 Welcome everyone. So my name is Jen Singer and I am from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I am from the International Student Office and you are here today because we're going to do an online session to provide information. All of you should be admitted to our computer science master's program. So we're going to do a session today that's focused on that. We're going to start with some basic information for international students, but most of the session today will be focused specifically about our computer science program. We have with us today a professor of computer science, Dr. John Boyland. And we also have a current computer science master's student with us here today, Prené, who will be able to talk to you about his experience as a student. So welcome today. Before we get started, I wanted to start with a couple of little housekeeping things. And first of all, if we could ask you please while you're participating in this session to keep your cameras off and your microphones muted. It really makes for a much nicer experience for all the participants if we don't have to worry about bandwidth or background noise. So keep your cameras off and your microphones muted. We are going to devote a large portion of today's session to answering questions. So if you have any questions along the way, we're requesting that you please put those into the chat box. The Zoom platform has a chat function if you want to put your questions in there. When we get to the end, we will make sure that we devote time to answering all of those questions. So please use the chat box. Our engineering program is very eager to have you join us on campus and they have these amazing engineering pens right it's a pen that you use to write with, but it has attached to it all sorts of really cool engineering tools. And so as a reward for attending this session today they'd like to make sure that you get one. In order to do that we need to know exactly who's here so if you could take a look at the name that's on your zoom account. If it's different from the name that you use to apply to you WM if you could go ahead and change your zoom name so that we can identify that you're here we're going to keep track of our participants today. So that when you arrive on our campus in person. We know that you attended the session and then engineering is going to make sure that you get one of these amazing engineering pens. So if you could go ahead and change the name on your zoom account to the same name that you used to apply to WM that would be very very helpful. Just a reminder to keep your cameras off and your microphones muted. If you have questions along the way go ahead and put them in the chat box and we will make sure that we get those answered at the end of the session today. I'll give you a brief idea of what's going to happen in the session I'm going to start with some really basic information about international student information right arrivals and how to navigate the information you need. Then I'm going to pass it over to Dr john Boyland who's a professor in our computer science program who will talk to you a little bit about the computer science program itself. Finally we have prene who is a current computer science master student from India who's going to tell you about his experience from the student perspective in our program. And then the rest of the time is going to be devoted just to answering your questions. Okay, so if you've got them along the way put them into the chat. Okay, I want to start by, I'm going to share my screen. I'm going to share my screen and I am going to share with you a website hopefully all of you have seen this by now, but I do want to share it with you I'll put the direct link to it into the chat when I'm done speaking. So this is the site that you WM has for our international students. You'll see that the top is called I triple S connects I triple S stands for international students scholar services. Many of you have received emails from I triple S at UWM.edu. This is the website that you'll use as an international student here at UWM. On the top right you have the opportunity to log in this is where you upload your documents to request your right 20 etc. But with this very first section you can see on the left there's this menu the top one is newly admitted students and if you go there, it's public facing you don't need to log in to see it. And this is the information that we have out for our newly admitted students, including I'd like to highlight our next online session for admitted students is actually tomorrow at 9am. We'll not be focused on computer science it'll be a general session for all of our international students but if you're looking and you have questions about anything that relates to getting to campus please join us tomorrow we would love to have you. If you go down on this website we have a nice checklist for you if you click on that it opens as a PDF so in case you want to print it and cross things off. So go down here to the bottom you'll see there's these different categories and if you click on them they expand to provide more information. So I'm not going to go through every detail of every section but I want to highlight just a couple of things. The first is the very important one this tell us your plan. So as you are getting ready to come here this fall we're about. Within a couple of months of classes beginning and so time is getting short and I know a lot of you are in the visa application process and some of you might be getting nervous about whether or not you're going to get your visa and time. So first of all I want to mention that classes begin September 6 that is the first day of classes, you must be on our campus in person ready to attend by that date, or it's too late for you to come. So if you're in the visa process and you're thinking you might get a late appointment or something like that, please keep that in mind, you cannot join us after the first date of classes. So if you can't join us if they're you're delayed because of your visa or any other reason, you do have a couple of options so if you come to this website you can click on these and learn more of the details. You have the opportunity to start online from home so if you can't make it by the first day of classes you can do the semester on home. Please note that that does not mean start online and come mid semester. If you start online from home it means that you're doing the entire fall semester from home and then joining us in January for the spring semester. Or you can defer your admission meaning you can request that we change the your admission status from this fall to potentially next spring or the following fall. And if you click on these buttons you'll see more details about how that works, and then there's a way that you can send us complete a form online that will let us know that that's what you're requesting. If you defer your admission we will process that and work with you to update not only your admission but also your right 20 so that it has new start dates. Okay. Further down on this page you'll find all sorts of other really good information, including recorded sessions for newly admitted students. These are the sessions that we have done within the International Student Office so that the general sessions. We also have a really good one about housing that provides information about on campus and off campus housing. So if you're struggling right now