 share some information with you, and then you will have the opportunity to ask your questions. So as we're going through the presentation today, if you have any questions, we encourage you to put them into the chat box. So in Zoom, there's a chat function. Hopefully, all of you are familiar with it. Go ahead and put your questions into the chat and please put them in to go to everyone. If you have a question, there's a very good chance that others do as well. And so please make your questions public so we can all see them, and we'll make sure that we answer all of the questions in our session today, okay? I'm going to go ahead and get started. My name is Jen Singer, and I come from the International Student Office at UWM, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. You've probably interacted with me, although you might not know it. It's my team is the ones that are receiving your applications and your transcripts and your test scores and facilitating the process of your application and then also issuing that I-20 and making sure that you successfully transition to UWM when you get here, okay? So I'm going to start with some really basic information for our new international students. I'm hoping that all of you have already seen the information that I'm going to share, but I want to go over it just very, very quickly. So I'm going to share my screen. Dr. Boylan, can you confirm, can you see my screen? Yes, I can. Sorry, I just had to thank you. So this is the website that UWM has for its newly admitted international students. Most of you have probably already seen this page. You can see in the top left it's called I-Triple S Connect. I-Triple S is the International Student and Scholar Services Unit. That's the International Student Office. This is the page that you're going to use while you're a student at UWM. This is where you're going to go to help with maintain your visa status and all the rules and benefits that come along with that. In the top right you can see you can log in. This is where you log in to submit your request to get your I-20. So hopefully many of you have already done that and you'll find all sorts of great information on this page that you'll learn as you're a student. This very top bar though, the newly admitted student page is what I have highlighted here and this is most relevant for you now. You can see that there is information here, kind of a short list of things that you should be preparing for right away and if you scroll down you'll find these three black bars. If you click on them they expand. So for example, for all of you right now after your admission, if you click on that it will expand and give you information about more things. So a couple of things that are critical for you from the beginning is first, the very first thing you need to do is create your epanther ID and set up your email. Your epanther ID is the part that comes before the email. So for example, right, I'm Jen Singer. My email address is jksinger at uwm.edu. So my epanther ID is jksinger. That epanther ID is important because it helps you log in to all of UWM systems, including this page where you log in to Rick last year, right 20. So it's important that you set it up right away. If you click on this tab, it will take you to this page where you'll get all of the details about how to do that, how to set up your UWM email account, and also how to enroll and participate in the Microsoft, Microsoft multi-factor authentication. We call it MFA. I'm sure all of you are familiar with this. It's a system where when you log into something in order to confirm your identity, they have you acknowledge it in a different way. Most people at UWM have an app on their smartphone. You can set it up in different ways. If you follow the instructions here, it will help you. I do want to highlight though, that if you set this up and you have the MFA app on your smartphone, it's really important that you bring that phone with you when you travel to the US or you change your MFA before you come. Unfortunately, we've had a lot of students that have traveled to the US realize they left that phone at home and so they arrive here and are unable to log in. Of course, we will help you work with the campus to get that fixed, but it can make for a very challenging couple of days when you arrive and you can't log into anything. Okay, I'm not going to go into details about all of these things, but you can find the information here. When you are getting ready to come, when you have your visa, there's a whole list of things here for you to do to plan for your arrival. You should be connecting with your advisor to figure out how to register for classes, etc. You'll have some orientations and departmental requirements that you're going to need to pay attention to. At the bottom here, we do have a spring arrival calendar. If you click on that, it will give you a calendar with some important dates highlighted so that as you're planning your travel, you can understand what dates you want to plan around. Also in the section, the only other thing I want to highlight is the vaccination requirements. UWM does not require any vaccinations to study at UWM. The only exception is students that will be living in our on-campus dormitories have some vaccination requirements and you'll find that in the contract that you signed to live on campus. However, the United States does have a requirement that you be vaccinated for COVID-19 before you travel to the US. If you have not been vaccinated yet, I would strongly encourage you to look at this information right away because it does take some time to get vaccinated. Depending on the shots that you take, it typically takes at least two shots that have to be timed apart and there is an additional two weeks after the last shot before you're considered fully vaccinated. If you're not already vaccinated, you're going to need to do that right away. Also, once you arrive, there's a whole list of things here that are the things that our international students most often ask about. The very first thing is the arrival check-in. That's the most important. Part of your F1 visa status requires that you check in with us within three business days