Advanced degree programs in Mechanical Enginering/Robotics

[rwsaunders]

Hard to believe that my youngest is starting his last year of engineering school and he is seriously considering pursuing a graduate degree in a robotics program. The University of Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Washington are schools that he has initiated contact with. Any folks in the business or have some advice? Offline correspondence works as well…thanks.

[j44ke]

I have no advice. But if he invents robotic muscular arms for cyclists, he'll sell a ton of them. Especially if they are aero and made out of carbon fiber.

[9tubes]

I'll toss my $0.02 in. I'm in Seattle, a tech attorney, former megafirm partner, general counsel for a venture capital firm for over a decade, and I used to be chair of one of the largest tech organizations in the country.

I'll give my opinion knowing that it won't be popular with some: there is huge benefit for a student to be in the few cities with the most action. Not to say there isn't great research and startups at, say, U. of Illinois (my alma mater) but it pales in comparison to a very small number of big tech cities.

It's the contacts, the grapevine, hearing about the latest research. It's doing a student startup/invention competition and having people with huge capabilities looking at your stuff. There is no substitute for having a person stop by the booth and say, "hmmm, you need to talk to _____ about this" when _____ is a CEO or VC who is looking for that very thing. Or meeting someone who says, "yeah that's cool and I'm doing the piece of the tech that you're missing. Let's talk." Or even the "that's a great idea and don't tell anyone I told you this but a mile from here XYZ BigCorp has 25 engineers working on your idea in secret and you either need to join them or get squashed by them."

There is no substitute for having multiple angel groups and a thousand active angels. VC firms nearby. Conferences. Engineer sub-specialty affinity groups. Go to Meetup.com and see how many meetup groups in robotics and artificial intelligence are in the university towns you're considering. Or the tech event calendar in general.

I dislike the "rich get richer" aspect to the big tech cities. They have the critical mass, which attracts more critical mass. Other cities are left out. How did Seattle go from tiny in server-as-a-service to the center of the universe for big data? AWS, then MSFT Azure, and then Google got enough office space here for 14,000 workers. That concentration is self-reinforcing. Yet that is the reality and any aspiring engineer has to take that into account.

That means my recommendation is that there are only a handful of universities with both great programs and located in the great tech cities for robotics and AI. Pick one of them. More important, a grad student shouldn't neglect taking the time to get off-campus to meet the people in the community.

[bigbill]

I'm the Chief Engineer in a manufacturing plant. Before this job, I was the lead process engineer in a larger plant that utilized robotics in packaging and warehouse distribution. I also attended college engineering job fairs to recruit and hire new engineers for our robotic projects. People may scoff at this, but I found great candidates at Oklahoma State University. They have a great graduate (MS) program in robotics that is supported by industry so they are working with the latest equipment.

[Mabouya]

Not to say there isn't great research and startups at, say, U. of Illinois (my alma mater) but it pales in comparison to a very small number of big tech cities.

In this context, this ^^^ reminds me of only one thing:

[thollandpe]

The advice I give graduating engineers is to take their EIT exam, even if they don’t think they’re going into a discipline that will require a PE.

The subject matter in the EIT is very broad, and you will forget stuff quickly as you start to specify in grad school or the workplace.

And then if you elect to take the EIT seven years later, along with the PE exam on the same weekend, it’s gonna hurt.

[rwsaunders]

Delivering breakfast this morning at THE Ohio State University…you can understand the interest.

[zachateseverything]

a couple general points.

in the US, if you have to pay to go to grad school for an engineering program it probably means you shouldn't be going to grad school for an engineering program. if the school doesn't offer an assistantship of some kind your kid should cross them off the list.

the lab or research group you join will present networking opportunities. employers that hired students from your lab in the past will reach out to that group again as new positions become available. employers will also fund research projects at your lab and find prospective talent that way. I know my employer works very closely with a program at Virginia Tech and have hired several people that way.

internships for grad students are another good way to line up a job after completing a masters or PhD.

For grad programs specialization matters a lot. If your kid wants to do stuff with machine vision systems or self-driving cars for example, Stanford or Carnegie Mellon are the places to go. If they just want to do general mechatronics any big time research institution is probably ok.