looking for housing that might be a good resource for you. Also in the prepare for arrival one of the most common questions we're getting right now is about vaccinations you find that information here, and then at the very bottom arrival and transportation campus. One does offer a service that we call Panther pickup, where if you are flying into Chicago O'Hare UWM will purchase and provide for you a ticket on a bus that goes once an hour from Chicago O'Hare to downtown Milwaukee. So we'll provide that ticket to you with instructions on how to find the bus, and then once you arrive in downtown Milwaukee then it will be your responsibility to get to wherever it is that you're going. So if you're flying into Chicago O'Hare, make sure you do this you have to sign up you need to provide your name and flight details and things in a form online so make sure that you are doing that. Okay. So that's all I'm going to talk about for this particular page I will put the direct link to this page into the chat as soon as I'm done talking. And then if you have any questions please put them into the chat box. Okay. With that I'm going to pass it over to Dr Boiland who is a faculty member in our computer science program Dr Boiland. Sorry. Trying to figure out how to. Unshare. Unshare. Not sure. Oh there we go stop sharing it was hidden. Okay, there we go. Dr Boiland I pass it over to you. Very nice to thank you very much least Jen. Welcome all your students here to UW Milwaukee in our computer science master's program, or some of you may be in the PhD program. Really glad that you are are on your way to come here. And I'm, I don't know the stuff about the international about I 20s or things like that, but I'm the person you should come to if you have problems with the sign up for classes or your advisor to get back to you, or you're not sure how to do anything with the program. I'm the person you should contact you can email me is the best way to reach me Boiland at UWM EDU. And so I'm your advocate, you know you want to get into a class and and you haven't heard anything or you can't figure out how to do something. I'm the person you should talk to so I'm wearing my computer science UWM computer science t-shirt here. I usually when I teach all of you running a tie so you get to see me nice and informally today. So, we have a lot of students who are interested in about the difference between the regular master's program and the professional masters program. So that these two masters program are have very similar requirements, they're slightly different. The regular masters is usually for people who are going to go on to get a PhD they often do a thesis. And regular master students have a stricter requirement on their courses they can, they all the courses need to be computer science courses and more of them need to be high level. The regular masters students are eligible for departmental aid and fee waivers and things like that. On the other hand the professional master students are people who are looking at getting professional skills in terms of computer science. And the we also permit people to do up to nine credits of approved electives and different programs. We also admit people who have less strong background in computer science and then they can start taking some extra courses as part of their program usually some of the more elementary ones are neat are not part of your graduate program. But the professional masters is basically a self funded program, you will be paying for yourself, you're eligible to have campus employment. And I will be able to tell you more about he's one of the people who has a campus job while he's in the master's program here. And people sometimes ask, okay I'm admitted under one program, can I switch over to the other program. And yes, for the switching from the regular to the professional you can do that anytime just let me know and I'll connect you with to resquery. And you can fill out the forms and you'll be switched to the professional track. If you're in the professional track, we want you first to build a demonstrate. If you're ready for the more advanced courses so you need to have nine credits in advanced courses, and they have to be at an average of halfway between a and a be. So, we want to, you need to be able to demonstrate that you're doing very well in that in order to transfer to the, the regular track. So those are the main difference in the tracks there. So one of the things to talk to you about there's something that's not really academic, and it's completely optional, but at the end of the second week of class. All the graduate students in our program, and the professors invited over to my house for an informal sort of get together there'll be plenty of food. And usually whether committee will be outside and my house is across the street from the university where you'll be taking your courses and meeting professors and things like that so it can't be more convenient. People park farther away from. People live in order to go to the building so people will park four blocks away and I'm just across the street so we actually rent out our garage to a professor of computer science because we're so convenient for that. So, I recommend you come to that it's as it's completely optional doesn't affect anything academically but it is nice to meet other people and meet some people informally and get to know people in a more interaction. So, other things when you are starting if one of the first things you need to do is, and you can do this already right now and some of you have already started is working on your undergraduate requirements assessment. And so this is for people to make sure that they have the proper background to take graduate courses. And so the, this is a form where we did look at what you've taken as an undergrad and see if that matches with the courses we want people to have. If it matches good, and if it doesn't match that's fine, you can take the course here at UWM and most cases, it can count towards your program here. And you want to do that now, as opposed to waiting for a while because sometimes people have found they want to graduate and turns out oh you never took you know computer science 317. And now you have to delay your graduation. And for many students that's a big inconvenience and it can be very expensive to so want to make sure that you filled out that form you do that with with your advisor, you use bring use your informal transcripts from your undergraduate. And we figured out what courses you need to take. And then you can start looking at what courses you want to take in the fall. And unlike many programs. If you don't have a list of courses given to you, you need to select your own courses that make sense I mean there are some courses you'll be required because of your undergraduate requirements, but other things you're going to just, you have to decide what are you interested in, and you look at what courses are available and what courses you think you'll be ready to take so on the one hand. You have them set for you, you know you have to figure it out on your own. On the other hand you get to choose the courses are more interesting to you. So, in the later part of the program will be a chance of asking questions I was just trying to talk about some of the main things here, and want to welcome you again to UWM, and I'd like to introduce our next speaker who is tonight. He is a student, existing student in our master's program