Admitted Students Live Q&A Session - Electrical & Computer Engineering Master's Programs

OK.

Hello.

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Can anybody hear me?

I can I can?

Alright, I can hear you too.

Yeah, we're going to get started in.

A few minutes. Oh there it is in five minutes and 46 seconds.

Can you hear me or yeah I'm working now.

I can you sound great, you sound really great.

OK.

Thank you guys for being on with me today.

You're welcome.

Of course.

Let

All right?

So we have a lot of questions and I'll go through those as carefully as I can.

Um, we have a lot of questions we're not going to. We're not going to address any COVID-19.

Right?

Yep.

Um questions because we're going to send in separate communication out on that from big Duke. We don't have enough information to really share.

But I'm really excited about it.

About this event. Not about COVID-19.

No.

Is my name.

Is my name just read for Maine or is it red for everybody?

It's red when you're.

It's green when you.

His screen when you speak, it's red when you're not speaking an everyone else is Gray when they're not speaking. Does that make sense?

OK cool yeah.

And this area quality quiet when no one talks.

Have either of you been to campus this week?

No.

Nope.

Me neither.

My son has been going in every day.

Uh-huh

Which he's not. He's not living with this right now. He is in Durham, but.

So I'm guessing I'm guessing he will end up not going in, but I don't know.

Is he working?

Is he working?

He's working in Aaron Franklin's lab.

Oh yeah.

A air air is still making his lamp.

Yeah.

Get in here.

Yes.

Yes, I'll be interesting. 'cause I think the everyone was told to come up with what they thought was essential.

And.

Yeah.

Don't know there's a lot of discussion and people throwing their weight around.

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Cell.

We're going to get started in about 3 minutes and you'll know when we've started because my voice will change and my voice, my accent will become noticeably less distinct.

There we go.

I.

OK, well I'm going to grab a cup of coffee real quick.

All right?

Yeah, I've actually seems like being busier 'cause it's like endless video conferences.

Oh

I know, I know, and you spend about 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning of each conference. Getting everyone's tech to work so.

You're losing 15 minutes every hour.

Uh-huh

Zoom has been pretty good. I've been on a bunch of meetings with a lot of faculty and they're all getting.

Quite good at it, I think so we'll see how it goes when Knicks Mr. Stats.

Right, right?

Exactly.

Well, whatever, yeah, when we get back to teaching.

Yeah.

Be sure and mute your phone, your cell phone.

When we start 'cause I heard a little song while you were talking.

That was actually my computer.

Oh, that was your computer.

That people will mind me to come to this, so hopefully it won't do that.

Oh, OK, you're already here.

Yeah.

But I can get my other stuff too.

Thank you.

A minute 30.

Yeah.

I can make system sounds go away. There we go.

Can you still hear me fine?

I can.

Yep.

Good.

I'm playing with the volume mixer, trying to turn down other things.

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15 seconds.

321

Hello and welcome to today's Live Q&A session on Dukes Masters programs, an electrical and computer engineering for admitted students. Congratulations on your admission.

We have quite a few questions that were submitted during the registration process and will start with those, but this is the chat box where you read these these lines where you'll enter your questions live. Please don't worry if you don't see your question immediately, we will see it and we will respond. I do want to ask you please do not post questions that you submitted before the chat. We have those and we have quite a few of them so we will get started with that.

I I'm Susan Brown Anne, I'm here with Doctor, Marten, Brook and Tony Strimple from the ECE Department. Martin and Tony welcome.

Hi Susan.

Hi Susan.

Oh, it's so great to have you. Are you guys on?

It won't let's dive right into things.

First of all, I know that we were also disappointed to cancel our on campus admitted student day this year due to COVID-19 before we dive into the questions that were submitted during registration, can you briefly share what you wanted students to take away after attending admitted student day?

So Tony, I'll hand it to you to start.

OK.

Well, one of the things that.

I want students to take away from admitted students. Day is well. On the one hand, bring students on the campus just for seeing, of course, how beautiful Dukes, campuses and so getting like. There's a little bit of a taste of what it's like to be a student.

