 Welcome everyone. My name is Jen Singer and I am from the International Student Office at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I'm so happy that all of you could join us today. You are currently admitted to the master's program in computer science at UWM. Congratulations to all of you. I know how hard you've worked to get to this point. I'm super excited about having you here. Looking forward to having you on our campus in spring. Wanted to do an online session today just so that we could introduce ourselves, give you some information, share some fun stories, and then also give you the opportunity to ask your questions directly to us. So I'm going to host the session today. I'm going to get started and share some information. Before we start with the content of the presentation, a few housekeeping items. If you could please as you are participating in this session, we're requesting that people that are not presenting to keep your cameras off and your microphones muted. It makes a much nicer experience for everyone else in the call. So this is an opportunity at the end to ask any questions that you want. We ask that you ask your questions through the chat function. So in zoom you'll have, you should have the ability on your screen to submit information through the chat. Be sure to send your question to everyone so we can all see it. And then those on the call today will answer the questions as they come in and make sure that everybody gets the information they need. So it's important to us to know who we have here today so a request from our end please. If you see on your zoom account you have the ability to change your name. If the name on your account right now is not the same as the name that you use to apply to you WM please change it for us so we know who's here. WM has these really amazing engineering pens it's a pen like the kind you write with but it has all sorts of really amazing cool engineering tools built into it and we are happy to provide one to you. When you arrive on our campus, but the way that we know to give it to you is by knowing that you attended this session so it's really important to us if you could please change the name on your screen, so that we know who's here. It would be super helpful for us. Okay. I'm going to get started with sharing some specific information so again my name is Jen singer and I'm from the international admissions team, which is part of the International Student and Scholar Services Office at UW Milwaukee. Many of you have sent or received emails from I SSS at UWM.edu that I SSS is the International Student and Scholar Services Office so that's coming from me or my team. And so we have been working with you to get you here and we're super excited. Before we get send out some information about specifically about our computer science program. I wanted to start with some general information that we provide to all of our new international students because it's important that you know where to find the information you need. So I'm going to share my screen. So, can you verify for me please when you can see my, my screen. Yeah, I can see yours. Okay, thank you. So this site, many of you should already be familiar with. It's known as I SSS connects it's a site that you go to, to find information as a newly admitted international students. It's also the site that you go and log into to provide your documents in order to get your new. You can find any so that you can apply for your visa. I can drop the link to this page in the chat when I'm done speaking so in case you're not how not sure how to find it yet you can get there easily. So this page has a lot of interesting information that you will use while you're here as a current student, but for right now the most important part is this top bar on the left the newly admitted students. So this is the information that we have up on our website for you to prepare your arrival at UWM, and I'd like to point out that we have some upcoming online sessions. These are designed for all of our new international students so not just those in computer science but in all of the other majors as well including graduate and undergraduate students. On Tuesday, we have one that is just a general session where we'll talk about all of the details for new students, and then the next day on Wednesday the 24th. We're also hosting an online session that will be specifically devoted for on campus housing options so students are interested in living in dormitories on UWM's campus we're going to have the session. We'll have someone leading that session from our campus housing office so if you're interested in those, you are welcome to join us you'll find the information and the links right here on the front page. If you go down at the bottom of this page we have all sorts of really important information here. I'm not going to go through the details of all of this but I just want to highlight a couple of important things. The first is this first bar if you click on it you get other options where you can get it and then you click on these and it will take you to specific information for you to let us know what you're doing so if you click on come in person for example. It will give you some information about what it means to arrive and what it's like to study here in person, or if you want to start online from home if you need to defer, or if you decide to decline you can find all of that information here. Additionally, we have a really nice student arrival calendar that you can go to that has all of the important information that you need as an international student including some housing deadlines and orientation dates and things like that. There's this button called action required now for all students so as soon as