Ladies and Gentlemen, I come to you worth an all-too-familiar dilemma about grad school. I hold a B.Arch from Cal Poly Pomona that I acquired a good 3 years ago, have been working at an arch. Firm since and recently decided to apply to graduate schools this year... Again… After having given it some thought over the past 12 months as I tried to sort out where my interests in design lay I repeatedly came to realize that it’s in the highly technical, maybe robotic, or interactive realm of things. Two items on my list currently are MIT’s computation group (SMarchS), and an MarchII at Harvard GSD, where they have a robotics group called DRG that works in the similar field. Columbia’s GSAPP came in 3 rd . Based on what I see online, and during the visits to the schools ealier this year, the stuff these studios work on is super fascinating to me, but I know comparatively little about the subject of computation, and albeit being hopelessly addicted to machines and moving parts, don’t quite know what to expect from these programs or where they would take me after I’m done. If any of you have graduated recently from either of the first two, or are doing so currently, do tell: What are you working on there? What got you interested in the program you’re in? What kind of experience have you had prior to applying? Perhaps most importantly, what are you planning to do once you’re done? Are there perhaps other schools with similar technically-charged programs worth considering? Something with inclination towards robotics, interactive environments, rapid prototyping research… Thank you very much in advance, I would sincerely appreciate any responses!