Here at Duke University, but then also I think to display and Susan or Martin you might be able to talk a little bit more about this, but some of the.

Right?

Offerings that we get for the students. From career services from professional development. Some of all of those I guess like non academic resources. And then finally.

To just kind of give everyone a sense of like what the requirements are, you can find them online, but there are always lots of questions about them anyways, so I you know I always would give a little explanation of what classes students typically take, what the sort of structural requirements of the program are in terms of course work.

Final exam things, that kind of stuff.

Uh-huh

I think those are the main main takeaway is that I that I hope to students to have from the admitted students day.

Great Martin, do you have anything to add?

Yeah, I mean, I just agree with Tony that being on campus helps to get a sense of what it would like to be. Here it is a beautiful campus and it's a really nice place to be.

An engineering campuses right in the heart of Duke, and so it's not like off on some little satellite place which is sometimes it is in other campuses. When I walked in my office.

Uh-huh

Yeah.

Each day I walk through cops of Woods passed a Duke Chapel.

It's very nice.

Yeah.

It is very nice and so I've posted in the chat a virtual tour that Duke has put together. It's quite nice you actually walk through places Anna little tiny student in educ sweater talks to you while you're walking through, but you can go into buildings and look around. It's quite nice and I do want to give a quick plug for.

All of the other admitted student events that we're going to be having the rest of this we can into next week. Tony mentioned all the other things that you'd attend as part of admitted student day, so we're going to have career services for Masters students, information about living in Durham, NC. It's a vibrant community. An also steps to securing your US student visa. We're adding events too, so be sure and check the admitted student page on pratt.edu.

And I believe everyone got an email invitation to all of these events as well.

Thank you, thank you both.

I do want to point out that we got quite a few questions about how COVID-19 might affect the incoming class. We will be communicating something to admitted student soon, but for now we suggest that students move through the enrollment process just as they would have in case things workout, but know that Duke is working through this issue and is committed to providing flexible resources to students.

And I want to.

So I just want to OK go ahead.

And I hope like you say one thing and that is that even from the beginning of this now pandemic, the faculty I've been meeting with faculty, and we've been talking about options and plans and we are committed to providing full of programmers as possible given whatever circumstances are are and Duke's campus currently is.

Essentially, shutting down and we're still teaching classes and doing everything.

With whatever means we can right now, a lot of online work, and so we are committed to.

Right?

Offering the program if you want to come and take it so.

Alright, so let's get started with their pre submitted questions will start with some general ones. How many students enrolled in this program last year and what do you think the class size will be this year?

That's a very tough question. Tony can tell you exactly how many registered last showed up last year, how many Tony.

That was about like like 92100.

Now somewhere in there.

Yeah, and we try very hard to maintain that size this year. But it's uh, there's not. There's so much uncertainty with what's going on.

And you will understand that that we.

Expecting.

We are expecting.

A wide range of possibilities, and I think we're trying to accommodate for a wide range of possibilities, so I think everyone is very uncertain about how what the class sizes will be next semester. About the only thing I'm certain others that will be here and will be offering classes.

Yeah.

Alright, great.

Um?

This is a very general question. How would you describe the learning environment in ECE at Duke?

I like to think of it as very collegial.

In that dumb.

My in fact, my wife and I, both professors here at Duke and our son recently graduated in ECE at Duke, which is sort of strange that he ended up being in the same often students. Children have want to have nothing to do with what their parents do. Maybe that tells you a little bit about what the programs like that our son wanted to do it. And and my wife was convinced that she would learn all sorts of horrible secrets about how terrible life was for students at Duke. But strangely, our son seems to have been the happiest Duke student I ever met.

He had a really great experience here and is like a really great example for what the program might be like. He was very, very happy, so I think in general the vast majority of students have a really good collegial environment. It's a nice place. There's lots of opportunities for recreation around the area. Duke is actually in a forest.

Call Duke Forest, which is about 5000 acre forest and for a long time I used to mountain bike in the forest until I got too old.

