio of total admits to total faculty seems to be much lower at CMU. But to be honest, while funding is important, I am not looking at it as a make-or-break criterion. Stanford's MS has a research track and also specialization options in AI, HCI, Software Engg etc. If I join Stanford, I hope to do research in AI, which would hopefully prepare me for non-prorgramming jobs as well (or a PhD).

I have to decide between the MS program in CS at Stanford and MS in Robotics at CMU. I don't know yet whether I want to continue for PhD but I do know that I don't want a programming job after graduation. I have some research background in machine learning and computer vision, and am hoping to do research in grad school as well. I think I have narrowed down the decision to deciding between the following pros of each program, and I am eager to hear your thoughts on which of them have more weight. The main pro of CMU in my case is that there is greater likelihood of getting research experience, and that too in a field of interest (as there are more AI/ML/Robotics faculty and relatively fewer admits) compared to Stanford. Most current students from CMU that I have spoken with got RA positions from the 2nd semester of the program. And the pros of Stanford are the exposure to entrepreneurship and the benefits of a better overall ranked university. Looking forward to hear your suggestions, thanks!

Undergraduate Institution- University of Wisconsin-Madison Major- Computer Science Major GPA- 3.87 Overall GPA- 3.73 Last 2 years GPA- 3.9 GRE Quant - 170 Verbal - 169 Writing - 4.0 Research Experience at UW 15 months (ongoing) in Machine Learning. No publications yet.3 months (ongoing) in Computer Vision. No publications yet. 3 months in Human Computer Interaction. No publications.Other Experience Machine Learning project centered technical internship at Intuit.Software team member in Wisconsin Robotics, a student organization at UW.Interested Fields for Ph.D AI, Machine Learning, Robotics Universities applying to (in rough order of preference) Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Berkeley, CalTech, University of Washington, Harvard, Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, Brown, UMass Amherst, UT Austin. Could anyone please evaluate my profile for these universities. Any advice on what I can do now to improve my chances to get admissions is also greatly appreciated! Thanks!