 We are the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I am Jen Singer from the International Student and Scholar Services Office. I'm here today with Professor Mukul Goyal from the Computer Science Program. I'm here to talk to you about our program and deal with any questions that you have about arriving this fall. This session is being recorded and we will have it available for you to view later if you need to. And before we begin just a couple of little housekeeping things. While you're here with us today if you could please keep your camera off and your microphone muted. It makes a much better experience for everyone involved especially those that have connectivity issues. Also if you could please change the name of your account that we can seize to match the name that you use to apply TWM. We're kind of trying to keep track of who's here. We have these really amazing pens that are perfect for engineers they have all sorts of tools in them and we'll be happy to give one to you when you arrive as a reward for attending the session. But in order for you to for us to do that we need to know who you are. So if you could please change the name that shows up for us on your account to match what you used when you applied to TWM so that we could keep track of who's here and make sure that we connect with you then when you arrive. Okay we're going to start today with Professor Goyal talking about the computer science program and how amazing it is and why you should be very excited about joining it. And then I'm going to follow up with some issues specifically for our international students regarding visa issues and you know quarantine and all the things that require all the questions you have in terms of traveling TWM. Okay so I'm going to pass it over right now to Professor Goyal to talk about the computer science program. While we're talking if you have any questions please put them in the chat box. In Zoom there is the function of it's called chat. You can put your questions in the chat and as we go through the presentation we will make sure that we respond to all of your questions. Okay thank you very much Professor Goyal. All right all right thank you thank you Jen. So welcome everyone very glad that you know you could join us you know for this session today and you know all of you you know congratulations you know on getting admission to University of Wisconsin Milwaukee you know MS in computer science program we have we have a great program you know I mean there is no other way to to put this you know the kind of training you know that we provide you know here at UWM especially you know in this particular program MS and CS you know basically sets you up you know for a very rewarding career in computer science industry. So and I know that you know we have limited time and you know this is we have done these kind of sessions you know for a while now and I know that students have so many questions that you know the amount of time that we have is usually not sufficient so you know please feel free to you know type your questions and you know I'll be I'll be happy to you know answer those questions to the best of my ability. So we already have a question all right so Tariq wants to know what are some ongoing research in the department that we can also mention in the visa interview. So so basically what I would suggest is you know go to the department's website and you know and then you know from there you know you would have links to the faculty web pages okay and there you know you could sort of like get an overview of what everyone is doing. Now it is true that you know some of these web pages may not be you know completely up to date you know professors are busy people and then you know they're just not very good at you know keeping things up to date so I can I can give you a brief overview of the research you know that we are doing in the department. So we are a small department you know not many faculty members but you know with even with the small size that we have you know we have very impressive you know set of you know research abilities you know within within ourselves. A lot of us are you know doing machine learning related research. For example professor Susan McCroy, Professor Rohit Cartey and to some extent you know professors at UNU you know they are used they are basically doing you know things like natural language processing or you know building prediction models you know using machine learning and then you know often you know they they use you know things like deep learning you know recurrent neural networks and you know all sorts of things for their research. So and it's as far as machine learning is concerned you know so we know that the applications of machine learning are all over. So computer science department is not the only department you know doing research in machine learning or research using machine learning. So we have a lot of people in electrical engineering and other departments you know they're either you know applying research learning machine learning or you know basically doing research in machine learning. So machine learning is one aspect. The other aspect is the other things some of the other things are you know things like you know programming languages so professor John Boyland you know who was previously the chair of the department and then he's returning after a sabbatical this year you know he is he did a sabbatical at Northeastern University last year he did the research in programming languages. So and we also have professor T. N. Chow Professor T. N. Chow's research is sort of like you know an overlap between programming languages and systems including you know IOT systems and machine learning. So he's sort of like you know a systems person and similar is my own background. So you know my original research was in computer networks you know for for a number of years you know I basically focused on the performance analysis of networking protocols and then I sort of like diversified in various areas you know including diabetes self-management. So basically you know I'm a diabetic myself and you know I wanted to build tools for people with diabetes so that that's the research you know that I was doing for a number of years and then I moved back into you know computer networks related research you know security computer networks machine learning sort of like you know you know a combination of all these themes. So I hope you know I was able to give you some idea as I mentioned that you know please go to the website and you know get the specific details. All right so we have a second question from Srinivas. Srinivas wants to know could you please explain regarding the scholarships and priority it is given to if asked in the visa interview why scholarship wasn't offered to professional track applicants. So basically you know the professional track you know so basically you know in our program MS in computer science you know we essentially have two tracks regular track and professional track and originally we only had one track and which is now we are calling