he started here in the spring semester, which is January here in Milwaukee and so he can tell you about how one survives the cold here in Milwaukee. So, Pranay, are you ready to join on and give a brief introduction. Yes, thank you, Professor John Bullen. So, hello all. So, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all the audience member across the time zone. I'm really excited to be a part of this esteemed panel. So, here my role is in this panel is to give you the insights about what is the students perspective on how UWM looks. So, I know that it's actually a high time as days are approaching and taking the decision which college to finance and it's one of the most now reckon thing I totally get that, because I was there in that position. But for me personally while choosing Milwaukee there were very specific reasons for me such as such as like a student to faculty ratio so it's like one inch to 25 so we have more teachers attention as a student so back in India we don't have because it's like around for one teacher we have around 90 students so it's very hard to get that attention like I personally get here. So after that, you didn't have the reputation of being in our one research listing, it means that you have a more option or more options to do research with your favorite subject and the professor who is dealing with those kind of subjects. And lastly, I had a financial option or like I was awarded with the students Chancellor was so that is the kind of conditional scholarship so which helps me to cover some portion of my piece. So here in UWM we have classes like mixed classes like in in person and online for the first semester when I came in spring semester. I have taken two in person classes and one online class. So I personally don't prefer online class but after coming to UWM it actually changed their perspective because now I'm actually more comfortable to take online class because how UWM deals with online class how and how the checks and balances they have put in that online class so that it can be provided as smooth as possible. So for me, I have taken 535 that is a design analysis course offered by Professor Christian Chang, and she's excellent professor so I have taken that course online because there was no in person chance. So as you know for a computer science students it's a very crucial subject design analysis, so I was bit skeptical at the beginning it's like it's online class will it be okay or I should have taken some other semester or something. But after attending the first day of the lecture itself I was like that this is going to be something good and something big because the efforts that have been put for that online class like how professor is going. Doing all the things you can do to make the class as lively as possible. So as a student, my responsibility was to give my side of the foot. So what we have, I have done is I have connected the class to a team and invited my roommates over and like we are trying to replicate that kind of class environment around us. So it's like giving a professor is also putting their efforts and we have to put our efforts, which more about that going that extra mile to achieve things. So, after that, I want to share that share the story behind how I got this opportunity in this panel. So I had a subject user intelligent interface offered by Professor Susan McRoy, and she's the head of the department or chair of the department sorry, and by the end of this semester. So in the subject we had a requirement we have to submit a project as a final assessment. So Professor asked us to just show her the working prototype of the project whatever we are proposing. So I formed a six member team with my roommates and friends. So, how do you show them. I know you're certain from there. So we collectively decided to make a web application where upcoming international students can give the GRE IEL and CGPA. And my machine learning model will give split out the 10 colleges which is suited for your profile like safe university and ambitious university. So for this project we as a team didn't compromise anyway. See, we don't want to just show our project in a local host or something we wanted that project to be done, means we want to deploy it in a real time by the project deadline. So, for like a few for the last six to seven days library became our new home for our whole team. So in this whole team we are like everyone was contributing some part of the like everyone. So it's like, by the end, we submitted the project and we actually submitted the whole, we deployed the whole thing and we gave that project to professors. So she was impressed and after a few days she invited me in this panel like, okay fine you all work in this project so I guess you will be better suited to give your perspective to how UWM is. So it's like, it's giving it's about giving it a 10% like going that extra mile as I said earlier. So I personally believe that UWM has that kind of platform to support whatever adventure you want to pursue in your journey. So it's like, I had so many memorable moments so after that I got into part time. So I was like, as I said we have we can apply for jobs in handshakes and all but for me, I've got job through a newsletter so it's a new weekly newsletter you get in your UWM email address. So in that at the last section it was mentioned in Dean's office there is an opening position. So I mailed them and they responded and we had entry. So I was fortunate enough I got the job so for now I have my personal office and I have an option between choosing work from home or coming to office and do work there. So it has their own perks and then send off. So after that, it's all about like grabbing those opportunities it's not like they will give it to you or something but the opportunities will be there. So it's your responsibility to go and get that opportunity and secure for yourself. Apart from academics, the city of Milwaukee it's actually you will enjoy the city it's not like overfilled but it's like me coming from India I had a very different perspective because there are less people here but you will enjoy this environment. And recently we had a fourth of July event so it was very beautiful. Me and my friends went to Veteran Park to actually see the fireworks back in India we used to see it in use like fireworks happening in USA but experiencing with the in first hand it was really good. And after that, as an international student one of the biggest worry would be getting housing and how the food will be. So for me, housing I was fortunate enough so I got context from groups and all I guess you are all being part in this WhatsApp group or some other telegram group or something. So I got in touch with my senior and I got that housing option as early as possible because that is the one, if you secure your housing you will be in peace like okay fine, now I can work on different things. So after that, another biggest worry was like how the food will be so will I be adjusted because back in India I have a very different cuisine because I was born in Chennai so there we have a different kind of food and I moved to New Delhi. There is a different kind of food and after that I studied in different places like Andhra and Bangalore so we have a different food over there. So I was worried like will I be adjusted over here because I had a very different platter of food there. So when I came here in Milwaukee you don't believe me I