Gus_W

Thank you for those two links. I especially like the summary at the top of the first one, "The one-word version of [my] advice is: PUBLISH." To answer your question, my work experience has been to start a business technology services firm after graduation, providing development and IT services to companies. In my situation, is there any way to conduct or participate in research aside from getting an intermediary masters degree? I still live nearby to my undergraduate university, and I had good relationships with the CS faculty. The school does not have a Robotics PhD program, but I could do a masters there in a robotics-related field like CS, ME, EE. There is a professor in the CS department whose research centers around machine learning (clustering and the k-means algorithm). However, I don't know to what extent machine learning would help me get into a Robotics PhD program. I see that at Carnegie Mellon, for example, machine learning is not under the Robotics Institute. Lastly, given that I have a Bioinformatics (CS) undergraduate degree, any thoughts on the complementary masters that would be most desirable to a robotics program? One worry I have with doing a CS masters is locking myself into the software side of robotics (machine learning/AI/etc). I'm not exactly sure of my desired research areas yet, but I do know that I will do best in areas with both software/theory and a physical manifestation such as aerospace robotics, motion planning, human robot interaction, etc. This makes me think the masters I should then go for is ME or EE..? Appreciate any thoughts.

I graduated from a reputable (though not top tier) university in 2006 with an undergraduate degree in Bioinformatics (CS and Bio for all intents and purposes). I did not participate in any research. I started a development and IT firm after school and have had success with it. On a bit of a whim, I applied to Carnegie Mellon's Robotics PhD program in 2008 but was not accepted. However, I am now decided on pursuing a Robotics PhD and am going to go through a more serious round of preparations for the GMAT and whatever else is necessary to be accepted. I will also apply to more schools than just CMU next time. Can anyone advise me on how to become a strong candidate for a top-tier robotics program in my situation? One piece of advice I saw in the forums that rings true to me is that acceptance is more likely when your research interests and overall profile are a match for the school you're applying to. Aside from this, though, I wonder whether I'll have much of a chance without prior research experience and without recommendations from college professors. I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice.