 Hello, man. How are you? I'm doing well, Gray. How are you? Oh, not too bad. How is the fair? I know that you stepped away from that for a second for our chat today. Yeah, so far so good. It's actually going to start at 11, right in BBB atrium. So we've just been setting up and getting ready for, to me, with students for the next three or four hours. I think it goes until about two or three this afternoon. Sounds good. Very exciting. Well, I'm jumping into conversation already. It didn't give me the chance to introduce yourself. I'm going to use our talk that we're having. So, of course, this is our, our fourth Tuesday talk, Tuesday talk. Obviously it's a Wednesday, but hey, we make do. So these are, of course, our 15 to 20 minute conversations. We're doing about every week this semester, just a chat with some of the offices on campus and share some resources. I am, as always, Gray strain. I use they, them or she, her pronouns. And I am one of the staff academic advisors here in the CSC undergraduate advising office. And I am joined today by Matt Hancock. I will pass it over to you, Matt, to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your role within international programs and engineering. That sounds great. Thanks, Gray. And thanks everybody that's watching today. Again, my name is Matt Hancock. I'm one of the international program advisor coordinators in IPE, which is international programs and engineering. And so our role is to release this undergraduate students with obtaining some kind of international or intercultural experience. So that might be a summer abroad. It could be a semester abroad, like winter 23 internships, volunteer, student orgs, travel abroad. So we really assist any students who are looking at either some help or just some approvals for those international experiences, whether it's coursework or just travel logistics. My specific portfolio consists of a lot of our programs that we've been partnering very closely with the East department. So we have a brand new program that's going to be running this upcoming winter semester in Prague. One of their providers or one of the staff from the provider is actually going to be at the fair today too. So anybody who's interested in that program, definitely try to stop by today at the BBB so that we can help answer any questions you might have right now. But I also help with the international minor. So I know we've got a good chunk of each students who are also in the minor and so just assisting with degree audits and progress towards completion as well. Of course. So yeah, you're not doing too much over there. No, I was just waiting, just twiddling my fingers, just waiting for the emails to come in. No, it's been really busy, but it's also nice and refreshing to be back on campus and a lot more activity and energy. So I think all of us, it's a culture shock, whether you're a student or staff with the full floodgates opening and all of us just being back on campus, but it's a good, it's a good vibe going on right now. So it's nice to be back to a little bit more normalcy compared to the last couple of years. Definitely. Well, I just saw in the comments, cheers from Madrid. So feather folks are going to sound off on where they're at, maybe in their IP experience. Of course, feel free to do that. I do want to jump into some of the questions and I know at some point we're going to talk about Prague, like you mentioned, because it is a great new program. Sure. But I'm just curious, you know, I know that, like you said, this is a whole lot, you know, there's a lot of pieces to this process, certainly in planning and even, you know, going through as far as how courses work and all of that. I'm just curious for students interested in studying abroad, kind of how can they, you know, approach planning? Can you walk us through the timeline for applying for an experience, what the planning process entails for students? Yeah, that's a great question, Gray. I would say we've got a lot of web or a lot of resources on our website. So one of the newest marketing materials we've created this past summer is just that a winter application timeline. And so I'll show a quick screen example of it. Obviously you can't read it from here, but on our website, it's right on our homepage, IPE.engine.umich.edu, I want to say. Don't correct me if I'm wrong, but on this overview, it does give you a really good idea of what that planning process looks like. And so obviously one of the biggest pieces that can take the most amount of time is for students who are looking at doing a full semester abroad and going through the transfer credit approval process. Some programs, it's a little bit more rigorous than others. And then there's programs like Prague and, you said we're going to be talking about Prague a lot during this chat this morning because it is a great program for CS students. But that program, we've already done a lot of that leg work, worked really closely with the onsite providers and the, you know, the academics and support staff on onsite in Prague to mirror U of M syllabi. And so they really created a lot of the courses based on our syllabi from UM. Feedback that we received from the department was also taken into consideration to further refine and make those programs and those courses as closely aligned to being on campus in Ann Arbor when it comes to the curricular side of things. But really it's never too early to start planning, especially for each students. I think traditionally it's been a little bit trickier to work through some of the transfer credit when you're upper level. So you LCS credit, so it's been a little bit harder to kind of manage, but we are getting some more headway and making some more gains with getting those courses approved. But the earlier you mentioned your interest in going abroad, whether it's for a semester, for a summer, the earlier