didn't miss that much of food like if I needed Indian food I can go across the street and get the Indian food. It's like if I want to get Chinese food or something I have a Chinese restaurant across the street so it's like you won't miss out that much. So I hope for the upcoming students coming for fall so I can assure you that you will enjoy the city and you will enjoy the UWM culture itself. So it's like it's all run by students so you will definitely enjoy it. So I hope I will meet you in person as much as possible. So thank you so much for giving me this opportunity so if I miss anything just let me know in the FAQ section. Thank you so much. Thank you so much really appreciate the students perspective of being at UWM that's wonderful. Okay so that's kind of the end of our prepared marks we are reserving the rest of the session to answer your questions. So if you have any questions you'd like any of us to address, please put them into the chat. In the meantime while we're waiting for some questions to come in a couple of reminders. If you could please go to your zoom account and take a look at the name that is showing up for you on your screen. If you could change that to the name that you used when you apply to WM so that we can take note that you are here. Our engineering program has these really amazing engineering pens it's a pen with engineering tools attached to it. And they'd really like to make sure you get one as a reward for attending the session but in order to do that. We need to know that you're here so if you could change your name to the name on your application that way, we can keep track of who's attending the session and make sure we connect with you and get you that gift when you arrive on our campus. As we go through the Q&A section. Please just again remind you to keep your cameras off and your microphones muted it makes a much nicer experience for everyone. But go ahead and put your questions in chat and we will make sure that we answer them. So I know that we have at least a few questions in our chat so far. So let me start with those. The first question of the day was about the documents that need to be submitted after arriving to UWM and when to submit them so there's a couple of different things here that are important for you. And so the first is related all the stuff related to your admission to WM and your visa status so first of all when you arrive in the US, you should go to that website that I sent you that I to bless connect site login to it and you'll see that there's an opportunity for you to click on something that is about arrival and check in. So there's a process that you're going to need to follow you can only do it after you've arrived in the US. So wait until you get here, and then within a couple of days do that so part of that process is going to include uploading pictures of your documents so you're going to have your I 20 your visa stamp, and then you're going to log into that I called an I 94, which is the document that officially shows that you entered the US and your F one visa status will give you instructions on how to find all of these things so don't worry. But you're going to log into that I triple S connect and you are going to complete that arrival check in process you'll have an online virtual meeting with someone from the International Student Office to go through your documents make sure that you have your documents in order, answer any questions that you have help you with any next steps that you need to do and and give you directions on anything that you're missing at that point. All of you for word. If you remember when you apply to WMR application system allowed you to upload your transcripts directly into the application. Because you uploaded copies of them they were all considered unofficial copies. So all of you are admitted on the condition that you provide your original final transcripts to us upon arrival to campus so that's one of the things you'll need to take care of. As part of that arrival check in process, the person from the International Student Office will go over this requirement with you, but essentially you'll need to bring your hard copy final transcript to the International Student Office. We can take a scan of it so you can keep the original but we need to physically see the transcript documenting that you in fact completed your previous degree before coming to you WM. Excuse me. And then the, the other thing that you're going to make sure that you need to submit that you can start working on now is that you're going to need to work with a computer science program to submit that form that compares you to coursework you took as an undergraduate and make sure that they are satisfied with the requirements to make sure that you're taking the right classes moving forward this is the form that Dr Boiland referred to earlier. And you want to make sure that that is done upon your arrival at UWM so that you're not discovering later but it wasn't taken care of. Okay. Let's see. Dr Boiland we have someone who's asking for more explanation about the differences between the regular and professional track. So which one is that in particular let's see the person talking about taking the computer studies 751. That is I think related to the same question. There's actually just towards the very top of the questions just it literally just says can you once more explain about the difference between the regular and professional track. Okay, this is also on the there's a FAQ list for this but they let's see. The regular track is for people who are considering going on for the PhD afterwards. It has it's more stringent admission requirements, and it has it requires you to take all your courses in computer science and they more of them need to be at 700 level. The regular track allows you to do nine credits which are not computer science, and it also has lower requirements for admission you don't have to have a computer science degree coming in. And it also doesn't require quite so many credits at the 700 level. Those are sort of the academic differences between the two tracks. Does someone also ask what is the total number of credits that needs to be required to complete the masters. That would be 31 credits. Okay. And then while you're on we have another question that would be best addressed by you it says I've been advised to take the computer science 317 the summer but unfortunately was unable to enroll on time. What other options might I have at does UWM consider mooks like Coursera certificates from other accredited universities. Yeah, that's a very good question. 