Electrical Engineering Graduate Program Webinar

Hey Dorothy.

Hi, good morning or afternoon now.

I know, yeah.

I was in in another meeting and I just, uh.

Dropped out there to make sure I get here on time so.

Um?

Do we?

So we have some students here now.

Hi, everyone welcome.

So I think we can get started whenever you're ready, do some, start with some introductions.

Sure, yeah, that can we? So I'm assuming everyone can see the slides then, right?

Yes.

OK.

All right, uhm hi everyone. Welcome to our info session. We're happy to have you guys here. My name is doctor Sam on Maggie. I'm a faculty member with the electrical engineering Department at School of mines.

Um and with me is miss Dorothy Chang. Uh, she's a graduate program manager here at mines. In addition to E, she manages other Department as well, but pretty much everything related to EE graduate program will go through Miss Check.

Do you want to say something before we start with the presentation?

No, just welcome everyone. If you have any questions, you can pop them in the chat window and will answer those either as we go or at the end.

OK, very good.

So let's get started. The plan is to come. We have a presentation that talks a little bit about high level aspects of electrical engineering at minds.

And we can then answer questions and I believe we have some.

A video from our current and former students that will will talk about some some aspects of Graduate School from their perspective.

OK, so.

Maybe I think you should.

Do you want if you click on control slides?

Translator flight correct yes.

All right, uhm?

So let me try to.

Increase the size of this a little bit.

I apologize, let me just try to.

Adjust the size on my side so I can see the slides myself better.

Alright, so um.

One question that you might have yourself is why do go to Graduate School?

There are a lot of benefits associated with that. First of all, what I always say to my students is that during undergraduate studies you learn the fundamentals and basics of a lot of aspects of electrical engineering. Many courses teach you about the fundamentals, about how various parts of electrical engineering worker in are Inter related, but typically you don't get a chance to get into.

Very meaningful research at that level if you're interested in research Graduate School, provide that opportunity to you so classes at the graduate level they are more advanced than undergraduate classes, but at the same time, and they are more open ended in a sense that unlike undergraduate classes where problems exercises course projects, everything is very clear cut. Everything is within a well established framework.

At the graduate level you you uhm?

Come across research questions that have not been solved before and this gives you an opportunity to not only get engaged in meaningful research and collaborate with other researchers in the field, but more importantly to make a difference because a lot of the problems that we address at that level, both at the Masters or PhD level. These are new problems. These are important problems that people have been struggling to solve.

Add Graduate School you have a chance to interact with, you know other graduate students with a lot of postdocs that we have as well as faculty.

And if you are involved in a uhm.

In a research project, you may be traveling for that to different conferences. To be able to present your work, for example.

Now after finishing Graduate School, there are a lot of additional career possibilities that's are typically not available to you when you're an undergrad, and these are mostly positions that are focused in research are graduate students. When they graduate, they often go to various companies, either consulting companies or research and development companies here in Colorado.

These are some examples that we have listed here. Xcel Energy and then drill these specially or for people who have a background in in power and energy systems. We have Chevron, Lockheed Martin Memory, a large number of consulting companies that they hire are students in Colorado. The average starting salary for our students is about graduate students. That is, Masters is about $81,000 and like I said it.

Opens the door to a lot of different opportunities that may not be available available to you with with a with just a bachelors degree.

Let's talk a little bit about the research possibilities.

EEE Department at mines is active in variety of different research areas. Some of them are listed here at the high level. We work in areas related to power and energy systems related to control related to data science as well as antenna design and wireless communications. Now within those individual topics in areas of research, there are many many sub areas. For example, data science in which we are very active.

I could be broken down into um compressive sensing to data analytics to optimization to signal processing.

Energy systems same way you have a variety of different opportunities to do research related to, for example, the power grid or powertronics. Or if you're interested, more specifically in renewable energy, you can conduct research in that area or for example energy conversion in terms of designing Motors and generators and Transformers. So these are some of the many opportunities that are available to you.

At the Department.

Now, Uhm?

There are a lot of resources for you at the, uh, at minds.

In addition to, uh.