you mentioned that to an academic advisor, whether it's in the EAC or one of the staff with Gray, that's the best time to really mention it and start planning as early as possible. So we always have walk-in advising in the afternoons with peer advisors who can help you navigate what programs might be the best fit for you, whether it's academically or personally. Maybe you want to, you know, for our heritage secret students, maybe you're from a country where we have a program and you've never been there or traveled there. And so that might be your driver. In others it might be, oh, I need to take this exact course or this exact degree requirement and we can assist you with selecting the right programs. But never too early to start mentioning those interests, see what's out there, because most of our programs are relatively static in our offered every year. There might be minor changes, but you can get a pretty good lay of the land even right now for what's going to be offered this upcoming winter and obviously in the summer as well. Of course, yeah. And for winter 2023, deadlines are approaching, right? They're coming up pretty quick. Yep, that's right, Gray. So our deadline is going to be September 15th for some of our programs. So some of our more popular programs like Comias in Spain, UNSW in Australia, and then this new program, the Tech Career Accelerator and PROG, all of those have a deadline next Thursday. We do have some other programs that have a deadline of October 1st. And then one of those programs that's also pretty friendly and pretty accessible to EECS majors is NCO, which is in France. That has a little bit later deadline, but the more popular programs that we have, those primary three, the deadline will be next Thursday. Okay. And just a quick question for a student who maybe is just starting the process. Is it too late to, you know, have the application submitted by next week? Should they plan for those later programs at this point? I don't think it's too late. No. I think, you know, obviously start the application sooner than later because there are a couple of requirements, one being that you meet with the lead advisor for the program. And all of our contact info is provided in that follow up email after you've actually started an application, but we do require you have some kind of an appointment with us prior to the deadline, if at all possible, just so that we can review the timeline, make sure you have a good understanding of what the application looks like. But the deadline is really so that we can get the application started, get the admissions notifications and processing applications. But if you haven't figured out the course piece, that's quite all right. You've got the rest of this semester to sort through any kind of course approvals and working through the transfer credit approval form over the course of October, November, December to do some of that. So definitely not too late right now, but definitely start that program or that application so that you have a good idea of what's ahead of you over the next week in terms of like the application checklist. Absolutely. I think that's important advice here because I've certainly had students asking about Prague and Czech there, which we've hinted at multiple times and I will chat about it soon, but I am curious, you know, thinking about what kind of that program you mentioned in France. What do course equivalencies typically look like? What can a CS student, for example, or a DS student expect when looking at some of those course equivalencies? Yeah. So ultimately there's about three different results to come back when students submit a course for evaluation. So after we've received the transfer credit approval form, it gets routed to the appropriate department. And at that point, the department will look at courses that get approved for an exact equivalent. That's going to be the easiest process for students and advisors to navigate what degree requirements they're going to fulfill. And so that's why, again, this program in Prague and the NCA program, they're great because they do have direct equivalence. They've already been approved. There's less of that navigation or that gray area about, oh, well, will this fulfill the specific requirement or is it going to not count towards my degree? So that's the easiest one. The middle ground is departmental credit. That's where there's a little bit more discussion that needs to be had with the academic department, with your academic advisor to learn more about exactly what degree requirements a departmental credit might fulfill. And so with the tech program in Prague, you'll see that a lot of the courses that are electives are approved as either 300 level or 400 level departmental credit. It's really up to you as a student to have a conversation with the academic advisors to determine exactly what fulfillments you'll be able to obtain through that. The third result that you'll get from a transfer credit approval form is just not transferable. Meaning there's just not enough content or overlap between the two courses to really accept any kind of transfer credit. And so for, in general, I think all of our programs, they're still pretty, it's not too late to submit some of those transfer credit approval forms. For each student on particular, we see a lot of students who maybe want to get a couple courses approved for ULCS. That can take a little bit of time just to review all the various course materials, including the syllabus, exams, written assignments, some of like examples from that for the department to make an informed decision. But other popular courses are some of those core courses that most students will be able to complete, whether it's like some of the math courses, like 200 level or maybe like a stats course. Obviously the intellectual breadth requirements that we all have. I guess