317 is one of the few courses on undergraduate requirements that you cannot get credit for for your program and so getting it done through the somewhere else is actually beneficial. What you should do is talk to Professor Christine Chang, and Lisa will put her email see Chang at UWM EDU. She is teaching 317 this fall, and especially if students already have some background in the material. What we often recommend is that you ask permission to audit the course where you don't have to pay for it. But you do all the exams, and as long as you get 70% on the exams, then you can have the requirement waived that might be the best approach if you or if you have a mooks and we can't consider it as academic credit. Professor Chang would know exactly how to do that and then she would write to your advisor and say hey this person has met the requirement or this person will be auditing in that way. Thank you. We have, you get to stay on for a minute we've got a couple more for you here. So we've got one here, and I want to emphasize that this person is wishing to shift from the, from the professional track to the regular track, but then has questions about a course so the additional track level to student with a CS 351 deficiency. Dr Boil and previously mentioned that computer science 751 would cover that, and would also award credits I wish to shift to the regular track can I take computer science 751 in the first semester itself. That's computer studies that from 51, which is very confusing. No, no, no, no. Yes, just just to. It's not technically computer science course, but computer studies 751 counts towards the regular masters also. And it also counts as an advanced course for that purpose so, as I said you need nine credits of advanced courses in computer studies 751 would be an excellent course for that purpose not only doesn't satisfy the undergraduate requirement, but it also satisfies one of the nine credits towards the advanced credits you need to get transferred to the regular track. Great. I'm going to study form mandatory before enrolling for fall 22 classes and if so how do how to fill in the form for future classes. Now also a very good question. We have two forms is the undergraduate requirements assessment, and that one is basically mandatory for your first semester. In the program of study you should do in your second semester usually, and that's after you have a sense of what you're going to do. And then the question is how do you, when your program of study you're saying what you're going to take in fall 2023. And we haven't even created the schedule for that. You just put in what you would like to take and hope to take for those later courses so it's looking forward to what would your plans be for doing the program of study, but no the program of studies not mandatory before your first or even your second semester. Great. So we have a student who's listed out several different I think five different classes. I'm taking these classes and my undergraduate requirement can they be used to meet the credit requirement of the master's program. As I mentioned there all but 317 can count towards the master's and computer study 750 can count towards the professional masters. It does not count towards the regular masters for 751 535 and 537 they will all count to both tracks of the master's. Okay, we have a question about how the online class works. For example, computer studies 751 has an online section from when Monday and Wednesday from 930 to 1030 does this mean you need to attend the virtual class at that time frame. What if I have a full time job and cannot attend the virtual class and daytime is there any work around. Good question. I'm a little nervous because I'm pretty I'm teaching that course and I thought it was Tuesday, Thursday, but maybe it is one day Wednesday so I only to check my schedule to make sure that get my I haven't quite made the syllabus for this semester so I will find out. The first study 751, as you said has synchronous online which means you're expected to show up to the class in lecture basically the lecture is broadcast on zoom and I have a TA who is there answering question this is very specific to thus this course, my course so if you're talking about some other course I would have no idea but this is the course I teach so I am able to say what that is this course also says that you are not technically required to show up for these synchronous sessions except on the first day of class, and during both days in the midterm week, but that is unusual most online courses will require you to attend. You will miss out on quite a bit, but you need to work it out with the instructor that would be me. So, you would talk with me about that so. But no technically this it does not require you to attend except for the first day and during the midterm. At other times you probably want to attend, but talk with me in in a smaller setting. Great. Thank you. Is a graduate seminar mandatory for professional track students and if yes give a brief about it. Yes, it is mandatory. The current catalog calls it computer science 700 that course no longer exists. It is now EAS 701. This is a mandatory seminar class about doing graduate work in. It is the same class used by all engineering students. This class is very useful for you preparing for your graduate studies it tells you about how to handle American standards of plagiarism and things like that, which is very important because otherwise you can get into trouble that you weren't expecting. We recommend you take this is is early and feasible your first or second semester if you can, but it just needs to be taken before you graduate in both tracks require EAS 701. Great thank you for this fall term there aren't enough graduate courses available to register most of the classes are already full can you suggest any way to register into courses. This is a very good question. I apologize for this we've had a real growth and we weren't expecting quite so many people to show up. So, our chairs been looking at adding more sections and also increasing the size of sections. So what you need to do is contact the instructor if an instructor is given. If there is no instructor given contact the chair Professor Susan McRoy and say you're really interested in taking you know, whatever course is, and could their space be available, and sometimes it's possible to increase the section size. So, contact me if you don't get any help with either those things, and I can try to work with you will see what we can do. Great. All right, we've got one more question for you and then I will take over for just a bit. This is, are there any mandatory core courses that are required to be taken in any specific semester. That is a good question. The program is pretty open. And the one thing is that almost all students need to take computer science 535, which historically is often offered only in the spring semester. So, it's not like you have to take it in your first year or second year it's just that the course tends to be offered only in the spring semester so just keep that in mind. We'll be back with some more questions. Yes, don't get too comfortable because I'm sure we'll have you back. Thank you to everyone that's submitting these just fantastic questions really appreciate this discussion. I'm going to address a couple of the questions here before I do just a reminder if you haven't done it already. Please take a look at the name on your zoom account and change it to the name that you apply to be almost so that we can keep track of who's here. The questions coming they're fantastic so I'm going to take a couple of them. The first is to please explain a little bit more about campus on campus jobs. So first of all, let me just address that if you're coming to UWM on an F1 student visa. You do have some restrictions unemployment so you are allowed to work on campus up to 20 hours per week. You're not allowed to work off campus without special permission. There are lots of jobs available on our campus for international students that are looking for on campus work. They're typically able to find something, but it really can vary in what is available. So Pranay, our student who joined us today, he was able to get an on campus job that was working in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Dean's office. And