Do it, but yeah, so it's. It's generally pretty nice environment and I see lots of students sitting around that there's a cafe in the middle of the engineering quad. Nicey students sitting around chatting there. I mean, what do you guys think? Is that fair representation?

I think so.

Yeah.

I think so yeah, yeah yeah as I'm not not an instructor not a professor, but so I can't speak to the classroom environment, but seeing students and you know, not academic events participating in those students seem to be having a great time.

Yeah.

Uh, we have a couple of like sweets master suites that are specifically for our ECE Masters students. Just kind of like room to work or room to like. Put your lunch, that kind of thing. Those are all is well populated and with people hanging out or working on projects together. So I think I think collegial is Martin said is a good way to describe it.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean some of the classes aren't going to be a hard work in classes that we're learning. A lot of material that are hard work, and I think that's what you expect, but I think outside of class line people have plenty of opportunities to.

Blah steam and and talk to other people and get involved.

Looking.

Great, alright, so we have a lot of questions so I'm gonna start diving into the hard stuff. The most common question we got was.

What are my chances of going into Duke's PhD program in ECE? So can you guys talk about that generally?

Well.

OK.

Tony might have the numbers, but I want to give a little idea of what going into a PhD program is. Like. A lot of people don't really understand that process. When you when you go into the PhD program, you essentially.

It's it's almost a little bit like, but little bit like getting married. You come up with, you have to develop a relationship with an advisor.

Most people most advises don't just hire people Willy Nilly, they get to know a student and then they bring them into their group.

And so it's a. It tends to be a very one on one kind of thing where student will find an advisor and then go work for an advisor, the PhD program, and that's quite different than the way Masters programs taught, which are much more like undergraduate programs. From the standpoint that you sign up for classes and you show up.

So getting into the PhD has much more to do with what relationships you form with the faculty, reasonable number of of master students at Duke form those relationships with the faculty either through classes, orthrus, independent research they do in those options for both of those in our program, and a number of students do end up in the PhD program here, but a number also end up at PhD programs at other universities too, simply because of that.

Process of trying to find an advisor and I always advise students if they're interested in the PhD to apply to.

Several universities, when they're applying to the PhD program 'cause you have to apply to get into a PhD program and maximize your probability of finding that good match with an advisor.

So that may help to explain the way things work out, so we often higher master students from other universities into our PhD program. Just as we hire master students from our own program.

In to enter, enter PhD so the number of students that go into PhD is actually quite a bit higher than number that go into PhD at Duke simply because of that process.

Right?

Do you have the numbers Tony or do we have those?

Yeah.

I don't have. I don't have the numbers off the top my head it's I mean in in the past it's been.

Relatively small, but maybe that's something that will change it just because most of our students in the past have not been interested in going into the PhD.

OK.

Yeah, so that most of them have been interested in going into industry. Or that's right.

Let's story we had a little bit of my chart that showed the number that went into the PhD versus.

This is type of employment.

And it's got a wedge.

Create comes, yeah, there's about maybe 10 or 20% that.

OK yeah yeah into PhD programs overall. OK, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Women to women to men in the PhD program.

Yeah.

Vast majority went and got jobs.

And.

But that's right, I think that's what you were saying is exactly right that.

Yeah.

But I mean, as far as I know, we've been very successful with students that want to go into PhD programs. It's just you know, it's like that small ish percent of students that are doing that isn't because.

Yeah.

Job.

I just want to get a job.

Yeah.

Most of our students come in and then aren't able to secure PhD. Is that most Americans come in and are just like I just want to bam go get a job right?

It.

That you actually normally do have the opportunity, just I mean, you know you're really well positioned to get to know.

If if if you get good, if you get good grades in the Masters program here do can you apply to pH D programs and you apply to like 9 schools?

Yeah.

You'll almost certainly get into a PhD in, you know. I mean, the the that may change in the future, but right now that is definitely the way it is. Is that if you have a reasonably good grades and you apply to enough programs to make that match happen, the probability is quite high of the currently.