Opportunities to get support. Buy em from faculty in terms of Courier support or you know, different research opportunities. We have a very supportive community here at the Department. There is a lot of students socials that occur throughout the semester. We have the graduate student government. You can represent students by taking part in that we have family support services as well as their Career Center. My Career Center at minds.

Is very active in finding the best opportunities for the students. We have career fairs and minds that attract many, many companies from all across the state.

Then students are really in high demand. It's very rare that we have a student graduating from our Department an not lining up. You know, one or two or three job offers from different companies and mines. Career Center is actually a very very helpful resource for you.

Um, in terms of, uh?

Some of the statistics we currently have 56 graduate students or faculty consist of 10 year intern intern faculty who are active both in research and teaching and then we have teaching faculty who are mainly responsible for teaching classes and then we have three degree programs that I will talk about them shortly.

Now.

Within the eat program there are a different degree programs that you can choose from. These would be graduate certificates, non thesis Masters, thesis based Masters and PhD. Each one has a different requirement. So let's start with the certificate. First certificate is a kind of the easiest of all four programs in which you would have to take 12 credit hours, which consists of four courses.

Um, and you can typically based on how these courses are being offered. It could be done in one semester or one year, uh, the one certificate that we're offering right now, which is in the books, is data science for signals and systems that covers variety of different.

The office related to data science. There are a couple of core courses that are mandatory for this certificate, but then a list of I believe five additional technical electives from which you can choose to complete their requirements of that certificate. One step after that is the Masters non thesis program. Here you would take 30. Horse will create hours. Typically it takes about one year to 1 1/2 years or two to three semesters.

It really depends on.

How many courses you're willing to take every semester and of course the schedule with which the courses are being offered. Because some of our graduate level courses are being offered every year, some of them are being offered every two years of depending on that you can basically.

Schedule your schedule. Your graduation time.

Masters non thesis. Uh, as the name says it there is no research thesis based research for that. It basically consists of courses you can take a couple of undergraduate courses, technical electives which would be 400 level as well, but majority of course is issue will take would be basically 500 level courses which are graduate level. These are more advanced than undergraduate courses and despite the fact that in this

particular program you don't have a thesis that you will not do a thesis based research, still majority of our graduate level courses have a significant research project component to them, so you will be exposed to research to some level. But again, it's not going to be as extensive as a thesis based research. If you're interested in research more the better program would be the Master of Science thesis based in which the 30 credit hours that you need to take would be broken down into 24 credit hours of course work.

And then six grade hours of research. Because this is research and because of the typical uncertainty associated with research work, the thesis based program typically takes a little bit longer, so unlike the non thesis option which is 223 semesters, this one takes about three to four semesters an if you're interested in this option, I would really recommend that you go check the website and look at the Web pages of.

Uh, our individual faculty and see what research areas they have to take a look at their sample projects from the past and then contact them to see what opportunities they have.

And then we have Lastly doctor of philosophy, the PhD program. This consists of 72 credit hours total which would be 36 grade hours of courses and then 24 credit hours of research. For those of you who start the PhD program with a Masters already, you can, I believe, transfer up to 24 credit hours. That will count towards that settlement to create hours. So that means that there is going to be less. Number, of course is that you would have to take to fulfill.

The create our requirements. The PhD program takes significantly longer than the Masters program. The average is about four to five years. There have been, I would say, rare cases in which the student has managed to finish sooner than four years, or perhaps has taken it longer than five years average would be four to five years. This definitely requires having a faculty advisor who is willing to work with you. Define a research project with you, and then conduct supervised research.

Both are master thesis, Master of Science thesis phase as well as PhD would basically have you engaged in publishing papers, making presentations, attending conferences, attending workshops. So if doing research and investigating a novel research question, something that people haven't been able to address before. If this is something of interest to you, I would highly recommend that you look into this opportunity.

Now.

Uh, we have different uhm programs. Uh, or rather.

Tracks or areas within this these uh.

I programs these would be the antenna on wireless communication, energy systems and Powertronics an information system, and science is the AWC. Track talks about antenna design, talks about energy harvesting, about designing wireless communication networks.

Focuses on computational electromagnetics, and we're very active in these areas and we have labs in which the students can engage in experimental work. We also have the track of energy systems and powertronics. As the name says it, this track focuses more on designing energy systems. The power grid can. The focus can be on the distribution level at the transmission level at the generation level. When it comes to power tronics, you could either do research related to the Paris Tronic Circuit design.