of your arrival in the US. This arrival process is done online. You don't need to physically come to our office for it, but you do need documents that you get as you enter the US. You're not able to do this before you arrive, but once you arrive in the US and you arrive in Milwaukee, you can go click on here. It'll give you instructions. You're going to log into the site and answer some questions and upload some documents. You can take pictures of the documents on your phone, so don't worry about having access to a printer or anything, and you'll follow the instructions. After you arrive and do this check-in process, then you'll get access to orientations and other things that you need once you get here. You'll see on this page, there's all sorts of information about getting US bank account, where to go shopping, where to buy food that comes from the place that you're from, food that you're familiar with eating, how to get a cell phone, how to apply for a social security number. You can find all of that information here. Just a couple other small things. The highlight is down here at the bottom, what happens if you can't make it by the start date. January 23 is the first day of classes in our spring semester. You need to be here on campus ready to start classes on the 23rd. If you can't do that, we are not going to be able to allow you to arrive late for any reason, so if you can't make it, you'll have two choices. The first is that you can decide to take some classes online from home. In order to do that, first of all, keep in mind that you'll be doing the entire spring semester from home. You can't start online and then come mid-semester, so if you start online from home, it's for the entire semester, and also you'll need to work with your advisor to identify courses that can be done online. Not all courses are available in that capacity, so you'll have to work with your advisor to figure that out. Or the other option, if you can't make it by January 23rd, is you can request to defer your admission. All you need to do is come to this page, click on this link. It will take you to an online forum where you can provide your information to us, and then we will receive that and process the deferral. It's quite simple, but you do need to notify us that you need to defer. If you already have an I-20, we will then work with you to issue a new I-20 with start dates for the following fall. Also on this page, you'll find recordings of previous sessions that we offer for all of our newly admitted students. If you have questions about something and you think that watching one of these previous sessions would be helpful, feel free to come here and watch the video. Or you can reach out to us of course at any time. You're welcome to send an email to ISSS at uwm.edu. You're welcome to call, keep in mind that we only are answering the phones during business hours. We do take chat messages, so as a UWM student, part of our Microsoft package includes Teams. And so if you download Teams to your phone or your computer and you log in using that E-Panther ID and password, and then you click on this link here on this website to say chat now, it will actually initiate a chat directly with you with the international admissions team through the Teams platform. Or you can make an appointment to meet with someone virtually. If you follow this link, it will take you to an online calendar that shows available dates and times, and you can select one and then we will meet with you over Teams so that we can have a virtual appointment. Okay, now I know that there's a lot of questions about your arrival to UWM. I'm not going to go into all of the details now. A reminder that if you have questions, you're welcome to put them into the chat and we will make sure that we answer all of the questions during the session today. Okay, I just, I know we've had a few people arrive late, so I just want to say a couple of quick reminders. The first is thank you to everyone for keeping your microphones muted and your cameras off. It really makes for a nicer experience for everyone. Also, if you have questions, please put them into the chat and we'll make sure we answer them. And then also, if you could take a look at the name that is on the screen and verify that it is the complete name, meaning first and last name, of the name that you used to apply to UWM. We track who attended these sessions and as a reward for attending this session, when you arrive at UWM, we will give you a UWM branded engineering pen. It's a pen that you used to write with. It has several really cool engineering tools attached to it, but we can't do that if we don't know that you attended. So please take a look at the name on your Zoom account and if it's not the same as what's on your UWM account, please change it so that we can track who's here. With that, I'm going to pass this over to Dr. John Boyland, who is a faculty member in computer science. Dr. Boyland is going to talk to you about the Computer Science Master's program itself. Dr. Boyland, take it away. Great. Okay. Welcome everyone. It's really nice that we have so many people who are interested and are ready to come to UW Milwaukee. I'm going to talk a little bit about our Master's program. We have two tracks. There's the professional track and then there's the regular or research track. The professional track allows you to take three courses of the 10 courses plus a little fractional course from other departments. So you could take something from health and informatics. You could take something from business. And this allows you to build up sort of a balanced curriculum. Another thing about the professional track is that we're moving towards a competency based and we want to make sure everyone has some basic programming skills at the level of data structures and algorithms. And so starting in spring 2023, all new students are going to take a sufficiency test to place them to see whether they need to take a data structures and algorithms course here at UWM. Now UWM, our data structures and algorithms course is much more programming based and less theoretical than in some other universities you may have been familiar with. And so if you come out of our