[bigbill]

One other point, who the employer is willing to recruit and hire. When I was recruiting engineers, I was based out of a manufacturing plant in NE Texas, so I "shopped" at Texas Tech, OU, and OK State. One reason was regional, graduates tend to stay somewhere if they are relatively close to home. Another reason was that we could afford them, a graduate from a state school will likely carry less student debt. This is only undergrads, but I could hire a recent grad for $65K (in two years they'd be making 75K) while more prestigious school grads would expect more.

I did hire some MS grads, and as discussed above, their education was paid for by being a lab assistant, TA's, funded research, etc. They didn't have an additional debt load from getting a master's. I could offer them around $80K out of school, but the reality was the learning curve was just as steep for undergrads as grads. A person with an MS and work experience would be hired as experienced for a higher salary.

I did work with FANUC units in packaging. The other thing that employers consider is the understanding of integrated systems. If you walk through a factory with industrial robots, the brightly colored arms are what catch people's attention. The reality is the robotic arm is the least complicated part of a setup. PLCs, guarding, Sick Eyes, conveyors, turntables, etc all make it possible for that arm to do its job.

[AngryScientist]

I can't speak specifically to robotics, but from my viewpoint, employment opportunities for engineers are pretty good right now. One thing that I always liked about engineering and I think still holds true today is that you can find good, fulfilling employment with just a bachelor's degree, as opposed so many of the BA career paths that require expensive advanced degrees to get your foot in the door. Personally, I would encourage any person out of engineering school to put a bunch of resumes out there to some places they find interesting and places for growth, get the foot in the door and a better understanding of what the business is like. If the career path still seems like the right way to go after a couple years, have the employer pay for the advanced degree.

PS - do all that before he gets married or has kids.

[9tubes]

In this context, this ^^^ reminds me of only one thing:

Certainly UIUC's most well-known computer science department alumnus.

These days the picture kinda reminds me of Windows.

[rwsaunders]

Thanks for the advice. He had a nice internship this past Summer in the Mechatronics division of an firm that designs and builds motion control devices and he has an offer from the company when he graduates in May…a confidence builder for sure. He connected with some of the younger folks in his group and one fellow in particular, who has been mentor of sorts, has encouraged him to scratch the robotics itch. My kid was quick to point out that every single individual who he worked with had an advanced degree of some caliber, many funded by the firm and some gained through other firms or university supported programs. It’s interesting to watch from the cheap seats and having had 2/3 kids so far seek advanced degrees, I’m the one left behind.

[sailor]

I am 15 years into an me career and don’t feel a lack of advanced degree is holding me back. Unless he wants to do research I would err on taking a real job and he can always get a masters on the side if needed. The 2 years of work will be worth more than the degree.

[PaMtbRider]

To reiterate what BigBill said above, the integration of robots into their surrounding environment is the hard part. I work in a highly automated factory with dozens of robotic weld cells, robotic material handlers, robotic paint lines... The robot is usually the most robust and easiest to maintain part of the design.

As an electrical maintenance technician I work with factory service technicians and integrators, whenever we install new equipment or need maintenance support. Unless he is doing robotic design or research work, I doubt the advanced degree would be as beneficial as 2 years work experience.

[caleb]

I don't think Florida has come up yet. A friend was very satisfied with his MS experience in robotics there before a PhD, also in robotics, at MIT. He now runs a DoD contracted lab at MIT.

[zachateseverything]

I can't speak specifically to robotics, but from my viewpoint, employment opportunities for engineers are pretty good right now. One thing that I always liked about engineering and I think still holds true today is that you can find good, fulfilling employment with just a bachelor's degree, as opposed so many of the BA career paths that require expensive advanced degrees to get your foot in the door. Personally, I would encourage any person out of engineering school to put a bunch of resumes out there to some places they find interesting and places for growth, get the foot in the door and a better understanding of what the business is like. If the career path still seems like the right way to go after a couple years, have the employer pay for the advanced degree.

PS - do all that before he gets married or has kids.

I am 15 years into an me career and don’t feel a lack of advanced degree is holding me back. Unless he wants to do research I would err on taking a real job and he can always get a masters on the side if needed. The 2 years of work will be worth more than the degree.