so he is doing some kind of daily administrative tasks that help the college function, but he is doing things that are related to international students. And so he is doing some kind of daily administrative tasks that help the college function, but he is doing things that are related to engineering and applied sciences. There are all sorts of opportunities on our campus. Some students will do things like that work in an office. Other students might work in the library. We might have students that are working in on campus, you know, restaurants or housing facilities or there's just all sorts of opportunities. So it really depends on what you're interested in doing. If you are able to secure something like an assistantship or some other kind of financial support, keep in mind that that is employment. So if you have some kind of support like that, that does count towards your minimum allowed time on campus to work. So again, 20 hours per week when classes are in session, full time over the summer, but on campus only. There are a couple of other work opportunities that you may be a little bit familiar with that I'm going to just give you the briefest of information on. The first is called curricular practical training also known as CPT, which is a benefit of the F1 visa status. So as an F1 student, you have the possibility of getting CPT permission, which gives you permission to work off campus. It's typically related to taking like an internship, something like that. When you come to UWM, you'll complete an orientation program for new F1 students that will give you all the details on CPT. Just keep in mind that it's not guaranteed. You do have to apply for it and you do have to get permission before you can start working. So if you do get an opportunity to do some really fantastic internship or something, make sure that you're checking in with the International Student Office to verify how you can make that happen, how you can get the permission so that you can do it and still maintain your visa status. The US government takes employment very, very seriously and if you work and you don't have permission, it's really fast way to lose your visa status and have to leave the US. So make sure that you're taking care of that and getting the permission that you need. Also keep in mind that you're not going to be eligible for CPT until you've been at UWM in valid F1 status for one academic year. So if you're starting this fall, the first time that you would be eligible to even consider CPT would be the following May, right? So after the fall and the spring semesters. The other work opportunity that a lot of our F1 students take advantage of is optional practical training, also called OPT. It's a similar thing to what we were talking about, but it's designed typically for after you've graduated. So you graduate with your degree, it gives you the opportunity to get 12 months of work permission in the US. And then if your degree is STEM designated, which it is for all of you in computer science, after one year you'll have the possibility of extending it for an additional two years. So three years of work permission after you graduate. Again, complicated, lots of rules. Pay attention to the information provided by the International Student Office and they will help you through that process. Okay. UWM uses a system on our campus, a program called Handshake that's a software that allows campus jobs to be posted. So if you're looking for on-campus work, I would recommend going to the UWM website. Search the word Handshake and it will take you to the database that you can log into to find potential on-campus opportunities. Keep in mind that not everything is listed in there. Sometimes you can identify things through connections or word of mouth or just asking around of other opportunities. But Handshake is a really great place to start. Okay. Someone asked a question, can we audit any course for free? Auditing is actually a pretty complicated process on our campus and you can't just audit whatever you want. There's all sorts of rules in place about how full the class is and all sorts of different things. And so what I would recommend is you go to the UWM website and just search for the word audit class and you'll find information about what that means and what it looks like. But keep in mind that even if you do audit a class, it would be for your own personal knowledge and it's not going to count towards any degree requirement. So you can't audit a class and then expect it to fulfill a requirement that you need in order to graduate. We have a question about can we choose the number of credits as per our wish for every semester? Yes, within some limits, you get to choose the number of classes that you want to sign up for. Of course, the more classes you take, the faster you can complete the requirements. However, it's important to remember a couple of things. First of all, as an F1 visa holder, you are required to be enrolled full time. So as a graduate student, you must have at least eight credits. Now, most of the credit, most of the classes in your program are three credit classes, so which means most of you will have a minimum of three different classes or nine credits. But you are allowed to go more than that. What I will caution you though is to be careful because at the graduate level, these classes are very, very difficult and intense and having too many classes can really challenge your ability to be successful. There is a limit to the number of classes that you can take. There is a point when they won't allow you to enroll more, but I really would highly recommend and I don't know if Dr. Boylan has any opinion on this, but nine credits or 12 at the absolute most in your first semester would be recommended. You need to get here and become comfortable with the American education system before you start overloading yourself because in order to be successful, you really need to be able to have the time. We see unfortunately a lot of students will will make the mistake of thinking I'm going to get out of here as fast as I can. And then it's too much and they're unable to be successful in all of their classes and it affects their experience and it affects their GPA and it affects their ability to assimilate to the community. It affects their ability to make connections which we're going to lead to the internship and post graduation job opportunities and so don't go crazy your first semester have nine to 12 credits at most. Just make sure that you have at least eight because that's required by your visa status. And Dr. Boylan I heard you agreed with what I said. Yeah, that's right. In fact, 10 credits makes sense if you do the three courses plus that one credit of graduate seminar 12 credits. I would be a little worried about that it is possible to do that but if you're trying to go through fast I recommend 10 your first semester then 12 your second semester is the way to do it. Because if you start getting bad grades, then that's going to, that's, you may get kicked out of the program and everything will be lost. It's just not worth it. Agreed, wonderful. Okay. Um, so it looks like the next couple of questions I think that we have already addressed. Let's see. I think we have one here, Dr. Boyland ES 701 is effective academic writing and ES 702 is preparing future engineering faculty and professionals which one. Do we have to take the people professional track, take these ES 701, which is one credit