 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 to UWM. 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 UWM 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 to UWM. 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 a great program, you know, I mean, there is no other way 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. Alright, so, Tariq wants to know, what are some ongoing research in the department that we can also mention in the visa interview? 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 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, 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 ourselves. A lot of us are, you know, doing machine learning related research. For example, Professor Susan McRoy, Professor Rohit Karte, and to some extent, you know, professors that you knew, you know, 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 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 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 a number of years, you know, I basically focused on the performance analysis of networking protocols. And then I sort of like diversified, you know, 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'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, 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, 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, be it 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, 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, 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, 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 applying 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 it 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 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 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 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 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 sort of like obliged to take 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 compsite courses. Okay. And these 16 credits, you know, they're basically roughly translate to five 700 level courses. Okay. And one special course, you know, we call it CES graduate seminar, it's a one credit course. Okay, so 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 compsite 995, you know, that those three credits of compsite 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 the school of business, okay, talks about interesting things, you know, entrepreneurship, marketing, finance, whatever, right. So 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 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 of 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 com studies 751, which is the graduate version of our undergrad com sci 351, which is our data structures class. Okay. So if you're 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, essentially, you know, the three of these classes, compsci 351, compsci 535, and 537, and 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 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 going to 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 IEEE Connect. This IEEE is the International Student and 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 IEEE 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. 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. Under this step number one, getting organized, there is all of you would be our graduate student, so graduate is master's 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 E-Panther ID and UWM email. For some of you may have done this already, your E-Panther 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, IEEE Connect. You'll use it to log into PAWS, 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. 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 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 to 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 WeChat 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 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. There's a couple of 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. 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 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 E-Panther ID and you can download Microsoft Teams and you log in using your E-Panther 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 feel free to ask any questions and it just need not be limited to just the department or immigration matters. If you want to know about the city, the weather, whatever comes to your mind, really. Abhishek wants to know, I do not have a CS background, undergrad is an ENTC. What coding skills languages can I learn before starting classes to make the transition easy? All right. Very good question, Abhishek. So I want to 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 ComSight 250, ComSight 251, and then ComSight 351, the data structures class. So the ComSight 250 is intro to programming and ComSight 251 is intermediate programming and the third one ComSight 351 is data structures. So we expect students to have knowledge to the level of ComSight 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 ComSight 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 ComSight 251. Okay. Now ComSight 250 will not count towards your MS degree. ComSight 251 has a graduate version called ComStudies 750. And if you take ComStudies 750, it will count as a non-computer science class towards your MS CS 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 ComSight 250, you know, with the understanding that it won't count towards your degree or take ComSight 251 equivalent ComStudies 750 with the knowledge that, you know, 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, you are 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, Mooc 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, C++, 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 a 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 Compsite 250 or Compsite 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 Abhishek's question. The next question is from Saket. Saket wants to know, I was given placement level one, where I should take two subjects, 251, 351. So will these courses count towards? So Saket, CS 251, as I told you, has Compsite equivalent. It's Compsite 750. That's the course that you should take. And CS 351 again has a Compsite equivalent. It is Compsite 751. Okay. And both of those courses would count, you know, towards your MS CS degree in under that bucket, you know, three non-computer science courses. All right. So, so yes, you know, both of these courses, you know, would count towards your MS CS degree. All right. So Srinivas wants to know, could you share us a little bit about Milwaukee, a little bit about the city and the weather throughout the year. All right. So great question, Srinivas. So Milwaukee is a beautiful place. Okay. I've been living here, you know, since 2004. All right. So 17 years in Milwaukee and counting. Okay. The best place to live in the 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 the 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 is, you know, it's not that, 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, Milwaukee is perfect. Okay. And Milwaukee 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 Milwaukee because of, you know, the industries that are there in Milwaukee, you know, Northwestern Mutual, Johnson Controls and GE Healthcare, you know, Rockwell Automation, there are several, you know, big companies that have headquarters in Milwaukee, Harley Davidson. So and these lot of, you know, people of Indian origin, you know, work for these companies. So, you know, I would say that Milwaukee, Indian population in Milwaukee 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 about 20 miles, you know, from UWM campus, you know, and then on a Diwali day, you know, about 5,000 people, of course, I'm talking pre-COVID. Okay. 5,000 people all over, you know, the region, you know, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, you know, that region, people living in that region, you know, they visit the temple on big festival days, you know, Diwali, Holy, you know, the Sharra, things like that. So just to give you a sense of, you know, the strength of Indian community in Milwaukee, and then, of course, Dunsoff, you know, Indian grocery stores, restaurants and so on. The only sort of like negative side, and I must tell you that because you need to be prepared for that, all right, is that Milwaukee, 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 the United States, okay. Milwaukee gets very cold in winter, all right. So, you know, 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 nighttime, 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, they would be like, you know, say five to six inches of snow, and on a 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 a factor of life in the 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, 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 what I really enjoy, you know, about Milwaukee. But you need to be prepared. You need to have good, you know, sufficient clothing and so on, you know, so 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 completely understand why someone from a hot climate would find it to be really shocking when they come here with the cold. But I just want to say that it's, that it's perfectly livable and some people actually really, really enjoy it. 