<p>I'm a prospective computer science major who's applying to Cornell. I'm finishing my supplement essay right now, and I have a few questions. They are related to professors and projects at the University, so I would appreciate if current undergraduates (rather than HS students or other college students) could assist me.</p>
<p>My goal professionally is to design computer software which has important applications for businesses and banking. More specifically, I am interested in fields such as analytics, data mining, and OLAP databases. I've read through the entire Cornell Computer Science page multiple times, and there are no professors who seems to specialize in these fields. Thus, I decided to write about other topics in my essay.</p>
<p>I mentioned an assistant professor that I'd like to work with who develops machine learning algorithms for automatic robots. I also talked about why I want to join Student Project Teams, and more specifically the Cornell Mars Rover team. So onto the questions:</p>
<p>1) Is it a good idea to only focus on these topics? I wanted my essay to be unique to Cornell, so I did not mention anything about how strong its CS program is, or how great its professors are (generally), or the expansiveness of its curriculum. I could say these things about any college, but with Cornell, I would really mean them. Should I stick with the two topics I've got, or talk about things that are more common.</p>
<p>2) Is it okay if I state that I want to do robotics research, given my career interests? I'm really into automatic vehicles, and I think that the professor I've chosen does some incredible work on them. He has these impressive demonstrations that I've seen on youtube, and would like to work with him should I go to Cornell. I was thinking on writing about a professor who does work on data mining cuz it might look better, but I'm more interested in working with the Robotics professor. </p>
<p>3) Would student project teams be a good topic to write about? None of my friends who applied ED to Cornell told me about them, but I think they're really interesting. None of the colleges I am applying to have them (well at least have them listed on their website) so I thought they would be worth writing about. I like the Mars Rover team the best because I've always been interested in space technology. Good choice or bad choice?</p>
<p>The other things I'm considering writing about are the Kessler Fellowship program and the curriculum of the CS program. Once again, thanks for helping me.</p>