 Good afternoon. Good evening. Rubina, what's our timetable? Shall we begin or not? Yes, I guess, yes, yes. I'm waiting for more people, right? Armini, do we wait more people? We have two more people that haven't joined yet, but maybe... Vartuhi, Porosyam. Okay, admitting Vartuhi. Oh, we can wait, no problem. And Armenian-English, Inchenko, Somzhovo. Maybe English? I don't know. Let's start in English, and then if there are questions in Armenian, then we will continue to... No, there is all the... Okay, okay. Now we may start, I guess. Okay, great. So, thank you, Rubina. Armini, I guess, Artur, we represent the sort of management and the administration here in the industrial engineering program. I'm Aram Hajjan, I'm the dean. Arthur Khalatan is your program chair, our program chair. Rubina and Armini are two of our key staff people, and so we collectively... I don't know, we're the they and you're the you, if you want to do it that way. So, thank you all for joining. I'm going to skip over probably a proper appreciation and acknowledgement of the difficult situation that many of us are in personally, and I think all of us collectively. Between the coronavirus, the war, and the subsequent turmoil that all of it brings together, I want you to know that we're not insensitive to any of that, but for the purposes of this call, maybe we'll go straight to our task at hand, and so maybe I'll leave the introduction that much. I think it is a great chance for you to hear about our program. We are trying to, as difficult as it is, look ahead and look long term. I guess many of you are as well, and so with that in mind, I'll say that I guess we'll go around and introduce ourselves a little bit, I mean you, so that we have a better sense of how we can help you, what kind of questions we can answer, and kind of help advise you or steer you in the direction most valuable for you. And so I'll just say that we're online right now here at AUA, hopefully that by the time what next year comes around in the summertime or spring, in the fall, we hope to be back in the building and back to our more standard modality of instruction, but we've become, I think, quite agile, quite flexible, quite innovative in our own approaches, trying to deal with the virus over the last year. In any case, I'll let you drive the discussion with your questions. I just want to welcome all of you here, and I hope we can answer whatever questions you may have and provide any guidance that you expect. So welcome, nice to see you, nice to meet you. Some of you I think I may have met before, many of you I have not. So happy to meet you. Maybe start. I have a small engineering problem in this room. The light goes off because the sensor doesn't see me. It's an electrical engineering, not industrial engineering problem. I see, but it seems like your computer or something in front of you is a bright, shining light that gives a solution. Yes, it does. I can happily say that we see you. And I'm starting to see some others too. There's Ellen now who also seems to have a camera. That's nice. It's more than just names and photographs. I'm seeing moving people. So yeah, I'm introduced. I'm Arthur Halatian. I'm the chair, program chair for the industrial engineering and systems management program. I just became program chair one year ago or so, one year. And I'm teaching also here subjects related to design of information systems. And I'm also serving as industry liaison for our college. And the industry liaison is a person who goes to industry and talks about their problems and then think together what sort of interesting projects and experiences we can get for our students. And not only the industrial engineering, but the entire college. So that's basically me. And I will do a small introduction later for the program. I will be happy to answer your questions. So we asked people to introduce themselves. Ellen, could you please start introducing yourself? Hi, thanks to see my name is Ellen. I have an undergraduate degree at AUA. I was one of the first undergraduates actually. And I have graduated from the business administration department and with the economics specialization. Currently, I want to be more involved in the data analysis and business intelligence scope. And my main question is I'm trying to understand whether the CIS program is more fit to me than this program, the industrial engineering program. Because as I saw the computer science program needed more mathematical and computer science background, which I don't have actually, but now I have had several trainings in data analysis and data science. So I just wanted to see whether this program is more fit to me, to my needs and my interest in data analysis and AI actually. Albert, could you introduce yourself? Hi, Albert. Yes, my name is Albert. I'm a student of physics and mathematics specialized school after I've just joined in. And I'm going to apply for an AUA engineering calculus degree. And I'm here to know about to get answers for some questions about the engineering. Okay, good. Correctly, that he was applying for an undergraduate degree or graduate degree? Undergraduate, aren't ya? Bacala? Yeah. Okay. So Albert, we are here to discuss master's program in industrial engineering, but still you can stay and maybe you will find this interesting and later we will answer your questions as well. So, Nelly, could you introduce yourself? Nelly, Arpiné? Yes. Hello again. My name is Arpiné. I study at AUA right now. I'm a fourth year student at the business department. And I just wanted