research track and this track was essentially research focused and you know the basically what we were doing we were training our students to you know basically do research in computer science go on to do a PhD things like that and then we realized that you know we had a number of applicants you know who are not necessarily interested in doing a PhD in computer science but what they are looking for is you know a degree you know that sets them up you know for a rewarding career in computer science industry. So we designed a new track and this track was professional track and in this track you know our focus or our objective is not to prepare the students for research in computer science but basically you know provide them skill sets you know that would allow them to you know do well in industry. So you know number of courses you know that were required in the regular track you know they are not required in professional track you know things like that. So you know the nature of professional track is significantly different and then of course you know a lot of students you know they do not have a computer science background they may have practical knowledge about programming and all but no academic background in computer science so we wanted to sort of like provide you know an avenue for such students to gain a computer science degree and enter the computer science industry. So basically we have the regular track and the professional track and the fact of the matter is that you know we are a small department and you know we can only support so many students. So our typical you know priority is you know as far as you know funding is concerned the TA ships RA ships assistantships of various sorts you know tuition waivers our first priority is towards our PhD students. We have a number of PhD students and you know we want to support these students you know do research and after PhD students you know we give we basically try to you know support students in the regular track you know because those students are you know on the pathway to do a PhD. So that's and then you know we basically come to you know professional track students and in fact you know the fact of the matter is that professional track students you know we are usually you know not able to offer them you know any TA ships etc so so the professional track students you know they are eligible you know for you know any sort of assistantships outside the computer science department. You know there are several other you know recent projects you know going on you know throughout the campus and you know using your skills your considerable computer science skills you know you would be so valuable as an assistant and those projects and you may even like do you know TA ships you know if some other department is offering you such an opportunity. But computer science department is sort of like you know usually it's you know it's not possible for us to offer TA ships or TA ships etc to our professional track students you know those things we are reserving for our PhD and MS regular track students. So I don't know if that answers your question so basically as far as you know the visa interview is concerned. You know you can tell them that you know you have you know scholarship opportunities available throughout the campus which is a fact you know you are you would be a bona fide you know student of the university and then you would have you can pursue whatever assistantships are available you know throughout the university and then you know the campus employment opportunities are available to you as well. But as far as the department is concerned you know I'm just being honest with you that if you're a professional track student you know you probably won't be able to you know get a TA or you know RA those kind of things. But you can you know certainly you know after a semester of professional track studies and doing well in them you know there are specific criteria but you know if you meet that criteria you may apply to switch to regular track and then all those opportunities become available to you. So you can also mention that you are applying you are planning to switch to regular track and that will allow you to that will make you eligible for TA shifts etc. Professor Goyal I know that a lot of our students frequently have questions about the professional track versus the regular track could you please address to the students and explain how you address a little bit how you make the decision but what does it mean for them in terms of the coursework that they're going to take or how will that actually affect their experience at UWM? Yeah so I can you know share my screen and sort of like you know share my screen and sort of like go over some of these things so I hope you can now see my screen and here you know I have the professional track description open. So so basically as I mentioned you know the professional track and regular track are two different tracks of the same degree so irrespective of whether you know you are doing the professional track or you are doing the regular track you're going to get the same degree and as I mentioned that you know you can switch you know from professional track to regular track after one semester at least one semester of coursework you know doing well in those courses and you can often people in a switch from the regular track to professional track that is also very frequent you know because people start in in the research track and then they later on realize that that's not what they want to do so they switch to professional track. So the key difference is you know they are you know in terms of the you know what classes you know you would need to take you know during their during your degree so basically you know in in our in our program you know we have basically 30 to 31 credits you know that you need to earn you know in order to graduate from the program so from the in the professional track these 31 credits that you need to earn you know they are essentially going to fall in three buckets okay these three buckets are the ones you know that I'm highlighting you know here on on my screen so the first bucket you know needs to have at least 16 credits okay you can have more than 16 credits you can have all 31 credits you know from this first bucket and in fact you know that is the that is usually the case you know with our regular track students you know that they are sort of like obliged to take the classes you know only in the first bucket so in the first bucket you know for professional track there needs to be 16 credits of 700 level comm psych courses okay and these 16 credits you know they basically roughly translate to five 700 level courses okay and one special course you know we we call it the CES graduate seminar it's a one credit course okay so that that is that is a 16th credit and other than that you need to take 15 credits as I mentioned of translates to five 700 level computer science classes and then you know you also need to meet the capstone requirement you know talk about that hopefully later on otherwise you