people who are in the thesis track of the regular doing the thesis and the regular track need to take both of them. Okay. We have continued questions here about how to get into classes that are closed. We've got specifically I'm interested in computer science 790 cloud computing, and they're asking for a recommendation on who they could contact. Yes, for any course that doesn't give the instructor you contact the chair, Professor Susan McRoy and Lisa McGovern has put the the email her email in there, McRoy UWM EDU. She's in charge of all courses that don't have a don't have a structure yet. I want to go ahead and jump ahead to one another question on the same topic saying, is this going to be every semester that everything gets full all the time. This is the first time I've noticed that everything was full so quickly. It is a combination of great interest, and also that we have a low point in the number of professors right now, we're in the process of hiring one professor right now and we're have permission to start hiring another professor. So, we're hoping that this will this tight spot this fall will not be repeating every single semester. And also, as I said, you need to contact the instructor. Contact the chair if they don't get back to you contact me because we want to make sure you're able to get at least some course that makes sense for your program. You may not be able to get the most exciting data science course it's the one that everyone wants to take, but you should be able to get a course that makes sense for your program. Great, thank you. Can non it students apply for a TA. I don't think so. They can apply sometimes to be a greater. So that would be contacting the chair to say hey interesting grading. We usually only want students who who have had experience in the courses are grading though so it's not good to have some grading papers who doesn't actually know that the material well so great. Do they need a grade of be in order to pass a graduate course. I didn't answer that, but I know you don't need a grade of the I think it's a C minus is it Jen would you know. Yeah, the I think C minus is is considered passing for a core. In order to remain in good standing as a graduate student you need to have an overall GPA of a 3.0 which is an average of a be. So you can have a poorer grade in one class but overall you need to have an average grade of a 3.0 GPA which is equivalent to a be. Yes, so if you're getting a C. You need an aid to balance that in order to keep in good standing in the program and you don't want to be if you're getting B minus as in C's it's not looking good. Yep. Okay, I'm going to take a couple of questions here and then Pranay get ready because we've got a question for you coming up next. Someone asked a question about any medical requirements coming to WM. And that in itself does not require that students have any proof of particular vaccinations or anything like that. That being said there are a couple of sort of exceptions and then and then another big exception. So generally speaking we don't have any requirements, except if you're going to live on campus so if you're living on our campus or some of our graduate students choose to live. It's called Kennelworth, and Kennelworth is on campus housing and they will require that you have proof of particular immunizations. If you're living on campus you need to have a signed contract with Kennelworth and in the contract it will specify exactly which requirements are needed for that because you're not required to provide anything to us. We do recommend that you bring with you your medical history documents so that in case there's an emergency you've got those here with you, but we're not going to make you show us anything. That said as we you know continue to learn how to live in our post COVID world. There is the opportunity, or there has been the opportunity right for students and faculty and staff to provide information to the campus about being immunized so you want to potentially have those with you. So you can provide that if needed. And then the big thing and this is really important this is not a UWM requirement, but the US federal government does require that you be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to enter the US and so what I would do is contact their airlines they probably they I know that they have information on their website with clear information about what that requirement looks like, but they're not even going to let you on the plane to come here if you can't provide a documentation that you are immunized. And if you haven't started your immunization process I would recommend you check into that immediately because many of the vaccines require two different doses that have to be timed out apart. Time is getting short so if you haven't started that process I would recommend you start doing that immediately to make sure you have time to get both, not only both doses in but then there has to be a particular amount of time after the second dose in order to be considered fully immunized so check with the airline that you would potentially be flying to the US with. They have this information on their website you can also look the university United States CDC has a website that gives the information about those requirements. Okay. And then there was one other question that I wanted to answer quickly is, and that is about a co op option so students are asking if we have co op. So UWM does not have an organized co op. So there is not going to be any organized guarantee placement and into any kind of internship experience. However, that being said, most of our faculty have really amazing connections to industry in the community. And so most of our students but are interested in having those experiences can find them. So there's a lot of good opportunities there but we don't have an organized co op. So I'm delighted to say that we have a question for you if you would mind coming back and talk about get what it's like getting around in the community of Milwaukee what is public transport like, and is the commute to the university convenient. Thank you so much. Next question. So that's a great question before coming to Milwaukee I had the same question like will the transportation system will be there to reach university or any other place. But I'm very fortunate to tell that in UWM we will be provided with the bus pass. So here we have like a bus system, and it's actually well connected. So to actually use this bus system like how to go from your place and to the university we have a Google Maps in that we have a specific section called bus transport. So in that just enter the destination and point of where you're starting from, and it will show you the list of buses and what are the possible routes. So how can you reach your university or any other destination. So I didn't understand the value of the bus bus until unless when the summer vacation start I didn't enroll for any summer classes. So they said the bus bus will stop. Then I was like okay fine let's see how much actually the past will cost so for my surprise I got to know it was for every month, we have to pay around $25. So that is the actual kind of money you're saving up for your transport. Great, thank you stay on per name we've got a couple more questions for you. Someone is asking about how you balance your class studies with working on campus. That's a really great question so as Jen mentioned earlier for our as an