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. And so, you know, if you don't like the weather, don't worry, it'll change soon enough, right, because in the summer, we have very warm weather in the winter, we have cold weather. But something I want to just mention about that cold that I think is really important 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 made to be well insulated. We have good heat, right? So it might be cold outside, but you're going to have heat where you're living and experiencing every day. You're not sleeping in zero degree temperature, right? Because I think in warmer climates, 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 totally second that, you know, inside there is no problem and outside, you would learn to enjoy it. Yeah. 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 Goyle, there's another question about can I take two courses on campus and one course online? Do you want to address that from a curricular standpoint and then I can address it from a visa standpoint? So, 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, Jen can talk about. Yeah. So, when you come to the U.S. on a F1 student visa, you're required to have in-person classes under normal circumstances, meaning pre-pandemic. 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. And of that full-time load, you're allowed to have one class that is online, entirely online. So, for students that are interested in online classes, typically, they have two classes in person, six credits, and then one class of three credits that's online. And that's perfectly acceptable. And so, for new students that are arriving this fall, 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 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, because we know that that is what makes the most successful experience for our international students is to have that in-person connection. 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. Sometimes, we have students that 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, again, feel free to type your questions. And while we wait for the questions, I just wanted to talk about a few more things related to computer science programs. So, I'm going to share my screen again. Now, a few more things that I wanted to tell you about. We talked about the placement level. We talked about the undergraduate requirements. And then we talked about the degree requirements, 31 credits, and the three buckets. Those requirements may fall in. And then I wanted to talk about a few more things. One of that is a capstone requirement. So, in the professional track, you must meet the capstone requirement. And there are two ways to meet that requirement. You could either sign up for this three credit class, CompSci995, and do a capstone project with a faculty advisor. That is one way. The other way is that you can, for example, do an internship. I'll talk about internships in a minute. So, if you're doing an internship and then doing an internship, if you do a good project and you think that this project is a good capstone project, then you can consult with your academic advisor and basically do an oral exam based on that project. And if you pass that oral exam, that would also allow you to meet this capstone requirement. So, you don't necessarily need to take this three credit CompSci995 class, even though that option is available to you. You can also meet the capstone requirement by doing projects during internship. All right. What I want to clarify is that some project that you did in the past, for which you have already received some sort of academic credit. For example, you did a project in your undergrad or something. You already received academic credit for that project. That project won't be a good project as your capstone project. But if you have done something, even in the past, for which you did not already receive academic credit, you can sort of talk to your advisor and use that project 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. So, working the chance to work in a company in the United States is one of the big attractions of studying in the United States. So, Jen can verify this, but I think after one full year of full-time academic load, you become eligible for CPT, curricular practical training. And then you can apply to a company and if they accept you, you can do an internship in that company either during the summer or even during the regular school year. Both options are there. As far as the department is concerned, we would allow you to basically do two internships because when you do an internship, you would need to basically also sign up for academic credit for that internship. That's how things work. For CPT, you need to be enrolled in an academic course for that internship and that academic course for us is COMSI 999, Advanced Independent Study. So, the department would allow you to do two internships. These internships can be back-to-back or spread out 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 associated with those internships and then actually use those credits towards your MSCS degree. We won't allow you to do more than two internships that I want to make it very clear. So, internships basically serve two purposes. First of all, actually several purposes. You gain valuable industry experience and oftentimes these internships translate to full-time jobs. Secondly, with internship, you can meet the capstone requirement. And the third thing is that with the internship, you can basically earn credits that you could apply towards your MSCS degree. And Milwaukee is a great place to do internship. Literally, hundreds of companies, small companies, big companies and super big companies, as I mentioned, Northwestern Mutual, Johnson Controls, GE Healthcare, Rockwell Automation, perfect place to be and if you are looking for industrial experience. And finally, I want to tell you a little bit about switching between tracks. So, as I mentioned that if you are admitted in professional track, it's not that you are stuck with professional track. Even though practically speaking, 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 in order to do a TA shift, for example, if you want to switch to the regular track, you can do that. So, what you need to do is you need to enroll in at least nine credits of the professional track approved courses for one semester and get at least 3.5 cumulative GPA. If you are able to do this much, then you can apply to switch to regular track and make that switch and become eligible for TA shifts if that's what you want to do. Similarly, if you are in regular track, regular track has its own requirements and you think that you don't really want to meet those requirements and you want to switch to professional track. For regular track, there is really no criteria. You can switch from regular track to professional track any time you want, okay, but you need to understand that once you do that switch, you are no longer eligible for TA shifts and so on. Okay, so again, this particular web page, okay, and then actually if I go one step back, yeah, this particular web page is what you want to refer to for all your questions and then of course, 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, none so ever, okay. Actually, what the students do, since they are initially not sure what classes they would take, they would sign up for classes, knowing that they may not actually take it. They are just trying to keep a place for themselves and also find out more information about that class before they make the final decision. So yes, dropping a class on pause in time has absolutely no negative impact, okay, but there is a deadline. First of all, if you have enrolled in a course, you have to pay the tuition for that. That is one aspect. The second aspect is that if you think that you don't really want to do this class, you need to drop that class in time. If you drop it after a certain deadline, okay, then a W will show up in your transcripts, okay, that you basically withdrew from that course, okay, so you don't want that, right? And it's not really negative, it just gives somebody looking at your transcript a reason to question, okay, why a W there? So as long as you drop a class before that deadline, it has absolutely no negative impact. I don't know if 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 US, 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 and you have 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 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 UWM with, we are keeping track of who has joined this 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 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. 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 a few minutes ago if you were admitted to the professional track you need to take at least one semester of coursework, at least nine credits in professional track and you need to have a cumulative GPU of at least 3.5 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 the recording and it looks like Lisa just answered that question. So recording should be available soon. 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 options of coursework, please direct those to Professor Goyle. 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. All right. Thanks everyone. Bye. Bye. Hi, Lisa. Hey, how did you feel like that went? It was okay. It started out a little shaky for me. I don't know. I didn't have my game on but I just sort of kept plowing forward. It was fine. It was fine. I think that I, as the words were coming out