course, you will have a lot of programming skills that are actually useful when you go into employment. And so we want our students to be successful in getting employment. A lot of our students will get internships while they're in the program. Others will apply for OPT and do internships after they've graduated from the program. And we want them to be successful in that. If people already know how to program, they can pass a test that we are giving on Thursday, January 19th at nine o'clock in the morning from nine to 10. And that is on a day when there's a lot of orientation things going on on campus. So it's a good time to be there. If you missed that, then you can just take the data structures algorithms course, which was offered every semester in both in person and online modes. The other track is the regular track. Students in the regular track are eligible to have TA ships or RA ships in the department. There are not a whole lot of RA ships, very few. And there are not a massive number of teaching assistantships that there is some possibility. These are the only assistantships that come with fee waivers. And they're only for people in the regular track. But the regular track has more course requirements. You don't take more courses, but the courses have to be higher level. And we don't routinely allow people to take them from other departments. And starting in the spring, students in this track have a breadth requirement to make. They need to take three courses from a list of about 10 courses the department offers of different areas, research areas in the department. So that's sort of the overview of those two tracks. In either case, you need to demonstrate that you've had a reasonable background in computer science. And if not, you can take extra courses, most of which can count towards your degree when you are here at UWM. And this will be, you fill this out with your advisors called the undergraduate requirements assessment. And that includes this data structures outcomes course I said. And we have also ways of placing out of these courses if you haven't already taken them. So I think that's the main thing I was wanting to cover today. Let's see, any questions yet? No, no questions from students. So please, feel free to drop any questions in the chat. Now, when you come here, I talked about these breadth requirements and other courses you need to take. Otherwise, this is a very open program, which is both can be sort of a difference from what you may have expected. Many course students show up and say, well, what are the courses I'm assigned to? And actually, you're not assigned to courses, we may tell you you need to take one course, but you still need to sign up for all your courses. And you get to choose, of course, you should choose a course, a mandatory course, we give it. But otherwise, you get to choose a lot of different courses from available courses on the list. So we'll need to search for courses that are available. Can you take more than three courses for a semester to finish the entire course in 18 months? Now, we often recommend that you take, for your first semester, if you're full time, you can take three courses plus a one credit required course in introduction to graduate study in computer science. So that would be 10 credits. And then the next semester, if you're doing well, you can take four courses. If it works well for your first semester and you think you can handle four courses, then you can do that. And then in your last semester, take three courses. And that way, you can get the whole thing done in three semesters. On the other hand, if you do an internship, that may take up some of your time during the semester, though, then you get some money, which makes it worthwhile. And then you might take go on for a fourth semester. So I think Pranay, who is here, will be able to talk a little bit about options he looked at. So yes, it is quite possible to do this in three semesters. Is it possible to transfer to the regular track from the professional track? After your first semester here, if you took at least three courses that are considered high level, including the data structures algorithms course, and two other so called 700 level courses, these are graduate only courses, and you get only A's and B's, and you get more A's and B's, or at least as many A's and B's, then you can transfer to the regular track. But you need one semester at the professional level first. Can regular track students take course from other departments? That is less likely. You would need to have a case made by your thesis advisor, or why this is particularly necessary to do. So for example, we have had in the past someone who was running a user interface study for the thesis, and they needed to take a psychology course and how to run experiments, use an interface experiment. So the option is there, but it needs to be justified by you and your advisor. How to register for the courses? You use the system called pause, where the courses, I don't think registration is open yet for the spring, but in pause, you can look for the courses that you're interested in at the graduate level and sign up for them there. The courses, you can search for them on the catalog already. The schedule is set, but I don't think it's open for registration yet. So really good questions people having are very practical and useful. One of the things that's important to do is it's important to talk to your professors. So often, if you have a question about something, make sure to talk to them. Our professors are used to talking, especially to graduate students. And so if you're a graduate student here, you should be quite willing to talk to any of the professors. If you're doing the course online, then you can talk to them through teams or chat, or even show up in person. I teach a combined online and in-person course, and the online students are actually encouraged, if they want, to attend class, since there is space in seating in there. So it's very important to be advocating for yourself and making sure to ask questions if you're not certain about things. What is the internship cycle for spring semester students? You're quite right. So Pranay is going to talk