I'm not a student, so I can't say we, but the students have in common, a lot of students will fulfill at least one or two of those intellectual breadth requirements in most cases for a full semester. And those of you who might be doing the international minor, you can also fulfill requirements for the course and more of like an inter-culturally focused course. I appreciate those pieces and definitely as far as giving time for a TCAP when it's necessary and also connecting with advising, especially around departmental credit, there are some instances in which it can be used, but those are quite restrictive at least for CS and DS, so again being sure to touch base well in advance. And I do want to talk about the international minor in a second for sure, but I actually want to switch gears a little bit more about Prague and maybe some other programs that you'd really recommend for CS or DS students, particularly a question we have in the chat from Jake. Does the Prague program currently get you any ULCS? Short answer, yes it does, but I will pass over to Matt to chat a little bit about kind of some of those really great course offerings. Yeah, thank you. So yes, there are, I believe all of our elective courses with the exception of the entrepreneurship program, which is pretty new with regards to the department and just the IP program offerings as well. And again, we've worked really closely with our overseas partners to get those approved as ULCS. But the other main component of the Prague program is that you can also fulfill your MDE, your design experience. And so the required courses as part of the Prague program is that you take an intro course, like a one credit language, and so that's really just so you have a little bit of like a functional understanding of language and kind of try to interact a little bit with locals and extend that gesture of trying to speak the local language, which is really important. Obviously, Americans get a bad rap and maybe still an accurate rap that we expect everybody to speak English, whether we're in the U.S. or it's traveling abroad. And so having that gesture of trying the local language really helps a lot of doors and really helped you to have more authentic interactions with the local culture, having them see you try their language and not just expect everybody to speak English. The reality is most people, especially in Europe, do speak English. But just having that small icebreaker of saying hello in Czech or thank you or any kind of, you know, just one or two words really does go a long way, believe it or not. The other pieces there's a leadership course that you'd be taking. A technical writing course. I'm also just refreshing my memory on this one too, but there's a leadership development for the tech sector course. You also will do a tech ethics and then the communication for the tech sector. So those eight credits would then fulfill the MDE requirement for CS students. The NCA program, which is the program that's also pretty conducive to weeks majors has a lot of courses that are approved for direct equivalency to each courses, but they don't have that added benefit or feature of being ULCS approved or having that full package of the MDE that's already going to be bundled into the PROC program. Definitely that MDE piece alongside some of those upper level credits. Like you said, definitely unheard of, very new. I think really exciting for the students we've already talked to. We're kind of coming up towards the end of our time here. We do want to chat about the minor in a second. But I do have another question in the chat. If there are any other places, any other study abroad experiences that have kind of built in approved ULCS for students. So nothing that comes to mind in particular. I know there are a couple of instances. One that comes to mind is like Canterbury, which is in New Zealand where I believe there's a couple that have a fraction of a ULCS so maybe like 2.5 ULCS credit approval. The best way to find some of this information is through the course equivalency database. So the College of Engineering maintains an international database. So it's separate from LSA's domestic equivalency database. And part of the columns are what you can search for each university that you might be interested in going to would have comments about what ULCS or degree requirements, intellectual breadth, how those courses really will come back. And so very few amount that have that ULCS approval, but there are a couple others if you aren't looking to really double down on getting some of those ULCS in and be approved or excuse me completed through PROG you can still make progress towards some of those ULCS requirements through a variety of our other programs that are offered in the winter. I appreciate your redirection to that resource in the course of equivalency and I have to make the joke of PROG unfortunately I'm so sorry but it was right there. You know I held back when I was talking about gray area I could have gone down that path too but you know it's easy and sometimes I would say it's great humor. There we go. Occasionally. I'm sure people are now leaving on the chat left and right. So I do want to jump back to talk about the international minor. I know we've mentioned it a couple times I'm curious what that option looks like for engineering students and what that entails. Yeah so it's a 15 credit minor like most other minors in the college. The major components are that you're foreign language proficient beyond second well fourth semester so for example Spanish 232 so you've either completed Spanish 232 maybe received credit through AP or through transfer credit or even a placement test but ultimately through four semester language proficiency the other major components are a six week or longer international or intercultural experience so we have expanded our minor to not only