you're admitted this is information you should be looking at. The first thing you should do is set up your E panther ID and UW email, join us on social media, and then get your I 20 so that you can begin the process of applying for your visa. Again, I'll send you the link I'll put the link in the chat so that you can go to the site yourself, but this is information that you should be reading through and exploring as soon as you can. Before you arrive to campus there's all sorts of different things that you can do and you can find that information here. And things that you need to do after you arrive. We do have all of our previous sessions recorded and available so the sessions we're offering next week if you're unable to make them we will put the recording of that here so you'll be able to find it and watch it on your own. And then at the bottom, we do have information on how you can contact us so we could email call, we are able to send chat messages to us or you can make an appointment to meet with somebody virtually one on one. Before I hand it over to the next section there's one thing in particular that I want to address. If you're looking on our website and you're looking for information in more detail than what I'm about to tell you. There is this section here about things to do, prepare to arrive and there's a section about COVID-19 vaccination before, before travel. I'd like to address that right now because it's a really important issue for those of you that are planning to come in spring. That is that you may have heard that recently within the last couple of weeks the US has announced a new policy that requires all travelers to the US to provide documentation on arrival to the US, that they are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and also have a negative COVID test in hand. This is really important because the vaccination process can take a while. So it depends on if you go to our website there's a link to the government site that has all the details. There's a lot of different vaccines out there that are approved and available so it depends on which one you're doing. But for most of them it requires two doses at least three weeks apart, plus an additional 14 days after the second dose. And so for most students this is going to take a minimum of about five to six weeks to get through this process. So if you're coming for spring and you're not already vaccinated, it's critical that you start this process now so that you have enough time to get through that entire process in order to arrive. This is a new policy. We haven't had a lot of experience with it so we're not sure how strict it will be. We're assuming it will be very strict. They're really emphasizing that additional 14 days after the second dose. So you need to make sure that you're getting through this process in a timeline that allows you to arrive for spring. Classes begin at the end of January and we are not going to be able to accept students late. And so you need to make sure that you get through this process and you get it started as soon as possible to make sure you have enough time. In addition to the documentation that shows that you have vaccinated for COVID, you also will have to provide a negative COVID test. Again, our website will take you to the government site that has all of the details because there's a lot of complicated scenarios that they outline and explain how that works. But just be prepared that in addition to all of the other things that you need to come, you're going to have to be prepared with that vaccination and negative result documentation. So enter the US, you go through passport control and that's the point that you're going to have to show that information. And all of the information we have at this point is that they're not going to allow you into the United States without it. So please make sure you're taking care of that. Again, I'll put the link to the website in the chat so you can check it out on your own. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to me. I'll do the best. I'll answer them the best that I can, or try and direct you to the information that you need. Okay. So with that, I'm going to pass it on to something a little bit more fun. I'm going to pass you over to a cough who is a current student at UWM. He's an international student in our master's computer science program. And I'm so excited that he's here and excited that he's willing to talk to you and share some of his experiences. So welcome a cough. Thank you. Thank you, Jen. So hello, people. How are you? I hope you'll be good. First of all, congratulations for getting the admit. I know like it will be a difficult time for you guys, you know, after going through all the process, GRE, IELTS and all of those things and finally getting an admit from the universities which you wanted. Now as like you just have your visa left. So best of luck for your visa. So first of all, I wanted to say a few things about Milwaukee, then I can move to, you know, how the university is and like what, what are the benefits of coming to this university. And yeah, so as you guys would be coming in the coming spring, you guys would be wondering it's going to be very cold over there and the temperature would be very low. Well, that's true. But that doesn't affect anything, you know, because in Milwaukee, I know winter is harsh, but mostly you guys would be staying indoors at your home. There would be heaters everywhere, you know, which make the room quite warm. And for traveling or whether community commuting to the universities, there are several shuttle buses over here which run very frequently. So you just have to wait in the bus where the bus stop and then you can directly go to the university in the bus, which