A couple points. Work sponsored grad degrees are great, but that's also a big workload. Tacking 6 credit hours of 500 level classes onto a 40 hour week is a lot. You're going to be splitting your attention between two things that are supposed to be your top priority which usually means something is going to suffer. You're also going to stretch a ~2year program out to a 4 or 5 year project. Similarly waiting a couple years means that you're going to forget a lot of stuff from your undergrad degree, especially if you aren't in a math heavy job.

In my opinion, if you want to do a masters program it's best to do it straight after undergrad. The information from undergrad is still fresh in your mind and you're still used to being a broke college student. yeah, you have to sit out on starting your career for another little bit but you also get to come into industry at probably an extra $10-15k salary.

but it really comes down to the career path you want to follow. if you're going to be doing project management or a lot of solid modeling you probably don't need the masters degree. if you're going to be doing research or controls/dynamics the masters degree becomes a bit more important.

[rwsaunders]

Well, the personal statement and academic statement of purpose were written and all but one of the applications have been submitted. Now the fun begins. For anyone who has a kid thinking about this field as a high schooler, there are now undergrad degrees in robotics making their way forward, as to date, all academic programs that I am aware of are focused on an MS or Ph.D in the field. Ohio State recently introduced a minor as a part of their engineering program, Carnegie Mellon has a minor, as well as an “additional major” in robotics and Michigan looks like they might be the first to offer a dedicated undergrad program in robotics. He was smart to jump on the minor when it was introduced last year at Ohio State, as the 12 additional credits are all graduate level. He told me that he still might have to repeat the subjects depending on he school, but at least it won’t be uncharted waters. It all has me thinking, who keeps these machines running and operational and where do they train?

[vertical_doug]

I'd just count my blessings. Your son has shown good decision process going back to high school, and it sounds like you are really happy with the decisions he has made throughout college. No one here has a crystal ball of what 10 years in the future is going to look like, and the only constant going forward is change.

We laugh at the terminator, but sometime in our lifetime, they are going to unleash a version of the terminator and it's called an autonomous car. Who knows... maybe he wants to work with industrial robots like Fanuc manufactures, or maybe he wants to make robotic pets like they do in Japan. Possibilities seem endless. He probably has a better idea of the future than we do.

. It all has me thinking, who keeps these machines running and operational and where do they train?

Eventually, other robots.... Isn't that the obvious answer?

[PaMtbRider]

...... It all has me thinking, who keeps these machines running and operational and where do they train?

It is a huge problem the manufacturing industry is facing. 12 of the 18 maintenance electrical technicians where I work are eligible for and probably will retire within the next 5 years. I am included in the 12 that will retire. Hiring qualified replacements is next to impossible. We have an apprenticeship program that helps. There are some local tech schools that offers robotics as part of an electrical degree program.
A lot of my robotics knowledge has come through OJT, but the company has also invested many thousands of dollars into robotics schooling over the years. I can't remember how many ABB, Motoman, and Fanuc robotics classes I've been to. Unfortunately training budgets have been cut like everything else. This is going to hurt the next generation. It is also harder to get factory reps to come into plant for service, as they are fewer in numbers as well.

[bigbill]

It is a huge problem the manufacturing industry is facing. 12 of the 18 maintenance electrical technicians where I work are eligible for and probably will retire within the next 5 years. I am included in the 12 that will retire. Hiring qualified replacements is next to impossible. We have an apprenticeship program that helps. There are some local tech schools that offers robotics as part of an electrical degree program.
A lot of my robotics knowledge has come through OJT, but the company has also invested many thousands of dollars into robotics schooling over the years. I can't remember how many ABB, Motoman, and Fanuc robotics classes I've been to. Unfortunately training budgets have been cut like everything else. This is going to hurt the next generation. It is also harder to get factory reps to come into plant for service, as they are fewer in numbers as well.

My struggle here is to find the techs, so we train them ourselves using computer based training (Amatrol) and hands on. We have a community college that only offers AC & refrigeration, welding, and ASE mechanic. My guys have to work with PLCs, servos, and remote computer controls. In the last year, I've been seeking out folks with high aptitudes and good work experience, even if they are otherwise a technical blank sheet of paper. After about two years, the time it takes to complete training, my guys make about $28/hour or $58K/year in an area with a median income of $26K.