about some of this in a bit. If you start in the spring, you're not eligible to work outs off campus in the summer, you'd have to wait till the next summer. On the other hand, you can work on campus in the summer. You can work, I believe, full-time in the summer at an on-campus job. Now on-campus jobs don't pay as well as internships, but they are a possibility, and you won't be paying any fees in the summer because you don't need to be signed up for any classes. So it allows you to have living expenses paid and also enjoy Milwaukee, which has an absolutely delightful summer season. Dr. Boylan, would you like me to address the internship employment situation a little bit more detail? So when you come to the U.S. on a student visa, you're coming in on the F1 visa, and the F1 visa status has some pretty strict employment requirements. One of them is that you are not eligible to work off campus without special permission. The special permission that you'll get is called CPT or curricular practical training. And to be eligible for CPT, you have to be in valid F1 status for at least one academic year, which means a spring and a fall semester. So if you're starting in spring, the first time that you're going to be eligible for CPT is after the fall semester ends in December. So you'll be on campus over the summer, and you're not going to be eligible to get the permission that you need to work off campus. As Dr. Boylan said, you can work on campus. There might be some really good opportunities for you there, but you're not going to be eligible for that off-campus internship. I also just want to make sure you know, and you'll learn a lot more about this when you arrive on campus and your international student orientation, that you must have this permission before you start working. Okay, it's absolutely critical to maintain your legal status in the U.S. that you seek this permission and get it before you start working. But we'll tell you all about that when you arrive on campus. But yeah, keep in mind, as an F1 student, you're eligible to work on campus up to 20 hours a week while school is in session. And then over the summer, you're eligible to work full-time on campus only. All right. Dr. Boylan, it looks like we've got some more questions about courses. Yeah, I answered in chat with some level. So UWM has courses that are listed as graduate only. Those are 700 level or higher. And then also has called UG courses, which have a mixture of undergraduate and graduate courses. And those will have it, the 400, 500, or 600 level will have a G version, which are the ones that the graduate students take. And the course requirements will be slightly different for graduate students than for undergraduates. They may need to write an extra paper or something of that nature. So yes, any of the ones that has a G on it is available for graduate students. In the, if you look at the schedule of courses page, let me just see if I can get that posted. It will have, you can say I'm only interested in looking at graduate level courses. And that will be, that will allow you to only look at courses which are allowed to be signed up for and which are likely to be acceptable for your degree. There are a few G courses of different departments that are not, definitely not allowed for the major. So you need to make sure to check ahead of time that these are allowed. But there's the link for the looking for courses. And it has in there any level and you can change that to be graduate level. And of course, you would choose spring semester 2023. Maybe at this time it would be nice to move on to Pranay, who is a current student in our master's program. And I'm going to all be moderating the chat and answering any questions I see there. And I may come back if that seems like that would be useful. So Pranay, you're ready to come on in? Great. Yes. Thank you, Professor Boylan for giving me this opportunity. And hi all. Thank you for joining this session. And I'm Pranay Mandarapu. And I came from India. Currently, I'm doing my master's in computer science. And I'm a regular track student. So it's really an exciting time. And I can relate to your batch because I actually came spring this year. So I know all the tensions that are going on is like, whether spring is a good time to come in, whether because Miliwaka has so much of cool, can I survive there? I know this whole question pops up and we have so many options to explore. But trust me, when you came to my option, it was a very easy decision to make. Because it has such a wonderful platform and professors and so much interactability with them. So all those things lead me to making a decision. Yeah, I'm ready for spring. Because before that, I was just arguing with my parents like, hey, can I go for fall because fall has a good opportunities rather than spring. But after considering UWM, I was like, okay, fine, I can I'm ready for spring. So you might have heard like the spring have like less advantage in scoring internships and all those things. But trust me, we have actually more advantage than fall students. Because when you come for spring semester, you have entire one semester to actually see your fall members who are securing for internships. So you can you know how they are struggling or you know what ways they have chosen to apply for internships. So you have your whole spring semesters, and you have your summer to actually prepare for getting an internship for a full time or actually work on your profile. So after that, when actually fall comes means when you come to your second semester, you can start applying for companies right away. And you don't have you don't need to prepare for anything because you're preparing for the entire moment for past eight months or something. But when fall students came, come to the college in the semester, they need some adjust time like for three months or four months. So after that, they started applying around December or January. So we get a head start of around eight months. So this eight months helps us to build connections with our seniors and like other members who are working in the company to get referrals and all. So we have kind of distinct edge over the others. And apart from