can see the description so if you choose to meet the capstone requirement you know by taking compsci 995 you know that those three credits of compsci 995 also count towards the 16 credits so that is the first bucket the second bucket is up to nine graduate credits of non-computer science courses okay so this is this is a unique feature of our program and that's why you know this is actually the strength of professional track and this particular strength is not shared by our regular track so I want to point this out you know and I want you to understand this very carefully in the regular track you are obliged to take only computer science classes okay in the professional track you can take non-computer science classes as well okay so for example you know if there are there is a nice class in a school of business okay talks about interesting things you know entrepreneurship marketing finance whatever right so and and you want to take that class you know because you think that this class is going to be useful to you you know in your future career okay you can take that class and count it towards your mscs degree okay so you know basically up to nine graduate credits which should translate to you know roughly like three three classes so you can take you know up to three non-computer science classes of course you know they have to be approved by your advisor or they have to be among the pre-approved classes but as long as you know they are approved you know you could approve by your advisor and your advisor will be happy to approve them you know if you have if you have a good reason to take those classes so so basically you know up to three non-computer science classes that carry graduate credits you know you can take them and count them towards your mscs degree with regular track you don't have that provision okay now now this particular provision you know also helps students who do not have computer science background okay so suppose you know you're undergrad degrees in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering or some other even non-engineering discipline and you want to do mscs okay in that case you know you can take some of the core undergrad computer science classes at UWM actually their graduate versions and then count you know three of those classes towards your mscs degree okay so oftentimes you know our students you know they do not have you know a course in data structures okay or a course in algorithms that's typical of students you know who are coming from electrical engineering or mechanical engineering background so basically what such students can do you know they can take the graduate versions of our data structures class and later on our algorithms class you know and then count you know those classes as towards their mscs degree under the second bucket so basically you know we have a we have a curricular area we call it computer studies okay so if you if you go to our schedule of classes you know you would see that there is a computer science and then there is a computer studies so this this curricular area computer studies we created it okay in order to allow you know in order to create the graduate versions of our undergrad computer science classes okay so we have comm studies 751 which is the graduate version of our undergrad comm psi 351 which is our data structures class okay so if you are coming from non-computer science background you know you can take you know these computer studies classes which are graduate classes and count them towards your mscs degree so again this provision is you know very limited in regular track and then the third bucket is you know whatever you know whatever you need to do you know in order to reach this 31 graduate credit limit or threshold and you know things that do not fit in one of these two buckets okay so there are a lot of these you know undergraduate slash graduate level computer science classes you know you are you are eligible to take those classes and you know count them towards your mscs degree as long as you meet you know this first bucket 16 credit requirement so this may be a good point for me to introduce you to your to the undergraduate requirements of our degree program okay so if you are a professional track student you know you need to have taken these four classes discrete information structures which is a discrete math class data structures and algorithms as I mentioned this is our data structures class algorithm design and analysis this is our algorithms class and finally you know the operating systems or programming languages concepts so you know the four classes and for the fourth one you have a choice either operating systems or programming languages concepts four classes you need to have taken by the time you graduate okay and now you know these classes uh essentially you know the three of these classes compsci 351 compsci 535 and 537 or 431 you know you can take these classes at UWM if you don't already have these classes you know in your undergrad and then count them count them towards you know your mscs degree either under this third bucket and you know sometimes it is possible to count them you know even under the second bucket because you know you would have a computer studies graduate class you know corresponding to these undergrad computer science classes so so this is this is the you know sort of like essential summary of you know both the professional track as well as you know the key differences between the professional track and the regular track thank you for Professor Goyal I'm wondering if maybe this would be a good time for me to talk a little bit about some of the issues specifically for our international students that are looking to come this fall so I'm gonna take over and share my screen because I want to direct all of you to a website that we have for all of our newly admitted students when I'm done showing this to you I'll put the link to it in the chat in fact let me bear with me for just a second let me actually do it right now so you can click on it and you can follow along if you want to so this is a site that we have for our newly admitted students this is within the UWM system it's a site called I triple s connect this I triple s is the international student scholar services office it's the office at UWM that's responsible for working with you and maintaining your visa status while you're in the US this site I triple s connect many of you are probably already familiar with it it's where you go to log in in order to provide the documentation we need in order for you to get your I-20 this site is really important and you're going to continue using it the whole time that you are a student at UWM in terms of all of your immigration related issues so you'll get to know this site really well for today's purposes we want to look at this site at the very top there's this section for newly admitted students you do not need to log in in order to get to this information it's public facing and if you scroll down you'll see that there are several tabs and these tabs expand and they have all sorts of