also has heater services and after six o'clock in the evening, you know, our university has a service known as boss which is like similar to Uber which you can book from your app. Just the only thing is it's free. So after six o'clock, you can use pause to travel anywhere near the university within five kilometer radius. So it will be very, you won't be exposed to the, you know, cold outside very much. But it's just that you can't go out much like you can go out, but it's just that you can't roam outside during the winters. So that is one of the things but it's really manageable and it's one and you know, when sitting at your home and looking outside and all those snow, you will also feel really good, you know, like you'll be experiencing snow for the first time. And I feel everyone should have experience of living like in a snowy place, at least once. And yeah, and about the university. So our university, it provides a lot of different career opportunities to you. So depending on which field you're taking, I'm, I took, I can tell you more about computer science because you know, I am a computer science student. But I, as I have talked to other students to from my batch, you know, who are not computer science engineers, they also had a very good experience over here. So first of all, I wanted to say, like, what is good thing about being a UWM. So the courses, they're pretty much flexible. And you know, the courses are designed in such a way that you will once you take a prerequisite and after that, you will be taking the advanced version. So, you know, they offer the courses in such a way that a student gets enough time to complete a course, and then it's advanced version two. And all the courses over here, you know, they're really good. The assignments which you get over here, if you enroll in that course and if you do the assignments properly, you are going to have a very in depth idea of, you know, what the topic is. And whenever you will be applying for any job interviews or something, it will be really helpful to you because in UWM, the courses which they teach you, they, it's not very generic. It's about, you know, the assignments are designed in such a way that they will tackle some of the most fundamental, you know, questions or fundamental aspects of the topic. So, in a while interviewing, you'll be having a very comfortable time, like giving the interview. And secondly, in UWM in Milwaukee area, there are lots of good companies over here. And some of them are even Fortune 100 companies. And the best part about is that the people who work over there, they are also in UWM alumni. So they know how, how like, you know, the academics and how everything is at UWM. So when you will be applying to those companies for any internships or for any jobs, it will be, you know, it will be very easy for you to get in because, you know, those people know how UWM is, they know how what the student has gone through what courses he has taken. They have an idea about that courses too. So it will be very good for you if you apply to companies, you know, you'll have an advantage if you're applying to companies over here in Milwaukee. And trust me, there are at least, you know, 15 to 20, even 25 companies who are ready to, you know, give you internship opportunities and which have good job opportunities too. Then secondly, in UWM, as you know, I came in last spring 2020, so I didn't get much exposure to going outside, but as you guys will be coming here in person. So the campus is really great. And why I'm saying that is like, you know, it is pretty much organized and you will see some of the other activities happening in campus, you know, every day. So, which, you know, which is a small thing, but it actually, you know, helps you a lot. It actually helps you to, you know, reduce your stress a lot because, you know, when, while doing your part time jobs, going to the university, like going to classes then coming back and then going to class again, like the to and fro, like, which you have to move from your home to your university. So this small activities, they can really help us as a stress buster and the good part is you can get some gifts from that too. And another good thing is in Milwaukee, I'm just saying all the good things and there are not such cons over here just that it's winter. So that is a bit harsh, but you know, that is also manageable. And the, another good part about, you know, coming to UWM or to Milwaukee is in Milwaukee, the cost of living is very low. So it's like it's pretty much affordable. It is like, you know, I would say it would be like, just I would say one third of what you would be spending if you go to a big city like as in New York or somewhere, but cost of living in Milwaukee is pretty cheap and you can like manage all your expenses within like $500 including your rent, which is a big benefit because you can, that is pretty much affordable and you'll be making more money that while you're, while you'll be working on campus. So instead you will be also saving some money while, you know, studying to which is also great. And the thing is Milwaukee is very peaceful, like, you know, it's, it has got quite the vibe of being like, you know, what big cities are, and also at the same time it's pretty much peaceful, especially the area which we live in. And it's, you know, full of nature, full of everything. There is a beach, you know, just 10 minutes from the university or like from anywhere which you leave, because generally all of the students in the first semester prefer living near the university. So the beach is just like 10 minutes walk. So whenever you feel like going out or having, you know, you're feeling stressed, you can just go out to the beach, sit over there and have