These Essays are going to Kill Me

Among other things, I've come down to tech to get some forward progress on my grad applications. Progress here equates to scoring two academic recommendations. I know I already have secured a stellar one from Dr. R, but I've got to convince my old mechatronics prof that I deserve his recommendation.

I met with him last year and he seemed moderately impressed with my interests, skills, and ambition. He is more of a realistic person, telling me what my current short-comings are and what I can do to impress admission offices in other areas to make up for them.

This time around I asked him a lot about how I would fare at my current list of schools and see if he had recommendations as to where else to apply. My current schools are:

Carnegie Mellon - Biggest robotics research institute in the world
Johns Hopkins - Excellent interdisciplinary opportunities in medical robotics
Univ Texas: Austin - Well known robotics program and hey who can argue with a high concentration of hot chicks?
GA Tech - Ranked #5 in the country in Engineering with a lot of overseas study opportunity
Rensselaer Polytech (added) - My brother went there. Apparently has a mechatronics specialty

I also needed a few answers in terms of the essay; mostly how to structure it and what to include/not include. Ok..ok...how to write the damn thing. After speaking with my prof, this will be the fourth iteration. Each iteration having a different focus. It's been driving me insane for the past 8+ weeks. I should have taken Tom's advice to keep things simple:

Tommy: KARNAGY MELAN GOOD
Jimbo: GET IN ZEE CHOPPPA!!!!
Tommy: I'M RIIAGHT HEEYA! ACCEPT ME!!!

If only it were that easy Tommy. If only.

After scoring this prof's recommendation, I went to hang with Dr. R to see what crazy robotics shenanigans he was getting himself into (and to make sure he'd still recommend me). I was very impressed...he's got like 5 new robotics programs going with DoD and others, all for Autonomous vehicle development. Sweetness.

I had to stop my grad application process last year because I didn't have enough faculty recommendations, so I was on such a high after leaving Dr. R.'s office that I went to my old hangout (Newman Library) and cranked out a significant portion of my new essay iteration. I should have taken this trip a loooong time ago.