interesting information I'm not going to go through all of it you can go through a lot of it on your own but I just want to highlight a couple of things the first is this first tab that says fall 2021 options if you look in here you can then further click in and you can find information this essentially this fall for you you have three options the first is to come in person that's what we all hope for that's what we want to happen if you click on this come in person tab you'll be taken to information about what that means to come in person to UWM this fall what you can expect and some other information about travel and arrival and things like that the second option is to start online from home so if you want to start your studies at UWM but unfortunately you just can't make it due to lack of visa appointments or whatever the case is you do have the option to start online from home and if you click on this one you will be able to learn more about that I'm not going to go into too many details about that at this point but I just wanted to say about starting online from home that if you do choose that option it's important that you understand that you're choosing that option for the entire term so if you decide to start online from home because you can't get a visa appointment and then all of a sudden you get an appointment in October in the middle of the semester you're not going to be able to come to the US at that point you're going to have to wait until the next term begins which would be the spring semester starting in January the third option is if you just can't make it and you don't want to start online from home you can request that we defer your admission and if you click on this defer your admission button it'll take you to a page that has further details and a form that you can fill out online to let us know that you need to defer so we can process that for you okay under this step number one getting organized there is all of you would be our graduate students so graduate is masters or PhD if you click on this it will open up a document for you that gives you a checklist of things that you need to take care of in order to get yourself to UWM and then there's a variety of other things this under step two to do right away the very first one is your epanther ID and UWM email for some of you may have done this already your epanther ID is a login ID that is created that is for you and you're going to use this in a lot of different ways at UWM it'll be your UWM email address you'll use it to log into this site I triple S connect you'll use it to log into pause which is where you register for classes and pay your bill it's how you'll log into canvas which is used a lot in our courses so it's really important that you set that up right away when you set that up it's going to ask you for some security questions so they'll give you a list of questions you choose one and then you have to then provide the answer it's really important that you take those questions seriously and you write down your answers and keep them in a safe place um UWM takes the security of the information of our students and staff very very seriously and so if you need your password reset or you're having some other trouble getting into your account they will ask you those questions and if you don't know the answers it's going to be much more difficult for for them to be able to help you so those security questions are really really critical okay the other thing I wanted to point out in this section is this join us on social media if you click on this button it will take you to a page that has links to our whatsapp and facebook and we check groups if you're not already included in those groups I highly recommend you join them they're a fantastic opportunity not only to learn information from us but also to connect with your fellow students we see a lot of students on there making friends searching for people from the same program or they're a home same home country people looking for roommates asking questions about arrival it's a really good resource I highly recommend it the last thing I want to point out here is this contact us information so if you have any questions along the way you're welcome to reach out we are very helpful and respond very quickly um there's a couple really great ways for you to get in touch with us the first is of course you're always welcome to email us I'm sure you're familiar with this email I triple s at uwm.edu you are welcome to call us during business hours we do have a human that is answering the phone helping figure out what you need and then making sure that you get connected to the right person to solve your problem or answer your questions um but the most interesting ways to get in touch with us are these last two the first is the opportunity to chat with us so at uwm we're a microsoft campus and so we use a product called microsoft teams which is a way that you can virtually connect with other people it has a really great chat function and so once you've created your epanther id and you can download microsoft teams and you log in using your epanther id and password it's free for you as a student once you've downloaded your microsoft teams you can come here and click on this chat now button and it will automatically initiate a chat between you and the international admissions team it's the best way to get an answer really really quickly and then we can have a conversation back and forth it's like instant messaging or chatting it's really really helpful and really fast the other thing is if you really feel like you want to meet with someone in a one-on-one kind of meeting you can go to this page and click on this last one there's a link it'll take you to a website that shows some available appointments and then we will join you for a virtual appointment where we can talk one-on-one and figure out what your questions are and make sure you get the information you need okay we are offering for this fall we're offering an airport pickup service so we for students that are flying into Chicago O'Hare between particular dates UWM is going to purchase a ticket for you on a bus that goes from Chicago O'Hare to downtown Milwaukee so we will make those arrangements for you and give you clear directions on how to get to the bus and then once you arrive in downtown Milwaukee it'll be your responsibility to get from there to wherever it is that you're going in the city but the journey from Chicago O'Hare to downtown Milwaukee is the biggest part especially when you're new to the area and so we'll take care of that part for you you'll find that information in these on this page if you go through all of the information you'll see that you do need to sign up for it we need to know who is coming so that we can purchase the ticket and make sure that we get the arrangements to you okay I'm going to stop there and see if we have any questions let's see no questions so far so so feel free to you know ask any questions you know and it just not be need not be limited to just the department or you know immigration matters if you