a, you know, a good and relaxing environment over there. And as you know, you guys would be thinking winter is harsh, but you know, winter stays here only for six months, like not just six months to it's for somewhere around four to five months, the rest of the time it's summer. And summer is very, you know, it's very much living over here because it's, it's really good, it's full of nature or everything green. Yeah, so that is about Milwaukee and about UWM as I had told it has a great reputation, all of the, you know, industries, they know about it, the professors are really good, the courses, they are very much structured and you know, when you'll be there, the good part is like whenever you're applying to, you know, the companies which are not fortune 100. So that will be very much generic but the courses which they are, which are taught at UWM, they'll really help you to crack good, like if you do them properly the interviews will use a big firm like Google or Microsoft and when I'm saying that I'm actually saying that because like three of my friends they got into the fan companies like last semester. And even for me, I have also like career offers from three of the big firms, one of them is in Milwaukee and two of them are from Silicon Valley. And I got to do that because the courses are actually like that. It's just that once you have taken the courses you just need to revise it. And yeah, it's pretty much possible to you know, going into every company which you want, because the college offers you that and yeah, that's what I would like to say. Jen. Thank you. Do you have any comments that you'd like to make about the degree program itself. You're on the professional track. Is that correct. Yeah. Do you want to address that and and what that means. So I can tell you both about regular as well as professional first of all, for professional track it's for students who even though who are not from a computer science background like they had their bachelor's and some other background. So it's pretty much, you know, for the students who are who didn't have a undergrad in computer science. So this course is, you know, it's really good and I especially feel it good for the people who come in spring, because when you come in spring all your courses align very perfectly. And when you come in fall, it's a bit difficult, but it's manageable. But in spring when you come it's really easy, because you know, you have an opportunity to take the CS 251, which is like the mediocre Java course and which is really, you know, basic and which will help you a lot. When you'll be doing CS 351 or Compacity 751, which you'll be doing in the fall semester, which requires a good Java basic and that course, you know, it's about data structures and algorithms. And it teaches you data structures and algorithm in such a simple way that I believe like if you enroll in that course, you may never forget in your life like how data structures and like how they function. And then in the upcoming spring semester, you can like maybe enroll in CS 535, which is pretty much based on algorithms. So, you know, all of this courses, they align so properly that you will be interview ready. Like you will be, if you revise them continuously, you will be able to interview for any big firm. And then for regular students, that's also very good because you will be taking CS 535 now and then CS 704 later because CS 535 is offered only in spring. So you guys can enroll in CS 535 and then CS 704, which is a pre like which is a requirement for regular students. And I feel like for doing CS 704, if you do CS 535 first, it will be really helpful when you'll be doing CS 704. And that course is also very amazing because in that course, it's very, you know, advanced level at algorithms and that course is more than enough for, you know, cracking any big companies interviews like more than enough. And it's taught by Professor Cheng, which, you know, she teaches you in a very easy way, like it's really good. Then in here, there are several other courses to which you want to take, like if you want to take, if you're more into operating systems and Linux, then there is a course CS 537, which is taught by Professor Goyal, which is also really good. If you want to get into robot, how robot motion planning works or you're more into robotics and artificial intelligence, Professor Mali is there and Professor Mali has two courses, which even I took because I really loved the courses because, you know, they were more, you know, focused on mathematics and like I really love mathematics. So those courses also helped me a lot, you know, understanding how probability works and how different, you know, models of machine learning and robot motion planning works. So it's pretty much good. And like when you come in spring, the good part is like you guys would be wondering like you won't be able to do an internship in the coming semester because for doing an internship in summer, you need to be here for at least one full academic year. But that's not a problem because that's what happened to me and I invested my summer in, you know, for one month, I spent total in studying and building up my skills because I realized what skills people need in United States or what to, you know, get an interview to stand in the market. So I spent my first month of my first summer studying, then I went to Chicago, which is actually just a one hour drive from here. So you can move to Chicago, spend some time there, come back and explore Milwaukee because in summer as I told you, it's very lively and it's very, you know, you'll have lots of things to do. And then the good part is like in the next summer, as like I'll tell you my example in the next summer, I was able to enroll in that