to know more about the available master programs in AUA. I'm also interested in data science or analytics. So, I just want to see what options I have if I want to continue my studies in AUA. Okay. Thank you. Ani? Yes. Hi. I'm Ani. I graduated from the National Polytechnical University from the Applied Mathematics and Informatics Faculty in 2019. I haven't applied to any master's program because I was thinking about working and I'm working as a software testing engineer for almost two and a half years. I was interested about AUA master's program so I wanted to know what options I have and decide if I want to continue my education in master's degree. So, that's it. Thank you. Nelly? Do you hear me? Nelly wrote in the chat that her microphone is not working. Okay. Okay, Nelly. Just write in the chat, please, about your background. Vanessa? Could you hear me? Yes. Good, everyone. I hope that sounds good and best for us. I'm not at home. I'm Vanessa Avoyan. I'm a current student at ASUE, accounting and auditing faculty. I'm quite interested in computer science program master's degree and the main reason I'm here, I want to know whether my degree of accounting is suitable for computer science master's program. I'm currently trying to learn Python, the programming language, and I want to master some fielding data analytics. Thank you. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you. Marina, could you introduce yourself? Marina is part of our team. Oh, okay. Okay. So, Artur, I guess we can start introducing our program. Yes, okay. So, main questions, well, two at least. We have two questions for deciding between CIS and ISM programs. And, yes, they both have data science, data analytics components. But let me just give you a very brief introduction. I don't think it will take more than five, seven minutes. And then we'll try to answer more questions. There's Mari, who entered. You have two people, Ruby Nain, in the waiting room. Yeah, okay. They are in now. Yeah. Thank you, Marina. Okay. Can everyone see my screen? Yes. Right. So, it's industrial engineering and systems management program with College of Science and Engineering. Actually, this is one of the master degree programs that we have. The other is computer and information science program. When we talk to a lot of our alumni and ask them what actually ISM can give and what sort of skills that you think you're now using a lot and that are very much valued by your employers. There's a lot of them mentioned that they have kind of a new innovative way of thinking as an engineer, finding new innovative solutions to problems. And not only in production systems, but also in services and information technologies because the main things that are very much of concern for the industrial engineers are all the aspects of productivity and optimization. How all the bits, all the parts of the business, technology, resources, human resources, the human talent, how everything is combined to create the most results, the best result out of with the smallest price and with the smallest cost. And of course, obviously in these days a lot of these decisions and analysis are made based on data. We have data stored in many, many places. There is data, you can see how much data is generated in supermarkets, how much data is generated in various types of machines, in production lines. And obviously, a lot of optimization is calculated with the data based on data-driven analysis. And of course, based on that and those types of analysis, what we are also learning is how we then increase efficiency and what new solutions we can suggest. And there are many, many decisions that are coming to the tables of managers and a lot of time people really need to have this knowledge as a manager how everything is functioning and a lot of decisions are made on their uncertainty. So there's many of our graduates also talk about how they are now much able, equipped to calculate the risk and manage the risk. One of the greatest aspects of any production or service is also quality management and assurance and how the information technologies are also used to improve productivity. Well, if we look at the courses, you will see that many of them are very much related to optimization. But there are also courses that are very much related to the mathematical methods like probability theory and engineering statistics and also how data is designed and stored so that you can operate with date-data much more efficiently. One of the core courses that we have is operations research and we have a bridge course which is operations research one and the main operations research course which gives you all that knowledge and skills to deal with problematic situations in large production systems. We also obviously do production systems analysis and quality assurance and management. And of course we also have electives and a lot of time you choose electives based on what concentration you want to follow. And we have three main concentrations. One is logistics and everything that is related to movement of goods and services and resources so that everything is on time and in the most efficient manner to produce something. And the other concentration is data analytics and data analytics is dealing with a lot of this things. In the same logistical problems you have a lot of data based on which you come up with new solutions. And the other is sustainable operations and resource management. You know the resource management with the climate change all this conversation has been very very high on many many