want to know about the city you know the weather you know whatever comes to your mind really you know so all right so Abhi Abhisha wants to know I do not have a CS background undergrad is in ENTC what coding skills languages kind of learn before starting classes to make the transition easy all right very very good question Abhisha so I want to you know point out two things so you know in our professional track you know we expect students to be you know reasonably good in programming so if I could share my screen you know once again then I will so here you know at the top of this page you know in the admission under this admission section we say that you know professional track students admitted to the who are admitted you know will have knowledge of computer program to the extent of computer science 250 and computer science 251 so we have essentially you know a three course programming sequence in our undergrad you know and these three courses are com side 250 com side 251 and then com side 351 that data structures class so the com side 250 is intro to programming and com side 251 is intermediate programming and the third one com side 351 is data structures so we expect students to have knowledge to the level of com side 251 which is intermediate programming okay and then all these classes you know they are in Java now a lot of our students you know who do not have a computer science background okay they you know often do not have this level of computer programming knowledge okay so that's why you know in your admission letter you know you would have seen a placement level so we have three placement levels zero one and two placement level zero means that you know we think that the student you know doesn't really have you know much programming knowledge you know at this moment and that is all based on you know whatever is submitted as part of your application okay so based on that information you know if we put you at placement level zero what that means is that we are recommending not requiring recommending that start at com side 250 okay and on the other hand if your placement level is one you know the admission committee is recommending that you know you start at com side 251 okay now com side 250 will not count towards your ms degree com side 251 has a graduate version called com studies 750 and if you take com studies 750 it will count as a non-computer science class towards your mscs degree okay so if you have you know sort of sort of like you know you don't feel confident you know that you have sufficient programming background you know you can take you know the com side 250 you know with the understanding that it won't count towards your degree or take com side 251 equivalent com studies 750 with the knowledge that you know in for professional tax students it will count towards your degree okay and build that background now again i want to make it clear that this placement level you know it's basically admission committees you know the judgment regarding you know your programming ability based on the evidence you know that it had access to now you know if you think that admission committee is sort of like you know wrong in their assessment you know you are you are you can talk to your advisor and then show your advisor your the that you you know programming very well or whatever you know and then your advisor you know would be able to sort of like you know allow you to not take you know these basically wave your placement level okay now having said that you know the specific question that abisha asked was that you know what programming you know language related skills you know that the students could gain so i would recommend that you know you basically maybe you know over Coursera or edX or you know some of these you know mook websites you know if you could do some intro to java and intermediate java programming courses okay so i want to clarify that you know java is not the only programming language you know that we use we use all sorts of programming languages in our courses you know java cc plus python you know in data science related courses they may be using r or something also so that there are you know plenty of you know the different programming languages used but java is reasonably good you know first programming language so my recommendation would be to basically you know take some online courses in java and hopefully to the level of intermediate programming okay and that would that would be that would be good in terms of preparing you know before you arrive but as i mentioned that you know you are free to take commsci 250 or commsci 251 you know at uwm and build your programming background that way that that's also possible okay so i hope i was able to answer abisha's question the next question is from sakeh sakeh wants to know i was given placement level one where i should take two subjects 251 351 so will these courses count towards so sakeh CS 251 as i told you has a comm study equivalent it's comm studies 750 that's the course that you should take and CS 351 again has a comm studies equivalent it is comm studies 751 okay and both of those courses would count you know towards your mscs degree in under that bucket you know three non-computer science courses all right so uh so yes you know both of these courses you know would count towards your mscs degree all right so shrinivas wants to know could he share us a little bit about milwaki a little bit about the city and the weather throughout the year all right so great question shrinivas so milwaki is a beautiful place okay i've been living here you know since 2004 all right so 17 years in milwaki and counting okay the best place to live in united states all right as far if you ask me okay many people won't agree all right but i absolutely you know think that's the best place to live in mil in united states why because it has everything that united states has to offer you know in terms of opportunities you know the big city kind of environment and so on but at the same time you do not have the problems associated with typical big cities in united states okay you do not have terrible commute you know too much traffic you know and then you do not have very high cost of living okay cost of living is kind of low compared to places on west coast and east coast okay and then the commute as you know it's not that you know you know things get super crowded you know in the rush hours and things like that so it's a very you know from the quality of living perspective you know milwaki is perfect okay and milwaki has you know a very big Indian community okay since you know most of us most of the students you know here in this particular discussion they are from India so the Indian community is very large in milwaki because of you know the industries that are there in milwaki you know north west and mutual uh johnson controls and g e health care you know rockwell automation there are several you know big companies that have headquarters in milwaki harley david son so and these a lot of you know the people of indian origin you know work for these companies