that, you have another advantage also when you come to spring, it's in between semesters. So you have so many opportunities to actually apply for organizations. So such as I am leading Google Developer Student Club here in college, so it's supported by Google. So the openings for to become a lead for Google Developer Student Clubs comes around at April to June window. And if you're a master student, they require you to have one year left in your college curriculum, then only they can assign you for as a lead. So all these things come being our advantage. And apart from that, I'm a teaching assistant here at UWM, and it's actually a great opportunity because my fees is waived off. And I have to pay just mandatory fees, international student fees, and apart from, and for you also, you have another advantage. So when you come for spring, and if department recognize you as a potential student who can handle classes and all, they will give you a greater position in spring itself, not at year. Because in spring semesters, it's hard to assign given new assignments for tier, but they will allow you to do grading positions and all. And after that, when you go for fall, fall is a new semester. So you have an opportunity to get a tier shift in second semester itself. It's an opportunity, it's maybe chances, but there is opportunity. But for fall students, when they come in, when they get greater position, they have to wait for two semesters. Because in spring, it's really hard to get a new assignment new assignments for tier. So you have to wait for two semesters. In third semester, you'll get opportunity to become a tier when you come in fall. But when you come in spring, you will get an opportunity to become a tier in second semester itself. So it means that if you do a good job in tier and continue for three semesters, you don't have to pay for fees for three semesters. So that's the tier opportunities we have. And apart from that, we have our opportunity. And those are also same as well. But it's really good that we have all these opportunities to apply. And apart from that, we have on campus jobs also. And UWM is considered as like, it's mostly run by students. So everywhere you go, students are handling everything. So for example, friend desk and all all driving, we have another service known as beyond safe side. So after six o'clock to evening, night two o'clock, campus provides you like free cab ride so that you can travel safe anywhere in the boundaries campus defined. So boss drivers are also students. And in I'm working in a financial department at the dean's office. So it's you have to do audits and all in the department. So I'm working there. So we have so many on campus jobs so that when you come here, it won't cover your tuition fees. But it will help you to cover your expenses like rent or food or those kinds of things. So we have those opportunities. And another thing as international students, you're not supposed to work outside. So it's against our it will go against our visa rules. So make sure that when you come here, you secure a job here on campus, not to go anywhere out. And we have like 20 hours to work on. And you might say, as a spring student, we are losing cold summer and we cannot work and we are just wasting our time. But the thing is, when you're working here on some when you're in when you come in spring, the summer will actually help you to build your profile. So if you don't have if you come directly from bachelor's to master's, when you apply for any kind of intention, they actually look for experience. So if you don't have an experience, the summer will actually help you give you some time so that you can learn any kind of certifications or any kind of skills that you can actually put it in your resume and highlight it. So for me, I personally did AWS certification. I'm thinking to write next semester or something, but that summer helped me to prepare for those kind of things. And I prepared, built a new projects and interacted with companies. And of course, enjoyed Milwaukee summer as well. But all this, all this advantages and benefits I can think of when you join in spring. And yeah, the burning question I always get in LinkedIn is like, hey, Pranay, how did you survive the winter of Milwaukee? Trust me, when I was in India, I have seen worse than here because in India was not because I came from Delhi, so it's like super cold. So it, I mean, India infrastructure is not built for like to sustain winters and all. But trust me, here in Milwaukee or any cold area in US, it's actually built to sustain windows. So it's like you have to worry during the transit. But apart from that, when you go inside buildings or when you go inside classes and all, it's fully heated and all. So you don't have to worry about it. And snow and all, it's actually fun. So if you have proper clothing sandals, I would say you don't have to worry about anything. So I did my winter shopping back in India in Delhi because they have few good stocks or something. So if you're from India, I would say just have a trip to Delhi or Mumbai and get some winter clothing. Or if you're thinking like, okay, fine, I'll buy my winter clothing here in Milwaukee. I would suggest just bring a few winter clothes from India so that you can survive here until you shop. So we have a great recommendation of places like Burlington and those kinds of places too. You can go and buy cheap winter clothes, but it's actually effective. So apart from that, yeah, so I have a very good journey here and the projects here in Milwaukee. So here in UWM. So I have been doing like so many projects with the department and it's been really fun and professors are really supportive and just to show them the interest that you are actually putting your extra efforts and help. Professor will join you in that effort and help you to get this out. So if you have any kind of doubts such as, for example, I'm currently building a project which requires Android development using Kotlin. So in the student environment, I know for sure if I stuck there stuck anywhere, I can actually reach out to professor or I can actually reach out to the organization which handles these kind of technical things. So