internship. Like I got a summer internship, so I did that internship. And the good part about coming in spring is that you guys would be graduating in next December. So when you will be doing your internship in summer. So you can extend that internship in the December month also, you know, which is really good because in total you'll be like in the like work in the workforce for continuously eight months, which is a great experience which will be a great add a great experience to you. And once you graduate in December, it will be easy for you to get a full time job from the company which we're interning in, which like, and there are several pros and cons to like, but the people who come in fall. So when they do their first internship in summer, they can't after that they'll be left with two semesters. So they can't do an internship on both of their semesters. So there is a gap between them. There is a gap in the time period. So, you know, they have to start again when they're applying full time. But as you know, you guys will be coming in this spring. So when you'll be doing your internship in next summer, you can extend that internship over the fall semester like which will be your last semester. And in last semester, you won't be having much courses and then you can get a full time job too. So these are just the advantages of coming in spring if any of you guys are wondering whether you should. And if you want to defer your admission or something but it's not that it's like coming into spring is really good and especially into UWM because the courses structure will be more properly aligned to you know what what will be better for you. Yeah, Jen, do you want me to cover any other topics like which I forgot. I think we're okay for now maybe we can shift over to taking some questions from students and I'm sure that you'll have more to share as as we respond. So, so yeah let's let's shift over I can see that at this moment we don't have any questions but I'm sure that some of the students out there have some a reminder please that if you have questions feel free to put them into the chat. And we will be happy to read them and respond to them, depending on who is appropriate. So, in addition to me from the International Student Office we have a cough who is a current computer science master student, and also on this call we have Professor Molly who is a professor in the computer science program. If you have any questions about practical things like visa processes or I 20s I'm happy to help a cough can talk about their his experience in Milwaukee and what it's like to be a student here. And if you have any specific questions about the program itself or the curriculum, Professor Molly can help. So if you have any questions please put them in the chat. I'd also like to take this time just to put out a reminder that we really want to be able to track who is here in the session with us. So please take a look at the name on your zoom screen and if it doesn't match the name that you use to apply to you WM please change it so that we know who's here. I would be giving you a reward for attending the session when you arrive on our campus this amazing engineering pen full of lots of cool tools, but we need to know who you are in order to make sure that we get it to you so if you could take a look at your screen name and change it if necessary, I would appreciate it. I would like to put any questions that you have into the chat box so that we can respond. While we are waiting to see if any chat questions come in I just wanted to address one thing. I feel like I'm the boring person on this call right across can talk to you about his wonderful experiences and my job is to tell you all the boring details. I've talked a lot about his experience with an internship which is fantastic and I hope that when you come to WM you'll have that opportunity as well. One of the things that he alluded to but I wanted to give you more detailed information about is that when you come to the US on a student visa and an F1 visa. You do not automatically have the authority or permission to take work outside of the campus. You're not able to just do an internship on your own. You have to get special permission for it through something called curricular practical training also known as CPT. And to get permission for CPT there's a few rules and one of them is that you have to be in the US enrolled as a full time F1 student for at least one academic year before you're eligible. I think Koth was referring to that if you come and start your program in spring, you will not be eligible for CPT your first summer so you're not going to be eligible to take an internship that first summer. But as he was saying it actually works well because then you can do an internship the following summer, and then hopefully continue that into the fall semester, and then you'll graduate. It's a perfect timing to be set up to lead to possible employment once you're done and you've graduated. Okay. So, I can see that we have a couple of questions coming in so let me take a look at those and see what we can answer for you. Got a question asking about how to choose the courses for the program. I think we need to contact an advisor. Akha, do you want to talk a little bit about your experience of how you selected your classes and give some suggestions on what they could do. The first thing is like you know you need to definitely talk to your advisor, because she's going to guide you which courses to take, according to like, you know, what kind of admission do you have, because different students have different areas for admission. So I think it's better to talk to your advisor to, you know, decide like which courses are you going to take. And it's just that you need to