so you know i would say that milwaki Indian population in milwaki is about 10 000 you know i might be a little bit off here or there but that's roughly you know my estimate and there's a big temple you know close by uh about 20 miles you know from the uwm campus you know and then on a diwali day you know about 5000 people of course i'm talking pre-covid okay 5000 people all over you know the region you know milwaki madison green bay you know that region people living in that region you know they visit the temple on big festival days you know the diwali holy you know the shara things like that so just to give you a sense of you know the strength of indian community in milwaki and then of course dunce of you know indian grocery stores restaurants and so on the only sort of like negative side and i must i must tell you that because you need to be prepared for that all right is that milwaki and this is true for you know most of the midwest all right midwest is sort of like the region between you know east coast and west coast you know in the upper part of united states okay milwaki gets very cold in winter all right so you know in in in winters you know you have to be prepared for temperatures like 10 degree fahrenheit you know during daytime like you know 15 degree fahrenheit that kind of temperatures you have to be prepared for and during night time you know it may dip down to like you know zero degree fahrenheit things like that okay some seasons you know you have a significant amount of snowfall all right so sometimes you know there would be like you know say five to six inches of snow i don't know really really bad day you may have like eight or nine inches of snow snow is not that is not a problem at all you would enjoy snow i can guarantee you that cold is something that you know you need to sort of like prepare yourself for okay cold is the fact of life in united states you go to east coast midwest you know unless you are on west coast or in the southern united states you know everywhere else you know you are going to experience temperatures that you never experienced in india okay but then you know you have like so many facilities here you know with and then you know with proper clothing and all you know i mean like i've been living in united states for like you know 24 years okay and i've been throughout in this midwest region okay so you know i you just get used to it you know you actually start enjoying it you know winters are you know the best time you know often you know i mean for me personally now you know that winter you know snow and cold you know this is this is what i really enjoy you know about milwaki but you need to be prepared you need to have good you know sufficient clothing and so on you know so just just wanted to warn you about i feel like i need to jump in and talk a little bit about the weather as someone who's from here because i i completely understand why someone from a hot climate would find it to be really shocking when they come here with the cold um but i just want to say that it's that it's perfectly livable and and some people actually really really enjoy it um what's really neat about the climate here in wisconsin is that we have four very distinct seasons which i think is new to a lot of students um and so um you know if you don't like the weather don't worry it'll change soon enough um right because in the summer we have very warm weather in the winter we have cold weather um but something i want to just mention about that cold that i think is really important um that is different from people who come from typically warmer climates is that we have built our society based around the fact that it gets cold so all of our buildings are are made to be well insulated we have good heat right so it might be cold outside but you're you're going to have heat where you're living and and experiencing every day you're not sleeping in zero degree temperature right the because i think in in warmer climate when places that have regularly warmer climates they don't build houses in ways that are meant to control the temperature inside as much but because of the climate that we live in our houses are built particularly that way so yes it might be cold while you're on your way to campus but when you're in your home when you're in the building that your classroom is everything is well heated and very well insulated and you'll be fine yes absolutely i i totally second that you know inside there is no problem and outside you would learn to enjoy it trust me and and one of my favorite experiences every single year is our new international students when they experience snow when the first big snowfall comes and they're all outside having fun and throwing snow at each other and it's really actually very fun and i think it's a wonderful experience so yeah okay professor goll there's another question about can i take two courses on campus and one course online um do you want to address that from a curricular standpoint and then i can address it from a visa standpoint so from from computer science department's perspective you know it's totally fine now you know from visa perspective there may be you know some issues which you know Chen can talk about yeah so um and when you come to the u.s on a f1 student visa you're required to have in-person classes um under normal circumstances meaning pre uh pandemic um the rule was that you have to so you have to be enrolled full time which is a graduate student is eight credits most classes are three credits so most of our students are registered for nine credits um and of that full-time load you're allowed to have one class that is online uh entirely online so for students that are interested in online classes typically they have two classes in person uh six credits and then one class of three credits that's online um and that's perfectly acceptable um and so for new students that are arriving this fall um the u.s government is allowing students to have a little bit of additional flexibility so the current requirement for new students coming this fall will be that you must have at least one per one class with an in-person component and the rest can be online but UWM is encouraging you very strongly to have as many classes in person as possible um because we know that that is what makes most the most successful experience for our international students is to have that in-person connection um but yeah so you will be able to have two courses on campus and then one online what you will not be able to do is have all of your classes online um sometimes we have students that uh desire to maybe live in another part of the u.s with a relative or something and take our classes online that does not work if you're entering the u.s on a student visa the u.s government expects that you have to be there in person otherwise there'd be no reason for you to come okay great so so again you know feel free to uh type your questions and you know while uh we wait you know for the questions you know i i just wanted to talk about you know a few more things you know related to