Hello! Please refer me to colleges I need to aim for with robotics engineering & programming courses. I’m ok with CS degrees but I truly want to go for robotics and I can’t find colleges aside from MIT.
Going to a Massachusetts top 15 boarding school for Gr 11 (22-23) BUT I came from a country w/o “credit courses” so I need to catch up
8 spread out extracorriculars (spent years on each) + 2 sports + straight A & honors
2 years of Covid stopped my robotics education, but I self-studied Python, C++, and Java
Applying for financial aid and I’m scared it’ll ruin my chances
Under represented POC
If someone is also interested in / is pursuing robotics, I would love input! Esp referrals for robotics start-ups, what you did to get accepted, etc. Covid literally stopped my passion (or else I would’ve spent 3 years learning robotics + club) and I’m nervous how I will stand out to competitive applicants. If possible, would love recommendations about self-learning robotics resources, but I cannot buy a robot myself.
I would love college recommendations! Although my goal is MIT, I know I need to catch up on ALOT in 2 years. My admission interviewer recommended BS post graduate and it’s expensive, but would it help? Thank you!
You can do robotics with a mechatronics concentration in ME or EE. That’s how most do it and there are lots of schools with strong programs if you want to take that angle.
Very few schools offer a degree in robotics. WPI offers an ABET accredited major in robotics. CMU offers what they call a second major in robotics. Both are strong, well respected programs. Both would likely give a deeper robotics education than MIT.
Our son, who also graduated from a New England boarding school, received a deep robotics education as his EE concentration at West Point. The lab facilities, research opportunities, and robotics brain trust there are outstanding*. Much of what happens in those labs is classified, but our son reports that Army has some of the best robotic “toys.” West Point has an affiliation with MIT Lincoln labs and provides graduate fellowships for robotic and other engineering research post commissioning. And, you can’t beat the price.
I know this doesn’t help if serving as an officer is not something you’d consider, but I throw it out there because many people don’t realize the strength of the service academy engineering programs. They compete with the best.
*Brag alert: Our son’s robotics research paper earned second place at the IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research and Technology Conference his junior year, and his West Point mentor at the time was a former president of the IEEE. The robotics program at West Point is topnotch.
(ETA: Don’t know why the word “research” becomes a hyperlink to a random site.)
I don’t know whether they’re ABET accredited or not, which is usually very important if someone wants to be hired as an engineer.
Are you an international student? Or were you an American studying abroad? If you’re an international student, then there are only 6 or 7 need-blind universities in the U.S. And not all American universities give financial aid to international students.
You will also want to have a conversation about the budget and how much they feel comfortable spending for each of 4 years of college.
Their are only 3 that are ABET accredited, but that’s not that important, as at nearly all schools it’s a subset of ME or EE. Neither MIT or CMU have ABET accredited robotics programs.