properly like have a balance between your courses like when you're taking a tough course. So you need to balance it by taking, you know, somewhat an easy course. So this is how it works. But yeah, I would suggest first you should talk to advisor because she's the primary contact for you and she's going to help you like the best in like when you'll be enrolling for your courses. Thank you Akha. Professor Molly, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that from the faculty perspective. I suggest checking prerequisites of courses and then also thinking about what your career path should be after masters. For example, do you want to look for a data science job or artificial intelligence job. So, you know, keep that in mind. Great. Thank you. The next question is whether there's any provision for students from particular states or countries to travel on the same date. There's not anything that is quite that specific. There are some restrictions. So, if you have gotten your I-20 for UWM you'll see that on the I-20 there's a start date that is the date that UWM classes begin. And that is the last date that you are allowed to enter the United States. So you need to make sure that you're here before then. And then you're allowed to arrive up to 30 days before that date. So if you look at a calendar and count back 30 days that will be the earliest that you're allowed to arrive. So there's not a specific date that you need to come but you've got like a 30 day window. I would recommend to our students if possible is to arrive in the U.S. approximately two weeks before classes begin. It gives you some time to get yourself settled, make sure your living arrangements are together, that you've had the opportunity to get what you need to be comfortable. And then you have a little bit of time to make sure that you are able to get through the time change process, right? That's a significant time change for you and it can really make it difficult on your brain. So make sure you've got some time with that. Make sure you've got time to get settled so that when the first days of classes actually arrived, you are settled and ready to go and not having to worry about those other things and start classes at the same time. Okay. Professor Molly, if I could ask you to address the next thing we have two different questions kind of referring to the same thing. One is asking about scholarships and the other one is asking about teaching and research assistantships. Okay. So, you know, as TA ships, you can apply for TA ship and you can certainly your GPA and grades in the courses of, you know, interest to the department will matter, your GRE score will matter. Generally, TAs are needed for courses with large enrollment, like introductory programming courses. So how you did in those courses will matter. Research assistantships are given by individual professors, so you can contact them. But as far as TA ships are concerned, you can email your, you know, transcripts and GRE score report to me and then I can take a look and forward it to the department chair. These are expected to do thesis. Okay. Do you want to do, is there more that you can add to that? Yeah, so teaching assistants are expected to do research and then, you know, you, if you are a TA you are required to work for up to 20 hours per week. And that means that you may not be able to take three or four courses and you may be taking two courses per semester, you know, because of the TA work. Okay, thank you. One thing I'd like to mention just from my own experience is that for students that are starting in spring, there seem to be fewer opportunities for financial support because they the financial support, especially in the form of assistantships tends to be offered in fall and it's offered out for the academic year. So for students that are starting in spring, unless a student has graduated or left the program for some other reason, there tend to not be a lot of opportunities because they're taken from students that are that were awarded it for the entire academic year. Well, CS still has some TA ships available. Okay, that's great news. Okay, I don't see any other messages in the chat is if please, if you're attending this call and you've got some questions, please let us know. I'm wondering, Professor Molly, could you please give a brief description of the difference between the professional and the regular track and why students would be admitted into one or the other. You know, professional students who have background in a field other than computer science, like maybe physics, chemistry, mathematics, and have a good academic record are admitted to professional track with some requirements about programming courses and students who have background in computer science but didn't have very good grades are admitted to professional track, but then they can switch to regular track. Also, students in thesis track are required to get 30 credits to graduate and students who, you know, do capstone project or do project in industry, instead of thesis are required to take 31 credits. Also professional track doesn't require students to take 704, which is analysis of algorithms, but the regular track does require students to take that. Students are in professional track, you know they can register for CS 995 which is a three credit capstone project, or they can do a project in industry, and you know, presented to a committee of three professors. If students do thesis, then they have a thesis advisor and they will defend thesis before a committee of three professors, one of them is the thesis advisor himself or herself and, you know, this is allows students to go deeper. While investigating a specific problem. And students are required to do this is over two