computer science programs so i'm going to share my screen again um now um a few more things you know that i wanted to tell you about we talked about the placement level we talked about you know the undergraduate requirements and then we talked about you know the degree requirements 31 credits and the three buckets you know those uh requirements you know may fall in and then i wanted to talk about a few more things one of one of that is a capstone requirement okay so uh in the professional track you know you must meet the capstone requirement and there are two ways to meet that requirement you could either you know sign up for this three credit class comp sign 995 and do a capstone project you know with a faculty advisor that is one way the other way is that you know you can you know for example you know do an internship right and i'll talk about internships in a minute so if you're doing an internship and then you're doing an internship you know if you do a good project and you think that you know this project is a good capstone project then you know you can consult with your academic advisor and basically you know do an oral exam uh based on that project and you know if you pass that oral exam that would also allow you to meet you know this capstone requirements you don't necessarily need to take this three credit comp sign 995 class even though that option is available to you you can also you know meet the capstone requirement you know by doing uh projects during internship all right what i want to clarify is that you know some project that you did in the past you know uh for which you know you um have already received some sort of academic credit you know for example you did a project in your undergrad or something you know you already received academic credit you know for that project that project won't be a good project you know as your capstone project what's if you have done something even in the past for which you did not already receive academic credit you can sort of like talk to your advisor and you know use that project you know for your oral exam so that is one thing that i wanted to tell you about capstone requirement the second thing i wanted to tell you about is industry internship okay so you know working the the chance to work you know in a company you know in the united states you know is one of the big uh you know sort of like attractions you know of studying in united states you know so so Jen can verify this but i think you know after one full year of you know full-time academic load you know you become eligible for cpt curricular practical training and then you know you can you know apply to a company and if they accept you you know you can do an internship you know in that company either during the summer or you know even during the regular school year you know both both options are there as far as the department is concerned we would allow you to basically do two internships because you know when you do an internship you would need to you know basically also sign up for academic credit for that internship okay that's that's that's how things work you know with for cpt you need to be enrolled in a in an academic course for that internship and that academic course you know for us is comps 999 advanced independent study so the department would allow you to do two internships these internships can be back to back or spread out you know whatever way you want to do and these could be summer internships or fall internship or spring internship we let you choose you can do two internships and earn two 999 credits you know associated with those internships you know and then actually use those credits towards your mscs degree okay we won't allow you to do more than two internships that i want to make it very clear all right so internships you know basically serve two purposes okay first of all you know actually several purposes if they you gain valuable industry experience and oftentimes these internships you know translate to full-time jobs okay secondly you know with internship you know you can sort of like you know meet the capstone requirement okay and the third thing is that you know with the internship you know you can basically earn credits you know that you could apply towards your mscs degree okay and Milwaukee is a great place to do internship you know literally like you know hundreds of companies you know small companies big companies and super big companies as I mentioned you know Northwestern Mutual Johnson Controls GE Healthcare Rockwell Automation perfect place you know to be in you know if you if you are industry if you are looking for industrial experience and finally I want to tell you a little bit about switching between tracks okay so as I mentioned that you know if you are admitted in professional track okay you know it's not that you are sort of like stuck with professional track okay even though practically speaking you know professional track is in my personal view is better than regular track because of the flexibility associated with it whatever you can do in regular track you can also do in professional track okay but not the other way around but if you know in order to do a TA shape for example you know if you want to you know switch to the regular track you can do that so you can you what you need to do is you need to enroll in at least nine credits of the professional track approved courses okay for one semester and get at least 3.5 cumulative GPA okay if you know you are able to you know do this much you know then you can apply to you know switch to regular track and you know make that switch and become eligible for TA ships you know if that's what you want to do similarly if you are in regular track you know regular track has its own requirements and you think that you don't really want to meet those requirements you know and you want to switch to professional track for regular track there are there is really no you know criteria you can switch from regular track to professional track anytime you want okay but you need to understand that once you do that switch you are no longer eligible for TA ships and so on okay so again you know this particular web page okay and then actually you know if I go one step back oops yeah this this particular web page is you know what you what you want to refer to you know for all your questions and then you know of course you know feel free to reach out all right so it looks like there are some more comments okay so Srinivas wants to know does dropping a course on pause have any negative impact on our profile no no none so ever okay actually you know what the students do you know since they are initially not sure like you know what classes they would take you know they would sign up for classes you know knowing that you know they may not actually take it you know they are just trying to keep a place for themselves you know and also sort of like find out more information about that class before they make the final decision so yes you know dropping a class on pause you know in time has absolutely no negative impact okay but there is