Itself or powertronics circuits as a as an interface mean for integrating renewable energy resources with the grid and when it comes to renewable energy resources, we are quite active in looking at different types of resources. How they are interface with the grid.

In particular, we are very active and wind energy and Solar Enerji. We have courses that are specifically focused on design of windenergie systems. How the turbines are being designed, how they are being controlled, and all these relevant topics.

And Lastly, we have the information system. Science is the focus here is on data science, signal processing, optimization control robotics. So all these sub topics are embedded in the ISS track and there are a variety of different courses that cover each of the topics that I mentioned.

Now.

There are a variety of different means for supporting graduate students at the Department.

We have our raison TAS that are available to the students. These are typically made available to students who are research based. So either Masters thesis or pH D non thesis students typically do not receive at TSR Azan. I say typically because there have been exceptions in the past, but that's not the general practice. However, as a non thesis student you still have the opportunity to work hourly. You could.

The greater for example, or work with different professors who need an hourly researcher.

Uh, four thesis based students. Uh, this would be Masters, thesis and PhD we have teaching assistantships. We have research assistantships. These basically cover your full tuition so you don't have to pay tuition. And on top of that it would pay your monthly stipend and will cover your health insurance. Very common scheme that we have other Department is to support an incoming PhD students with a teaching assistantship for one year or.

Two semesters so that the student can. Basically, you know, take classes, meet with faculty, and once he or she is ready then your she can move to a fully funded research program and these research assistantships are typically supported through either federal institutions like National Science Foundation or Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Office of naval research. Places like that. Or it could come from.

Private industry we've had both situations and.

Um, another opportunity that some of our students take advantage of is actually fellowships that are made available through institutions like NSF. So this would be a very prestigious award that if awarded to you, it will cover your expenses for the duration of your PhD studies, for example.

So let's talk a little bit about the cost of attendance. These numbers that are provided here or for the 2019 twenty academic year. The numbers typically change every semester by a certain percentage. Nothing significant, but you know, in the future years there might be some changes to the numbers. But anyway, the tuition.

Uh is different depending on your residency status. If you're a Colorado resident president, it would be about $16,000 for out of state students that would be $37,000 and then fees. That would include access to the rec center, the Recreation Center, another Student Services is about $2400, so that's typically the cost of attendance that we have.

Now.

Let's talk a little bit about, uhm.

The requirements for applications for those of you who are interested in then Masters non thesis option that deadline for fall 2020 is 15th of July.

If you're looking into being considered for funding, for example to your are a typically January 5th, is the deadline for admission for fall.

We uhm for this particular year for fall of 2020 because of the situation with go with 19. The school has decided to waive GRE test scores for all students who are applying to the non thesis program. So if you're interested in this program for this year, you don't have to take the jirari score.

Uhm, but in general are admission requirements as you have to have a bachelors degree in relevant fields, which would be engineering, computer science, mathematics or any type of physical science and expectation is that your GPA on a scale of four would be 3 or better and then you would have to have a Tre score with a quantitative reasoning score of 151 or better. If you're an international applicant or an applicant whose.

Native language is not English. You would have to provide a toefl score as well. What we require is a score of 79 or better. If you do not have access to take the Toefl test, you can use the I'll score an if using. I'll say has to be 6.5 or higher.

But like I said, uh, this year, keep in mind again that for not non thesis applicants, Gru scores is not is not mandatory.

So this was a kind of a quick overview on the graduate program at EE. If you have any questions, you can either email myself or Miss Chang and will be happy to answer questions or or direct you to someone who can.

I guess this would be a good time to kind of stop for any questions that you might have.

Um, and if not, we can move on to the video we have for from our current and past students.

So one question says for PhD applications, is it compulsory to have the support of a faculty before applying?

However, your research interests mash research activities of some advisors in Department. Yes, the answer to that is yes. We often refer to that as a champion. We have to have for PhD students. You have to have a faculty member who will champion you.

It doesn't mean that you will start with a research assistantship. As I mentioned, you might start with the teaching assistantship, but you definitely have to have a faculty advisor who is willing to work with you throughout your PhD studies. So often times what we highly recommend to the students who are interested in our program for PhD specifically is make sure you in parallel to gathering all the application documents and applying to the programming parallel to that make sure.