semesters. So, if students choose this is then they are required to get six thesis credits and also defend the thesis. The six credits can be taken in one semester in fact the student can't take more than four thesis credits in one semester so student can take two and four or three and three. And this is allows the student to, you know, interact more often with the thesis supervisor, get more attention and then also publish research. The problem also publishes thesis through ProQuest. So, anybody in the world who has access to ProQuest can see your research. But and the capstone track and, you know, track that allows you to do a project in industry instead of a capstone. You don't really have that option you, you know you are capstone project report or report based on industrial project is not going to be published through ProQuest. If you publish your work, you know, done as a part of capstone project or project in industry but then it's not going to be published through ProQuest and then, if you do industrial project the company may have restrictions on, you know, whether you can publish it and so what part. Great, thank you very much Professor Molly. Um, we have someone in the chat asking if we can share your email address. Oh yeah, I can type it here. Okay, thank you so Professor Molly will put his email address in there. A reminder if you have questions please feel free to put them into the chat we're happy to answer them for you all. One thing that I wanted to show you that I think might be really helpful is some information about off campus housing so at UWM we have some on campus housing, some dormitories we in fact we have one called which is designed for our older students so our graduate level our masters and PhD students that choose to live on campus do have an option to live on campus. That said, most of our international graduate students choose to live off campus. UWM is uniquely situated in a residential area and so within blocks of UWM there are lots of opportunities for apartments or flats places that you can live that are within either walking distance or short bus ride away. Um, keep in mind that as a UWM students when you pay your fees to the university, one of the benefits you get is a bus pass so you'll have a pass that allows you to go anywhere in the city on the buses for free so even if you find a place to live that isn't you know within walking distance as you can probably find something easily that's a short bus ride and you don't need to worry about paying for the bus. Um, so I want to share I'm going to share my screen really quickly and show you a website that UWM has. We have an office on our campus that is called the neighborhood housing office. This is an office that is their entire job is to help students identify places to live off campus. I'm going to drop the link to the site in the chat when I'm done speaking, but it has all sorts of really great information about how do you find an apartment. This is obviously the front you can see different choices here. But if you scroll down you'll see that there's a whole bunch of information and resources here, including a special link for international students. If you follow it will just give you some additional information about how to find in from how to find departments the kind of things that you should watch out for. There's all sorts of great information here. This is information that they've compiled over time as working with international students. And so if you're looking to live off campus I would highly recommend that you use this site as a resource. The program is not going to be able to find the housing for you. It's something you'll have to identify on your own but we provide a lot of resources to help you through that process. Akath, would you be willing to address how you found your place to live and what your experience has been? Sorry, everyone. Akath, you are muted. Sorry. Yeah, so the thing is usually what all of you can do is like when new students come. See, there are a lot of options like you can book an apartment from when you are in your country too and then come here and just start living in that apartment like before coming to United States. But it's better I would suggest like you come over here, talk to some of your seniors, stay in their house for a week or so and then meanwhile in that time find a house for you. Like you can go for an apartment or you know you can also go for a townhouse. When I came here, me and my friends we were living in a townhouse because we actually came pretty late so townhouse was the only option left. So I would suggest like you come over here and then start looking for houses. Apartments are a good option and townhouses are also good but townhouses would be a bit on the costlier side it will be $1,500 to $2,000. But it just didn't townhouses like it will be a four bedroom or three bedroom so it will so a lot of you like so you can stay with four to five people and you guys can share the rent. And in apartments usually they are two bedrooms only two people or at max three can stay. You know you can divide the rent and whether you live in a townhouse or in apartment the rent actually come out to be more or less the same with $10 to $20 difference. And the good part about staying in apartment is that in apartment it will be you know the heaters are really good because the townhouses here are pretty old so the heating system is not that good. But in apartments the heating system are really good like you will feel really warm and in like in townhouse also it's affordable it's not like like it's manageable it's not that big of a problem but it just that in apartments it is really warm. And but there are different other advantages too because in townhouse like you will