likewise we have Google developer student club, we have IEEE clubs and all. So you can go there and interact and you can sit out and it's like, Hey, it's not working. Can you help me out? So here students are willing to help you and professors are willing to help you. But the only thing or the only response really have to do is put in your efforts instead of sitting at your home and just thinking like, Hey, no one is helping. You have to go out and reach out for help. It's okay to ask for help. So I guess that's all from me. So if you have any kind of additional question, just please drop into the chat. So I'll answer you. Before you sign off, we all have things we want you to talk about. I was wondering if you could just very briefly talk about food and access to food in Milwaukee and share with the other students about your experience with that. Sure. Sure. I mean, I forgot. Yeah, food. So actually, Milwaukee, I was actually kind of hesitant before coming to yourself. I was like, Okay, fine. How the food is going to be because in India, I was such a rice lover. It's like, I need to have a rice in afternoon or dinner. If my mom has some kind of other food, she used to cook specifically rice for me. So I was very worried like how my food situation is going to be in Milwaukee. But when I came here, I felt nothing different. So we have like so many Indian stores over here. We have Bharatma, just one mile or something, you can go and buy whatever you want. Like, we have rice and we have like, it's very specific to India, but it's like, if you miss those or earlier, those kind of things, we have those options. And if you don't have a mood to cook Indian food, and but if you really want to eat, we have a Maharaja restaurant and different restaurants here like Hollywood Green Maharaja and those kind of things. And it's not like super expensive or something. It's actually student affordable. You can go there and have a pleasant meal. You can actually get the flavor of India. But as per like food situation, I never felt any kind of disturbance because college has a food pantry thing going on. If you have, I mean, yeah, we have some days like we are short on money and we need some kind of food arrangement, but college actually have your backup. So you can actually go to the pantry and buy some, get some essential food so free like I used to get diced tomatoes or potatoes or those kind of things sometimes. But yeah, so you really don't have to worry about those things. If you are like very much tightly integrated with your Indian platter, you can actually replicate that kind of platter here itself. So every day at my home, I actually cook rice and my roommates cook curries or those kind of things. So I would say you shouldn't be worrying about the food. We have like plenty of options here. And if you want to explore other options, we have like Chinese restaurants and we have like classical American restaurants and Mexican food, tacos and all those things. And beginning I was hesitant, but after trying it all, I really love all those things. So yeah, and you have, I have another question to actually address and we have so many questions related to housing here in UWM. So we have actually two options for UWM students. Either you can actually live in dorm or you can actually stay outside. So for me, I'm living with my friends here. So we are sharing two bedroom apartment, three members. So we share rent accordingly. So I pay around $400 including utilities and all. So I have my own private room as you can see. And apart from that, groceries and all. So you can actually expect around 500 or 550ish by the end of the month and including your phone bill or I pay around 600. That's it. So that's the most I can get. That's the most expenses I have. And apart from that, if I have any kind of money, I just spend on technology. I used to collect like old technologies like phones and all those things. So you can have those kind of freedom. But yeah, apart from that housing and all, I would suggest to join in WhatsApp group where Jen Singer and all, all those people are there, but be aware to not to pay any kind of money in front. So just verify with other seniors of what's going on before taking any kind of financial decisions. So like if someone says like you have to pay four months of advance, or you have to pay six months of advance, just don't pay. Just verify with other sources and talk to them and then only do any kind of financial decisions. Because once you do those kind of things, it's hard to reverse those kind of financial states. So I would say just verify whenever you take those kind of decision. And if you have personally any other questions regarding room or anything, we have a department dedicated for that Center for International Education. They actually tie up with some kind of mentors that will help you out throughout the journey. So I would say it's, it would be a very exciting journey when you join in spring. So yeah, so if you have any kind of questions just drop in the chat, I would happy to help you. So Jen, if you have any other questions, do you want me to answer? I can answer. Thank you, Pranay. I don't have anything in particular right now. Dr. Boylan, did you have something that you wanted to address? I was wondering if you mentioned that your trip to Google recently or? Yeah, yeah. I mean, thank you, Professor, for mentioning that. So yeah, as I said, I am a lead for Google Developer Student Club. So it means that it's powered by Google. So this fall, we actually got permission from Google to actually host this chapter. So after starting our organization here in UW, we actually conducted around seven speaker sessions here. So it varies from speakers coming from Microsoft, Dell and Aeronautic Company and all those different platforms. They came here in virtually and they actually shared what's going on in the company and what, as a student, what we should be doing and how we should relate to the industry and all. So after conducting and being active in a Google community, so they actually invited me to a North America Summit recently. So I just came back from California previous this Sunday itself. So that was like a three day summit