a deadline first of all you know you know if if you have if you have enrolled in a course you have to pay the tuition for that that is one aspect the second aspect is that you know if you think that you don't really want to do this class you know you need to drop that class in time okay if you drop it after a certain deadline okay then a w will show up in your transcripts okay that you that you basically withdrew from that course okay so you don't want that right and it's not really negative just that you know just gives somebody looking at your transcript a reason to question okay why why your w there so as long as you know you drop a class you know before that deadline you know it has absolutely no negative impact I don't know Jen has anything else to add to that yeah I can say that the deadline that you should use keep in mind is essentially the first day of classes so the first day of classes is the date that the first payment on tuition is due and so once money is due you need to have your schedule set the way that you want it to be so you can register for classes now and then if you need to change your schedule or if something happens and you're not able to come in person you can drop those classes as long as you do it before the first day of classes then you will not be financially responsible for any of the tuition but if you're registered for classes as of the first day of school then you are responsible for that tuition so make sure if you're going to drop your class or change your schedule or something make sure you do it before that and we do have a lot of students that will register for classes even though they're not entirely sure they're going to be able to make it and then drop the classes if they figure out that they're not going to be able to come that's perfectly fine if that's what you want to do but I do request that if you're going to do that that you please drop your classes as soon as you know that you're not going to be in them because by registering for the class you're taking up a seat in that class that could be used for someone else and it also makes it difficult for the professors to plan when the numbers of students enrolled in their classes changes drastically all of a sudden right before it begins so if you want to register for classes to keep a spot reserved for yourself that's fine but just remember that if you're not going to come you need to withdraw yourself from the class you need to do it before the first day of classes and please do it as soon as you know that you're not coming so that we can have a really accurate idea of who's actually coming who's going to be in that class and that you can potentially open up that seat to another student. I also just wanted to mention before Professor Goyle was talking about internship opportunities and I just want to make sure that everyone understands very clearly that as an F1 student in the U.S. you are generally speaking not allowed to work off of campus at all without special permission and there's something called curricular practical training also called CPT. CPT is special permission that will allow you to do an internship so that's definitely possible but you do have to get the special permission to do it and you'll learn all about this in your F1 student orientation when you arrive on campus but one of the really important key pieces of CPT is that you must be in the U.S. as a valid F1 student for a full academic year before you're eligible for CPT so if you come in the fall the first time you'll be eligible will be at the end of the spring semester next May and that's especially important for students that may be finding challenges and coming to the U.S. and are considering starting online from home for one semester keep in mind that that term that you're online from home will not count towards that one academic year that's required in order to be eligible for CPT so if you start online from home this fall for example and you come in person for the first time next spring the first time you'd be eligible for CPT wouldn't be until December at the end of next year's fall semester because you have to be in a full spring and a full fall semester inside the U.S. in order to be eligible for CPT I know that can be kind of confusing if you are in a situation you're not sure what you're going to do any questions about that please email we're happy to look at your case in particular and make sure that it's very clear to you what what the consequences will be okay is there any other questions I feel like we're at the end of our hour and there doesn't seem to be any other questions so maybe we can just wait one minute to see if there's any last minute questions that come in while we're doing that I just want to say thank you so much to everyone that's joined us today we know how hard you've worked to get to this point all that you've gone through in terms of your application and applying and all of the anxiety that's gone into the last year with the global pandemic and we really hope that we can all see all of you on our campus this fall or as soon as possible we really appreciate you taking the time to join us today and please reach out if you have any other questions if I could just give one last reminder please that if you could make sure that the screen name that is on your zoom account matches the name that you apply to wm with we are keeping track of who has joined the session today we have these really fancy pens that have engineering tools built into them and we're going to provide one for free to everyone who's joined this session when you arrive on our campus but in order to do that we need to know who's here so if the if you could please look at your zoom account and see the name that shows up and if it doesn't match the name that you've provided on your application if you could please change it would really appreciate it okay so there is a question I was based in level two of the professional track what can I do if I believe I can work in the regular track so as I mentioned you know the few minutes ago you know if you were admitted to the professional track you know you need to take at least one semester of coursework at least nine credits you know the in professional track and you need to do you know have a cumulative gp of at least 3.5 you know in order to switch to the regular track so that is about that question and then the second question is about where can people see you know the recording and looks like Lisa just answered that question so so recording should be available so all right well thank you very much everyone thank you for joining us please be in touch if you have any questions you are welcome if you have any questions about the computer science program specifically the curriculum the the options of coursework please direct those to professor Goyal if you have any questions about your status as an international student how to travel any requirements visa staff please direct them towards me we are happy to help you and look forward to seeing all of you in person thanks everyone all right thanks everyone bye