As a MechE, which path should I follow for robotics?

[ramzerimar]

I'm now at my sophomore year in college, studying Mechanical Engineering. When I chose this field, I was interested in things like aircrafts and my main goal was working in the aerospace industry. This interest has shifted towards control systems/robotics since then. I started dealing with robotics as a hobby, and meanwhile developed a huge interest in circuits, electronics and programming. Unfortunately, my university doesn't have any program strictly related to robotics.
My question is: what kinds of competencies and skills should I develop to start working in this area after undergrad school? I'm looking towards which courses I should pick up, and what disciplines of the MechE department would be more important in this area. I'm already studying control systems, and I've found it a very interesting field to learn, with all the mathematics involved.

 

[axmls]

Perhaps you should get some experience working with microcontrollers as well as some decent programming experience if you don't have a strong programming background.

 

[ramzerimar]

Perhaps you should get some experience working with microcontrollers as well as some decent programming experience if you don't have a strong programming background.

Thank you for the fast answer. In fact, I have some basic C and I'm right now studying Python. As the microcontrollers, I've started tinkering with an Arduino since the beginning of the year, and recently I've developed a basic collision-avoidance robot using arduino and some sensors!