>>11304431> I've helped develop packagesThat's called development, not research. Be very careful with the language you use when talking to academics, this automatically raises a red flag. Instead, phrase it as "I have developed novel models for flow simulation, demonstrating that taking [factors] into account improve prediction [metric] by [amount].
>I've fixed bugsDon't even hint at that, the message is "I'm a software developer". Nobody cares what the bugs were based on.
>languageSame.
You seem to be thinking about the 'boxes' backwards: they're not a "if you tick all the boxes you're in", they're "if you fail at any of these you can fuck off". They don't care, e.g., how well you program in fortran, they care that you know what a loop is and that you can learn programming languages fast to work with their favored tools. The boxes you have to tick to get in are:
- Are you passionate about a specific project that the prof is ALSO passionate about?
- Do you know how to do research?
- Do you have the CAPACITY to do research? (this can be shown by publications while stressing your part of the contribution in a scientific context, including authoring the manuscript or generating the figures if this required understanding the underlying experiment and data thoroughly, or by showing scientific work like the package you talked about above)
- Can you get funded or will this come out of the lab's pocket? (And can they afford it?)
In roughly that order.
>They can't strongarm a department into bending the admissions rules for me. ... They usually can. Well, not 'strongarm' but calling in favors or vouching for you to connections at unis.
>They'd gladly pay a portion of tuition costsThat can help tremendously re: funding. Tell that to your prof as part of the initial conversation.
Another thing: you could be well served to look for a prof who is explicitly on good terms with industrial types.