big companies agenda on the government's agenda. And that's when we're talking about everything the energy and waste and water all sorts of resources that can be managed in much more efficient way. And we also have some of our students have done also projects which are purely data science projects but they are very much related to resource management for example for huge greenhouse compounds. These are the three concentrations and you choose electives based on which concentration you want to follow. And basically well career opportunities we have a huge database of all alumni and we try to bring our alumni to our as a guest lectures or to network with our students. But you will see generally we have just taken the most frequently what sort of positions they're taking. It's chief operations officer senior researcher technology manager data analyst product design engineer or production planning expert quality assurance lead. Well and they have been and if you look at the hierarchy in the companies we have all we have a chief executive managers officers or a bank manager chief engineers or or programmers but who are doing not just coding but doing understanding the whole industry and ecosystem and making operations research and and programming. And of course it project manager and many of them are also founders of companies and on the blue place in the blue side you see all sorts of industries where our alumni are currently working and this is not obviously the exhaustive list. Well I already talked about the concentrations so we just keep that and just a couple of examples what sort of research they're doing before graduation as part of their capstone thesis or project. For example they are calculating using maps and different other data collected from various places how they optimize the routes. And then this one was for HMS in city they all some of our students did projects with Gigi just to make predictions how where the cars should go so that they're closest to their client. There are also some data analytics related to customer preferences for mortgage loans with banks there are also some analysis of chemical parameters of wines. This is just to show you how diverse this how diverse the industries can be and we obviously with every industry there is optimization issues there are some things that are related to technology how you measure quality how you assure the quality and these are only kind of some of the some of the examples banking telecom IT industry etc that's that's possibly it. Now with a question that's related to I mean where do you go obviously I'm a program chair of IESM and I will say come to us for the data analytics that I think that was Ellen's and who else was asking the question but the main possibly maybe the main difference or the main it really matters what what is your background and if you want to become a pure data science I've also done some research and done some project in data science and we are currently we currently also have an artificial intelligence lab with Pixar where students are going through some training and then and some of our IESM students went also through those trainings and now they do research project with the company but the biggest difference is that with IESM you are learning both how how you look up and look at the business from the ground how do you understand all the mechanics what's working with what and where you find inefficiencies where you find problems that can be solved with with data analytics or other other tools and and then you have a lot of kind of domain knowledge for particular industry or know how to get that domain knowledge and then you you use your data analytics capacity for very particular types of problems with data science is well data science people usually will have background in computer science because if you want to be high-end professional and I assume everyone wants to be top professional in their field you really need to go through some training in math and this is not only about coding but it's also advanced statistics probability and you know machine learning has tons of mathematics attached to it so you really need to decide for yourself whether you want to to go and observe and make some research and find a problem which is a kind of industrial type of problem efficiency optimization type of problem and then use all the data and analyze that data to come up with a solution and the pure data is that when you give this huge google type amazon data or other data but still again even with that a lot of most professionals kind of add to their value when they also know ways how they research particular industry how do they research e-commerce how do they research telecom what are the what is the value chain in that particular industry how the value is created and what type of technology what type of positions what type of rules and policies how everything is contributing to entire value creation that will be my my answer but well because you are making this kind of making me to make to put this balance obviously I would recommend especially with business backgrounds well you need to think about yes I have a question I see that there are some preparatory courses on the website that we have to take before applying what's the schedule for these courses and do we take it before the semester starts and are these courses free or they're not and how it's managed I would like to know that yeah these courses are are free the schedule for for example probability and statistics this is generally taught during summer