international student we have per week 20 hours work requirements so what I did was I used to work like six hours shift every day. So it's like whenever I don't have any class I used to go for work and try to cover my six hour schedule or seven hours so seven, seven, 14 hours and last six hours I used to put. So, after that, actually you have to make sure that you're allocating sufficient time for your academics also because for first semester itself, I took 535 course design analysis it's actually it requires a lot of time, you have to put a lot of efforts into that. Whenever my part time is over when I come home, eat and my roommates and friends are ready to dwell into the assignment of 535. So, I'm for me I personally found that balance means time management thing so where you fit all the schedule like it's not like only about studies or something. You can do other kind of actually so I would highly recommend it's all about how do you manage the time so for me I used to write a schedule and try to stick on to it. And every morning if I get up I just stop by things what I need to achieve in the day and by the end of the day I will try to make sure to complete all those things. So, at the end, it boils down to how good you are at managing the time. Thank you. While you're on we've got one more question for you are there any good Indian restaurants around UWM. Actually, there is one good restaurant I would recommend that is Maharaja place. They offer buffet system and other kind of general meals also. So, we have plenty of Indian restaurant options just in Google you can search. What are the Indian restaurants in Yemen you will get a plenty of them and they're actually very good. I thought I'll miss most of my Indian food like some of us and find with these kind of favorite food but after coming here I didn't find that kind of difference I like when I'm when I'm craving for those kind of food I just search nearby places and go there and get those things. So yeah, nothing to worry about that. Great. Thank you so much. Jen before I leave I got one direct question I guess I can I hope that yeah please do. So someone said, I heard that cap services is all free or all over the Milwaukee with our Panther student ID. Is it true. Actually, it's not. We have a cap service but it's like that is provided by our campus so we call it as a boss beyond a safe place. We don't have a timing for summer we have like a seven to 12 and for fall and spring semester we have a different time like it starts from evening six o'clock and entered late night 2am. So, those caps are provided by UWM and you have a very specific cap we call it as a type type right app. So you have to log into that app and you can book in that app only it's not like you book Uber and you showed your UWM card and it's not like that. So, if you have a very specific and we have to log into that and you have to order from that. It's not like every cab is free for UWM students. I hope I cleared that. That's great. Thank you so much. I'm going to just one final question and I think that's going to bring us to the end of our session today someone asked about tuition and fees for fall 22. I just put a link into the chat that takes you to the UWM website. We have a site called one stop shop. That's that provides you with all of the general information you need about the university. So that's the page that shows you the information about tuition and fees. What's interesting about UWM is that we are part of a state system. And so we are bound by some rules that are set by our system. And one of those interesting rules is that they don't finalize our tuition amounts until close to when this semester begins. So you'll see that page, the last tuition amounts that are listed are for summer of 22 fall 22 is not listed yet. That's because they have not been formally announced as soon as they are that page will be updated with the fall amounts, but you can imagine you can assume that they're going to be very, very similar to the spring amounts or the or the summer amount so you can take a look at those previous terms to get a sense of what it's going to be. So this modeling at UWM is kind of confusing and a lot of other places in the world. When you sign up for a program like a masters in computer science there's one fee that you pay so you go in knowing exactly what it's going to cost. The US education system doesn't work that way and it depends on what you sign up for. So when you go into the tuition and fee information you'll see that there's a table for graduates level classes. You pay both a tuition amount and what's called the segregated fees. And it depends on the number of credits that you sign up for. And there's what we have we have what's called a plateau that means once you reach a certain number, the cost remains the same, and it goes up and to make it even more complicated it's not the same amount of money per credit. So if you look at if you're signing up for just one course for example, the amount of money that you pay per credit is actually higher than the amount that you pay per credit if you're registering for say nine classes. And so you really need to to reference that chart. So you'll be paying the tuition again as an F one student you need to have at least eight credits. And so you can that can help guide you with an expectation of cost plus you're also going to be paying the segregated fee that you'll also find on the chart the segregated fee is the fee that pays for all of the extras that you get as a student while you're here access to our athletic facility all sorts of activities that kind of thing. And then some classes also have additional fees so when you go to register for classes and the online catalog. When you look at the class if there's an additional fee specific for that class it'll be listed there as well. That is why it's really challenging to tell students exactly what it's going to cost because there are so many different factors. Don't forget in addition to that as an F one student you're also required to have health insurance and so that will be automatically build you in your pause account when you register for classes. Okay, I think we've covered an enormous amount of information today and we're at the end of our time and so in order to be thoughtful about everyone schedules going to end this session. So I want to thank everyone for coming today we're super excited to have you on our campus this fall we know it's coming up very quickly some of you are already booking your plane tickets and getting those plans ready if you have any questions. I highly encourage you to reach out to us. I know that Prené and Dr Boylan and myself are all willing to take questions by email if there's something that you didn't have a chance to ask today. I will make sure my contact information is in the chat box of this. Before we sign out. Also, our engineering program will be sending out a follow up email after this is done that has our contact information in it and a link to the recording of the session in case you want to go back to review it. Prené, thank you so much for joining us we always really appreciate the student perspective on these sessions. That is what is the students are really most looking for so thank you, and Dr Boylan thank you so much for your insight into the program. Students we look forward to seeing you this fall. Let us know if you have any questions and thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.