Two Countries, Two Challenges: A Robotics PhD’s UK vs. Australia Story

Updated 2026/10/16

Today Darryl shares his journey studying in the UK and Australia. I first met Darryl through OfferLand’s free study abroad Mentorship Program. While doing his PhD in Australia, he found time to serve as a mentor helping younger students with their applications, and he was also a guest on my podcast to talk about his experience.

Darryl graduated in mechanical engineering from National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), holds a master’s in robotics from King’s College London (KCL), and is now a PhD student at the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Robotics (ACFR), in the Intelligent Transportation System group. He completed his master’s and PhD applications to several countries on his own, without an agency. At each stage he grew a lot academically and personally while working through financial, academic and cultural challenges, and he got involved in local communities while abroad, which gave him experiences few people get.

Background and Education

Your path is unusual. Why did you do your master’s in the UK and then go to Australia for your PhD?

For my master’s I compared the UK, Germany and the US, and in the end I chose the UK because of its degree structure and because I liked it more. For the PhD, I was used to the British system, so I chose Sydney, since I didn’t get into Oxford or Cambridge.

You took a gap year after college and another after your master’s. How did you plan them?

Before my master’s, I actually deferred a semester because of the pandemic. During that time I found a language course I could take, and I learned a lot there about using and writing academic English. The gap year before my PhD came after I finished military service and sorted out some family matters. Then I threw myself into applications. After submitting them, I worked as a research assistant at NCKU and as a remote research assistant for a professor at UCLA. At first I thought that if I enjoyed the work, I’d do well and could go on to a PhD at UCLA.

Master’s vs. PhD

You applied DIY for both degrees, to master’s and PhD programs in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and more. How did you handle so many countries on your own?

I think master’s applications are easier. You basically put what you did in college on your CV, then use your SOP to fill in the CV with more logic.

PhD applications look at what you’ve done over time, and the most direct evidence is your past output. Highly relevant papers are very convincing.

Applying to several countries comes down to a practical question: who offers full funding. Most US schools, and top-ranked schools elsewhere, have fixed application deadlines. So my view at the time was that if a good offer came along, I could start early. For a PhD, I think the topic, the scholarship and the supervisor come first. School rankings matter much less.

How did your robotics master’s at KCL in the UK compare with your robotics PhD at the University of Sydney? (Pressure, teaching style, difficulty, class size, etc.)

When I first got to London, I felt a bit overwhelmed!

I had to adjust to a place where life felt very stressful, and a big part of that stress was financial. London is really expensive, haha. The coursework felt fairly easy, thanks to my solid training at NCKU, and a few things were just extensions of my undergrad classes. I’d already seen most of the material, so for my master’s thesis I picked a topic I’d never worked on (away from the robotics, control and motors I’d always done).

My PhD in Australia has only just started, but it’s funded by a large project, one with about the lowest acceptance rate in Australia. Compared with faculty funding or a government scholarship, I feel more pushed. (The upside is that I have a clear topic, and compared with the proposal I wrote for my PhD application, it has a more distinctive angle.) The topic is also very new, so the pressure feels more like not knowing what I’m busy with. But in my department at Sydney, PhD students don’t have to take courses, which I think is great.

A scholarship lets you focus on your own research. If you have time to spare, you can work as a TA for extra income.

What should you watch out for when applying to PhD and master’s programs? What’s the biggest difference between the two?

The most important difference is that for a PhD you’re asking someone to pay to support you, while for a master’s you’re the one paying, so it’s not as hard.

Looking back, I have no idea what I was writing in my master’s application documents. There are lots of ways now to produce decent application documents. But since I did all my applications myself, I found that writing my own SOP helped me understand myself better. Every now and then I’d realize, “Oh, so this is the kind of person I am, this is what I want to do.”

Finally, really don’t plagiarize. “Slow is fast” is true. Don’t rely too much on AI.

Applying for a PhD and What It Was Like

When did you start thinking about a PhD, and why?

As you can tell, my grades early in college were terrible, so at first I didn’t want to do a PhD, or even a master’s. But when I submitted my master’s thesis proposal, my supervisor asked whether I’d considered a PhD. The plan was to publish that thesis once I came back for a PhD, so I spent a long time during that period deciding whether to do one.

Few people take the PhD path, and being able to hold out financially is another factor. I saw friends around me with stable jobs earning 200+, some even married with kids. So you really need a clear motivation, not a PhD for its own sake.

Also, Taiwan’s environment for autonomous driving isn’t great, so I wanted to do my PhD abroad. That would also make it easier to stay overseas afterward for a job or to keep doing academic research.

And I like working at my own pace and on my own ideas. With my current supervisor, at least, the PhD lets me do exactly that. If you plan to stay abroad or get residency, a PhD is a good option too.

How did you prepare for PhD interviews?

Mostly I got to know my own papers and past relevant experience inside out. The other thing I think matters a lot is understanding the interviewer’s research. (Though if you get an interview, you’re basically in good shape.) Sometimes it also comes down to luck, haha.

When you applied for your master’s or PhD, which experience do you think made you stand out?

I can’t think of one standout experience. It was more about accumulation: connecting everything you’ve done like dots into a line. If you can convince yourself, you can convince a professor too. Play your hand as well as you can and leave the rest to fate. Admission criteria are a real mystery, so don’t lose heart even if you don’t get in!

Now that your PhD in Australia has started, has anything turned out differently than you expected? Have you faced anything really stressful?

I was mentally prepared for a lot of stress and the occasional breakdown, so it’s what I expected. I think the pressure comes more from myself than anyone else!

I’m still adjusting. But I have a good supervisor, and our centre has many different groups, or labs, and everyone is close. We chat and share with each other, and it feels like living in a big family. We often go for coffee or meals together. That part I didn’t expect, haha. Life the Aussie way.

A Few More Things to Share

Application mindset

You’ll hear about all kinds of strange backgrounds. It took me a while to make peace with the fact that people whose profiles look weaker on paper sometimes get into better schools. But look at it another way: that means you have a chance too.

Settling down in a new place

It’s lonely at first. Once the term starts there are lots of events, but plan your time carefully, because if you go to every event and accept every invitation, you won’t have time for your own work. In my PhD, our centre often has scholars visiting to give talks or exchange ideas. It was hard to adjust at first, but over time I learned what to skip so I could balance my time.

Time management

First, work around the important fixed commitments. For example, we have a regular meeting every Monday at 9 a.m., sometimes meetings on Friday, and during the week my supervisor or other fellows sometimes call me into meetings. So my own routine won’t always match what the people above me want. My approach is to fit around them, then figure out when I’m most productive and focus on my own work during those hours without scheduling anything else. There’s a paper on how to become a highly productive PhD student, and what it actually says is that you need to relax and rest properly. So I think a normal 9 to 5 should be enough, and the rest of the time you should unwind!

Connection

This is the most important thing, though not a must, and it’s not worth chasing at the expense of the basics! If you have connections, that’s a bonus. People who know someone tend to prefer their own people, and if your supervisor has worked with another professor, they’ll recommend students to each other. Connections also give you something to talk about later when writing papers or discussing collaborations.

If there’s someone in a field you especially want to meet, you can email them, but you still have to respect your own supervisor. For example, let them know in advance, or don’t take away from their credit. And as I mentioned earlier, people are more willing to pay attention to you if you have good publications. In robotics and computer vision, if you publish a lot at the top conferences, you’ll meet the big names in both industry and academia. In Taiwan, though, people attend conferences less and care more about journals.