semester and operations research is is kind of you you you studied during the first semester of your first year just to prepare for the operations research too and intro to programming I think it is it can be both autumn or spring and there are there might be also other courses that are kind of replacements for intro sorry Arthur just a small addition the courses are free for those who are admitted because we add them as a to the cost list that you register for so you are registering for three to five courses which is full time and you are paying only for three courses and the fourth or fifth course is registered this course you cannot come and take just this course for free yeah I mean notification yeah yeah yeah sure sure yeah and um regarding the courses for those who are now the students for from away from different programs of away you may take those courses as as for example as part of your genet studies for example you can take discreet mathematics or or any or probability counting it as a quantitative genet course or you can take it as free elective as a part of your free elective requirements and then you will get credits for your study current study and that will be also counted as a prerequisite course so you will not be needed to take it second time yeah the prerequisite courses don't give any credits so they don't they don't give any credits you just assume you already need to know that but because of some differences with the rest of the universities we have and also some with some programs that we have at AUA you just you need those courses to be successful in your other courses any other questions and regarding the admission exams I see that we have to take a GRE exam if I have taken a calculus course throughout my studies is it necessary to take the GRE test as well and I don't know do they have the test now during this pandemic or it stopped Ellen can you remind me where you graduated from I graduated from AUA okay um can I CSC get co-host status please to share my screen all right here we oh it's not letting me share screen give me one quick second um this information has all outlined on our website um so let me know once you guys see my screen yeah we so if you look here the graduate standardized tests you're right GRE GMAT is actually one of the programs that um I yes I'm sorry is a program that does require the GRE GMAT but we do have something called the GRE GMAT test waiver which you can see right over here okay so as a BA student if you if you received a a B or higher in two of the following three courses calc one or single variable calculus or business math applied stats or statistics intro to econometric or machine learning then essentially you're sending an email to grad at aua.am with a copy of your transcript with the subject line GRE GMAT waiver request and then we will go ahead and process it so that you know as long as you meet that criteria you would be waived of that exam now let's say for whatever reason math was not your strong suit you didn't do well in those courses you don't get the waiver um there are additional options so again sorry let me quickly share my screen again we have something called the internal assessment for fall 2021 so if um for whatever reason you can't take the GRE or GMAT you fill out a document this form right here that details your math and statistical concepts that you studied in your previous education and then you might be asked about those in more detail during an interview if you're invited to one um if are you applying for the spring semester or for the fall semester for for the fall semester so it says here that fall 2021 applicants should note that um you know if you're applying to ism then applicants who ultimately are able to take the GRE or the GMAT will be given preference um and then the final you know you asked well are these exams offered uh GRE has a home test that you can take from the comfort of your own home so you can just register to take um that home test you don't have to go out and and you know put yourself at risk of COVID um and you know AUA does accept that home test and we're only looking at the quantitative section of the of that GRE test okay thank you are there any other questions uh by the way Ellen uh you have taken calculus one right or business math no i have taken calculus one and i also take an applied statistics okay thank you um now we are looking for your questions please be active can i ask a question sure if it's possible yeah yeah um are there any labs uh for engineering um where we can do the different research um yeah we actually have a rapid prototyping lab she's in our basement as a part of our entrepreneurship and product innovation center and um you actually have seen probably we have CAD, CAM courses that are taught by Salki Zeytunya and they are doing many of their projects in that lab if this is the title this is a kind of fabrication lab if you would like. Albert um i i think uh you would need to come to uh engineering in business uh in engineering sciences oh sorry bachelor in engineering sciences uh open house or question answer session because you are graduating from uh high school and you are looking for bachelor and yes they have some labs they have electrical engineering lab so uh you will be able to do some research and you will be able to to work on um mechatronics on automatic controls etc so all those those courses are included in the program of a bachelor in engineering sciences and that that will be more appropriate for your interest i guess so please look uh