You contact faculty and talk to them about your background. We are always more than happy to schedule meetings with you guys and just, you know, discuss what we do and what your interests are and see if there is any kind of overlap between our mutual interests. Another thing that I would highly recommend again, I recommend for everyone to do this, but specifically are PhD students in your statement of purpose.

Make sure that you always state who are the faculty members you're interested in working with, because that actually allows us to direct your application to those particular faculty and ask their opinion about. Ask them to specifically reviewer application and provide a recommendation.

So Mark asked, uh, do the Masters Research credits go towards the PhD research credits? That's it.

Good question. I don't know Dorothy. Do you know the answer to that?

Yeah, so I can answer that. You can use a research credits towards actually for clarifying question do you mean research credits you've taken elsewhere an are transferring to minds?

Um, in that Case No. So mines doesn't accept any research, doesn't transfer research credits, but if you were to start your Masters degree at mines and then continue on to a PhD at minds, you would be able to use all of the credits towards the Masters and PhD without limit in the same Department.

OK, if there are no questions, you can always feel free to type your question whenever it's if anything comes to your mind. If not, how about we watch the video.

Hello everyone, I'm sorry.

Hello.

In W Department.

Hello, my name is Emily and I am an electrical engineer from Colorado School of mines. I received both my bachelors and my Masters degree through the five year combined program.

Is I mean?

Student at Colorado School of mines in EE Department. I lost EE because since I was a kid I he was enjoying making electronic project and also I love to make impact in the future of the world. So I chose energy major at the double. If I work on the control system of the Winter Bynes I did not come with gold mines in training to be a graduate student. Honestly I didn't even know if I wanted to be an engineer. However, during my first internship with utility company.

I absolutely found a passion or electrical engineering. I started my PhD program at fall 2019. I did my bachelors and Masters in Iran and then I applied for the PC position at the school of mines.

I chose EE at School of mines because of yeah, it's good environment and Co op Co operating environment and also the good reputation of.

Another School of mines and I choose suddenly at mines because of their fabulous faculties and also because of the good courses that we have here at mines like modern control design, win turbine design and also we have great an interesting project at mines like the one I'm working on at like our winter buying project which is going to be the largest of serving to wine in the world. My favorite project.

This was the course project of convex optimization where I learned so much about the mathematics behind optimization problems and some basic theories in the field of Optimization. Where I'm which I'm working on for my research work.

One of the greatest challenges about my Masters degree was actually the projects. Instead of taking tests of finals, every single one of my Masters classes had final projects. This is because the information you learn is so applicable and the point of the classes is to make you a fly, which you've learned to realize situations. I had to design electrical engineering systems. I had to create whole entire protected systems. It was quite a process and difficult, but honestly, it's one of the reasons I got a Masters.

Also what I love about doubling at mines is their support and a great help from a faculty and staff at mines, especially at EE Department.

One of my favorite parts about the Masters degree was the amount and choices of classes. I got to take. You can go cross discipline and you can take things that specifically apply to your job. I will be working for Phillips 66 refining as an electrical engineer and I get to apply some of these classes every single day during my job. For example, protected reeling and the national electric code, two horses I took during my Masters are things I used to help design and protect.

The refining grid. Every single day during my job. My favorite class that's taken.

At the school of mines, a voice data science because I learned the love nude topics and can use them to find it a good job for my future. I strongly suggest pursuing an electrical engineering degree because of all the labs and hands on activities you get to do through the Department and I strongly suggest a Masters degree because you go so far in depth and so applicable with their knowledge.

That it becomes.

Honestly, the best part of your education. I loved it and I hope you consider it an I absolutely encourage you to apply for dead EE at Myers would like.

OK, are there any any other questions or anything that comes to mind that?

For myself, can answer right now.

If not, keep in mind that you can always email us with your questions and will be happy to. Like I said, either provide the answers or directly to someone who can.

Maybe we have no more questions at this point, so.

Yeah, thank you all for joining us for this short info session.

Um and we look forward to hopefully seeing you in are in one of our programs here at the Department.

Thank you all.