focus on international if you're able to find a domestic experience that's still very intercultural in nature so for example maybe you want to go in either work, research, volunteer or intern on a Native American reservation in Michigan we'll work with you to make that kind of experience also approved for the international intercultural experience requirement and then the other major component is there's two one credit courses that are offered in the winter and the fall semester engineering 260 and engineering 460 so these courses really are designed to help you identify an international experience if you're still navigating what options might be available to you but it also assists you with some of the ethnographic approach so how do you approach people different from you or just domestically and ask good questions and practice and utilize those active listening skills and so it's a good course even if you're not interested or you change streams and you end up not declaring or pursuing international minor engineering 260 is still a great course for all students because it allows you to start making those connections between some of the course work or some of the approaches you're currently taking on campus and how you can kind of expand those or apply those to more of a global workforce or more of an intercultural setting and then the other requirement is depending on how many language courses is you've got to take between 7 and 11 courses that have been approved for intercultural coursework so that's really just focusing on a non-U.S. culture the nice thing about our minor is we really try to make it align really well with the rest of your requirements or you might be doing so you can double count the courses you're taking within the COE towards our minor so if you're you're 300 level humanities for intellectual breadth you can find a course that's more internationally and culturally focused have it fulfill both of those requirements you might be able to find a course abroad that's focusing on maybe global operations or global systems engineering more of an I.O.E focused course that can still count towards maybe some of your flex tech plus the international minor and so we want to make it as easy as possible to obtain our minor with some by no means supposed to increase your academic rigor or how much effort you need to put into your current coursework it's really just providing you with the focus of alright you've got all these electives or these courses to choose from why not have it more of an intercultural or international focus as opposed to some other main theme because obviously all of us are going to find ourselves in a very very intercultural experience and setting as we well here on campus and as we make our way across across the globe after we leave campus and graduate as well so those are the four major requirements we do have nice flyer the kind of outlines that I can meet with students about the minor and kind of do a quick eyeball of okay well if you decide to declare the minor this is about where you're at with all the various requirements so always happy to have those meetings or those conversations as well of course and yeah I really like that that piece about the importance of kind of the intercultural awareness and that we are kind of all going to be global leaders in some way especially within computer science right data science I think those are fields that are really right for that so really appreciate that option in the minor I know we're at the end of our time here but I do want to give you a chance there's any like closing comments advice you have that you want to share with students around IPE or you know study abroad experiences yeah no I appreciate it again everybody thank you for joining today I'm glad you're here to stick with us and I hope a lot of the info has been helpful for you but I guess the last thing I'll say is you know if you're going to be around BBB today we do have our fair going on from 11 to 3 stop by ask questions whether it's about some of our winter programs or other opportunities we're more than happy to answer any questions you might have we also are going to be doing an info session next Monday for that tech pro that prog program and so great if we haven't already provided that info to you we'll get it over to you and you can send it out or post it to your social media or other avenues but we will have some of the onsite representatives providing more information about the program what housing looks like what it looks like from a student student perspective of the program and the other nice thing about that info session is as I mentioned earlier one of the requirements for applications that you meet with an advisor to review the application obviously we're about a month or a week out from that deadline if you attend that info session next Monday 11 to 12 virtually will fulfill or will mark off that required advising appointment as complete so it's a good way to knock out that requirement prior to next Thursday's deadline and still get a lot of really good info from the program organizers as well sounds great well Matt I appreciate you talking with us this afternoon or morning rather what is time at this point in Spain it's afternoon so oh yes I'm also cheers from Madrid over here as well I will say we're so excited to be doing this series next week we will not have a talk we will have one on September 20 Tuesday September 20 at 12pm with the engineering honors program so another great resource to get some information on what's available on campus and they also have I believe a global leadership component so we're just following this theme right on through but thanks again Matt I appreciate your time thank you will be posted on our IG and the YouTube so if you're watching this later thanks for tuning in outside of our live portion take care yeah thanks everybody