where when we will have this the similar event for uh for the engineering sciences uh and attend that. December 5th we're having an open house on zoom so uh please get back on facebook and check out that event. Yeah but the but the but the computer aided design is also taught for engineering sciences as well the lab that i mentioned. Okay thank you sorry for disrupting your station. Other questions? May i ask um sure Vanessa? Um as i said uh i'm currently learning in accounting faculty and i'm interested about the admission and watch requirements besides the GRE, GMAT and TOEFL examinations i must bring for admissions. I learned that the computer science master program requires not only this examination but the back color degree in statistics or applied mathematics. No no no no no no Vanessa you are wrong our programs both computers information science and industrial engineering they are designed in a way that you can come from any background that has at least one year of higher mathematics and some science courses so you will be able to switch from your um from your background very easy and you will have all the bridge courses that are needed both in computer and information science program and uh in industrial engineering and systems management program. The question is whether you you need to decide whether you are looking for mostly for programming uh future or you are looking for data analytics future or you are looking for logistics future so you need to decide the what is the best for you and then uh for both programs you will have the appropriate bridge courses and you will be able to switch from your background. Yes thanks and uh my diploma is suitable for that yes yes yes sure yes yes thank you my question and one more question I don't know if the answer is you will have the answer but if I get the waiver for both the TOEFL exam and the GRE exam will that in any way affect the chance of getting the scholarship if another applicant has got both the exams taken will that affect the scholarship decision? It's difficult to answer this question because we have very limited numbers of uh scholarship um scholarships and uh yes usually we have to decide and we are looking for the test scores and for background scores. Yes it is always preferable to take the exam even during the admissions process but for example for the English exam uh as my education was in English I guess I will get that waiver right yes but this is not automatic you need to apply for a waiver and it is preferable that you apply uh earlier so that just in case for any reason you do not receive it uh you have time to take the test. Okay okay thank you and coming to uh she left uh Vartine had a question in uh related to admission but she seems to have left. What is the deadline for open courses? This is the question from Nelly Zurabi and Karine. Open classes you mean? Yeah open classes uh if uh let me share my screen uh right now so uh if you go to our AOA admissions webpage then go to admissions graduate then visit read more open classes and here you will go to the since you are interested in the industrial engineering and systems management program here you will see the list of the courses available you will need to write an email to us mentioning which course you are interested in and what date here are the weekdays when the course is offered the time period when it starts and ends and once you get a confirmation from us you can attend the class. And by the way courses are coming to their end and the last day for the courses or for fall semester will be December 8th so it is if you would like to attend the courses please do it to do the request before that day. And now I will share the email address that you will need to send your email to with a request to attend the class. Just a minute okay here's the email address that you will need to send your email with the class name and the date available more suitable for you. Any other questions related to admissions? Can we also if the CIS question and answer is recorded can I have the access to the video or you don't share it? I saw that yesterday was the Q&A for the CIS program I didn't manage to be in that session but do you have the recording that you can perhaps share with me? Yes we have the recording and I will send you after the event. Okay thank you. In the chat I have also shared some important links so that you can also take as a reference for just any other important information that you need to know like admission deadlines, application requirements and one more request that we have three deadlines early regular and rolling and we always encourage our applicants to apply either by early or regular admission deadline dates. Do not leave it for the rolling because spaces are limited and especially if you are going to apply for financial aid the finance is limited and if you apply for early or regular admission deadlines you have better chances to get scholarship and the early admission deadline is January 31st and the regular admission deadline is April 15th. Applying by the deadline means that you will need to submit a complete application package and take the test before the deadline. It's not required that we have the scores by the deadline but important that you take the test by that date. Thank you. Thank you. Rubina you're on your tip. No more questions? No? Okay then thank you for coming today please keep in touch in case if you have questions. Have a nice evening. Thank you very much. Goodbye. How? Non-degree deadline. A spring admission non-degree deadline.