be pretty much independent so you don't need to worry about whether you're making some noise or is someone getting disturbed by you. Whereas in apartments what happens is like sometimes if you like walk you know if you in your floor also like if you not jump or like if you don't walk carefully then the noise may go down. So you know you may get a complaint or something like okay you need to be careful. It's just that both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages and I feel like both of it doesn't matter like both of them are good and both of them you know. How do I say like you can it's your choice it's your personal choice. So I stayed in like townhouse for one and a half year then this semester I moved to an apartment but you know when once I have my job and anything I'll definitely like you know like look for staying in townhouse because I feel like townhouse is better like for me. I like let's give you a more you know good vibe of like you like staying over in the United States but yeah I apartments are also good. Yeah. Thank you a cough. I just dropped into the chat the link to that website that I was showing the neighborhood housing website. If anyone is looking for that a reminder that we're going to be doing two sessions next week on Tuesday morning. Morning for us, we're going to be doing a session for all newly admitted students where we'll talk about a lot of detailed information. And then on Wednesday morning we're doing another session it'll be brief it's only a half hour, but it'll be specifically about our on campus housing option so if any of you are interested what we we have seen as a lot of international students will come and live on campus for the first year because it's easy to organize in advance and you don't have to worry about where you're going to live. And then once they're here and they fill fill that first year in on campus housing. Then they're a little bit more comfortable with the community and it's a little bit easier to go out and find their own place to live so if you're interested in considering that please join us next Wednesday for that. For that. Do we have any other questions the chat is unusually quiet typically students that attend these sessions have lots and lots of questions. Please don't be shy we've got about seven minutes left so if anybody has any questions we would be happy to address them. One thing I'd like to share with you is that UWM has really great student organizations. So UWM we have an official student organization office that helps students do this so we have hundreds literally hundreds of different clubs that you can join that are focused on anything from sports, you know to religion to politics to whatever you're interested in. You can join clubs. If there's not a club for what you're interested in, you can create one. There's a process that you can go through to do that. The reason I bring this up to you now is because we have a lot of student organizations that are based based on either geographic locations countries or ethnic groups. So for example we have an Indian Student Association that is really active and super helpful. We have all sorts of different groups I'll drop the link in the chat in just a moment where you can search for those organizations. But a cough mentioned the possibility when that when he first arrived he identified another student that was already here that was able to help him out while he was looking for housing. So that's usually the path that most of our students will do that in is they'll find through a student association, a student that is willing to help them for that first week so they can get everything situated. If you're interested in following that kind of a model then the student associations is a really great place to start to try and identify somebody to connect with. I'll pause just a moment and ask for. Oh, we do have a question. Professor Molly, if you could address this one please. Are there any possibilities to get scholarships for the professional track students. Professor Molly are you with us still. Oh, I think you muted. Computer science doesn't offer scholarships to students in professional track but students in professional track can work in other departments. You know, so other departments may be able to offer them teaching or research assistantship or, you know, some work on hourly basis like grading homework quizzes. Thank you. I am I've pulled up the website for our student organization so I'm just going to drop that into the chat for you so in case you're looking to see all the great things you can get involved with at UWM you can see that list and if you click the website has different tiles for the each student organization if you click on it you can get more information. Okay, we're down to our last couple of minutes so I just want to wrap up and say thank you so much to everybody who joined us we're super excited that you're admitted to WM and are looking forward to having you on our campus we really are excited that international students are able finally to start coming back in real real numbers after the pandemic we're so excited to see you in person. Feel free to reach out. If you have any questions about anything you heard today or anything you know after the call is over and you realize there's some question you forgot to ask please feel free to reach out. We would love to help you and we look forward to welcoming you so on behalf of myself. Thank you to a cost our current student who was so kind to share his experience with you and thank you to Professor Molly for his insight into the faculty of within computer science. So thank you to all of the students who joined us today and we look forward to greeting you in spring. Thank you. Bye everyone. Bye.