and it consists of like a whole America and Canada. So total like our GDSC lead, I mean, Google Developer Student Clubs lead around total 110 members came so across from whole America and Canada. So we are like handpicked and they actually allowed to come there so that they actually showcase new technologies, what's going in Google and so what kind of new trends going on. So when I went there, I actually met people who are actually responsible for developing Android apps such as Google Maps and Google actual home pages and all. And after that I met a person, Martin, who is actually who is a senior developer in Google for past 15 years and a Vest, who is actually a Google Developer Advocate there. So and Ronan, who is a main point of contact for Google Cloud, who can actually make big decisions over there. So it was kind of exciting because it's like the main headquarters in California. So Mountain View 16100 Amphitheater. So we actually see in the promotional mails down Google, it says Google LLC 16100. So I actually went to that address and it was so overwhelming while seeing all those things because back in India I was used to dream about all those things. I can I need to get the job in Google to go there and take a photo in front of Google and say, yeah, hey, I'm a Googler now and to ride the Google bicycle. But because of the GDSC, I've got the opportunity to visit early and explore the options of interacting with the actual members of Googlers who are like very relaxed and they're much more to share their experience. And I actually went there and validated what I was doing here in college is actually aligned to industry practices or I might deviate it or not. Simple thing they said like, you did the right thing. So that's why you are here. So it's not like when you're in Milwaukee, you cannot apply for big tech companies or if you cannot explore Bay Area or something. So UWM is a platform that actually enables you to do all those things. So if you have talent, if you have that kind of zeal in you, you can go anywhere. So the location doesn't really restrict you. So here we have so many opportunities. So you can come here and join GDSC and you can be the next person who will be going to Google headquarters because we have a solution challenge coming up this spring semester. So if you're talented and if you really want to submit your put on all your technical skills together, you can actually join my team and help me contribute to solution challenges. So you can be the next member who can be invited to Google. So yeah, that's my experience. Thank you, Professor Boleyn for reminding me. And one last thing, can you put a comment on the thing asking about whether you got a scholarship from the department and then I'm going to talk about other possibilities? Actually, I did. I did get scholarship from the department for the first spring semester. I got a scholarship known as a university chancellor's award. So those awards are actually given to students. So university things, particularly this students really actually need to get into our college. So they actually gave me a total of $10,000 of reward and our college fees are around $14,000. So it's like a one semester thing. If you continue to be very good in your academics, they might extend you. It's not confirmed, but it's a chance because I got chancellor out for second semester also. So yes, I did get scholarship in first semester. And as well, I was doing two jobs in first semester. One as a grader for operating systems and another position I was doing as a financial assistant at Dean's office. So you have opportunities to get a scholarship. But the one thing you have to remember is these kinds of departmental fundings and those kinds of things are only eligible to regular students, not to professional students. So you have to keep that thing in mind before you send out mails to professors. So as I said, you have all these opportunities, no one is going to come and give it to you. You have to actually ask for them. And if you deserve it, it will come to you. So you have to reach out instead of sitting in your room and like, hey, why no one is coming to me and interacting with you. And another main thing before I leave, please come to the college on time. Means if the college starts from June, January 23rd, please make sure you come around January 11th or 12th before one or two weeks so that you have time to adjust and you have time to adjust your room or your food situation and where to get things if necessary and medicines and all. So I would say, give yourself a two weeks of grace period because that's the mistake I did because when the college was supposed to start at January 23rd and I came like January 21st or something because I was like, hey, I want to spend some time with my friends back in India but that's the mistake I did. I shouldn't have done that because 21st when I came, 23rd when the college started, from the first day itself, assignments started hitting me. So it's like I had to do assignments, deadlines were coming up and it's piling up and I have to do my homework like getting stuff from Walmart and all, but I was, I don't have necessary time. So it kind of crumbled on me and I felt so lonely at that time because so many things happening but I couldn't be able to handle it. So the protein pack I can give you, please make sure you come at least one week. If you come before two weeks, that's really good because you can apply for on campuses and you can actually interact with seniors and get to know how Milwaukee and or if it helps you, you can actually get to get used to mentor and how it feels. But I would highly recommend you to come one week before or two weeks before and yeah, don't come one day or two days before. Thank you. Yes, yes. Do come in advance because it does take a while to get set up and if you're trying to juggle classes at the same time, it makes it go much harder. Yes, thank you. So as Prawni mentioned, he got a chance to award for his first semester that is usually awarded by the department chair to students who are identified by the admissions committee as being particularly strong. Then there are TA ships and RA ships. TA ships, as Prawni mentioned, there's fewer of them available especially for spring semester because the deadline for being hired for TA ships is much earlier and you need to physically be on campus on January 4th or so. I forget the exact date, but you have to be here much much earlier so I wouldn't count on trying to get a TA ship your first semester or an RA ship for that matter if you haven't already been working through the system. There is an application form online for the TA ships. For RA ships, you need to apply from a professor has funding and for professor has funding, they will usually note it on their webpage. For example, I don't have any funding for new graduate students so you can send me all the messages you want and I'll just say you're not looking, I don't have anything. So try to make sure it makes sense. Those are all, as Prawni said, only for people who are already in the regular track. Data structures are now in the examination schedule for January 19th. So that will be a course in which you'll be asked to demonstrate that you're able to program in Java or C++ to work with a data structure performing some sort of algorithm. So this will be like something that might have been on a final exam for data structures and algorithms where you actually need to write code. It will be done in person on paper. And yes, indeed, please change your name so that the people who are want to give you a pen will see that your name matches that on your application. Professor, I'm really sorry to interrupt. Can I share my internship experience? Yes, that would be fantastic. Thank you. Hello again. So I actually forgot to mention my internship experience. So for upcoming summer semester, I'm actually offered an internship position in the company called Kohler. And I got a role as data engineer here. So it's like I was trying to get this role, but finally I got this. And during this internship journey, it's really hard and you have to be very much motivated while applying for this company. I mean, I was at the beginning when I was applying for companies, it's like really getting rejection straight away when I apply. So I have to reiterate myself and reiterate my resumes again and again. So if you see in call, we have another member known as Lisa. So she actually helped me a lot for my resumes and all. So I actually went out and asked for help with Susan McRoy, our department coach here, and Christian Zheng, Professor Christian Zheng, she is our data design analysis professor. So I was just reaching out for help and UWM was actually responded to me back to me and they actually helped me to shape my resume and to shape my career. So whenever I have an interview, Lisa recommended me what kind of tools UWM provides. We have a website that is big interview tool. So that will actually help you prepare for an interview. So actually prepared in there. So it's like it's an AI tool which actually gives you feedback for interest and also they will ask you questions and you have to answer and it rates you based on how many homes you put in the words while constructing and it rates you like, are you at gold tier or silver or you have to improve or not. So we have all these incredible resources brought up by UWM and it all actually helped me to lead to my internship. So by this number I yesterday itself I got the internship letter of a letter. So it's really an exciting journey and I really thanks UWM for supporting me and especially Lisa for supporting me. So yeah, thank you Professor for allowing me to talk. Professor I guess you are in mute. Thank you Prené and I just want to say to everyone that Prené is a fantastic student and we are delighted to have him at UW Milwaukee and we're so proud of him for this internship opportunity. He just learned that he got it and so it's very, very exciting. We're very proud of him and you too can come to UWM and have the same wonderful experience that Prené is having. We do have one question here about pre-decision status admits. I'm assuming that means someone who has applied but has not yet been admitted. What I can tell you is that we do have all of our applications in process at the moment. UWM is experiencing a very, very high volume of applications at the moment and so it's taking us just a bit longer than normal to get through them but we are processing the applications. We're doing the very best that we can. We know that students are anxious and trying to make it in time to get admitted in time to have the opportunity to apply for a visa and get here for spring. We are aware of that and we're doing the very best that we can. If you have specific questions about your particular application you are welcome to email us. I would email us at issss at uwm.edu. I'll put that into the chat. Hopefully all of you are familiar with that by now but feel free to send us an email and we can check into it to double check that there's nothing wrong. I think we've come to the end of our time today. Dr. Boyland or Prené, do either of you have any final comments that you'd like to contribute? My suggestion would be just to come early and just bring your winter clothing. Don't feel anything like hey, Milwaukee Winter is worse or something. I mean it's easy to handle here so I would say nothing to worry about the winter but don't take it as granted. Just roam around outside with having a shirt on. Just make sure that you have appropriate winter clothing like gloves and proper shoes, waterproof shoes and all. So just prepare yourself. Don't be overconfident and please come early. I cannot stress on that. Please come early. I have nothing more to add either. Great well thank you everyone for joining us today. Really appreciate your time. We look forward to having you at UWM where you're going to come and be wonderful successful computer science students. I've shown you our website that has the contact information so if you have additional questions you are welcome to contact us and we can make sure that if you have questions for the program or for Prené we can make sure that they get forwarded on so that you get the appropriate answers. Thank you so much for everyone for joining us today and look forward to seeing you in January. Thank you. Bye everyone.