Needs quite a few PhD students working in graduate Department, so if you're interested in the PhD, it's it's quite probable you'll get one.

And you qualify.

OK, carry on.

Thank you both, I have a few follow-up question.

OK.

If you follow up questions, do you recommend pursuing a PhD after a Masters program if I don't want to conduct research in the future, how would a PhD degree benefit me as an engineer working in a company?

So it depends on what field you're in. There are a. There are very few fields in engineering where you have to have a PhD to work in the field.

OK.

I happen to be in 1, one of the few fields where about half of the people who get employed have PHD's and its analog circuit design.

They are about half of the people have Masters in half dese. It's a pretty small obscure field, I think. As far as software engineering and computer engineering, the vast majority of people have bachelors and Masters degrees and a Masters is viewed as a very thing that will help. You will gain you a little higher salary, more options for jobs. PhD usually does mean you're going to go into research or a very specialized field that requires a lot of extra training.

To work in it.

But maybe that answers the question.

Like

Ha ha.

University professor people want.

I think I think it does, and I think generally there are certain industries where at pH D is the right degree to have, but in the in the evidence we have. Yeah, right right the University is one of those, but in the vast majority of our master students they go into industry.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah, do either of you know if I mean I know. So having a Masters degree definitely will.

Sure.

Improve your like you know you're mean income by at least a bit. It'll make it a bit more marketable.

Anyway, I have a sense of whether or not that's true for PhD, 'cause I don't, I don't know.

I don't know.

Uh-huh

I saw some data a number of years ago that they took the money back to 1982 dollars of which would make it to adjust for inflation and that said This is for electrical and computer engineers that have in 1982 dollars in lifetime earnings.

OK.

A Masters is worth $1,000,000 more than a bachelors and a PhD with another million which is about I think, about right that that that it also showed a chart of income versus age.

And as you got a higher degree, your income peaked at a later age and was higher.

And the problem with with a bachelors degree is that often you can become obsolete.

Without getting more education until your income affect net income adjusted for inflation might go down overtime.

With Masters that happens much later on for pH DS, it tended never to go down.

OK.

Uh-huh

Thank you, we had some follow up questions on what are your students? Where do your students work? So I want to go through some of these slides that we have here. We have a list of area internships or not area, but internships that students completed all over the world and I want to point out here that the Master of Engineering degree requires an internship but many Master of Science students complete internships as well. Internships are a good thing for any master student I would say.

And we also kind of have a map of some past internships. Really. You can complete these all over the world. We showed the income.

Or the where the industry areas an income in this slide. Here some of the great companies that are students join. But really I want to talk about this. Our data visualization tool. If you go to ece.duke.edu and you search career outcomes, Masters career outcomes will be the first hit. You can see kind of the breakdown of what students are doing. An average salary and all that. But then you can also click out.

To our data visualization tool, well where you will be able to toggle on and off different degree options. UM student status, such as citizenship, year of graduation. You can click into a state to see where students actually work in that state. They have years of data in here an I think that is a good option for people who are interested in seeing where are alumni go that career outcomes page also has some alumni profiles on it as well.

So I wanted to share that someone said oh go ahead.

Now, as you say, I I get to see all the image student internship presentations in ECE. Anne. I'm always really impressed at the places students work on the projects they work on it for like 15 minutes. They tell me what they've been doing in a presentation and.

That just every year just continues to blow. My mind is two kinds of projects they're working on and the state of the art level at which they are operating.

Great, that's wonderful. We have a lot of information on where past Masters students have gone, but we don't have someone is looking for information on where people go for PhD. Do you guys have that anywhere on your website like where students end up going for PhD?

Not just Duke.

I don't think that yeah.

Yeah, I don't think that we do have that information on our website and.

Actually.

I think it is recorded. I'm not positive about that.

Right?

Actually on the on the career outcomes page there is a where are grads go section where grads are excuse me and they have recent doctoral program examples. Duke is listed northwestern is listed Pennsylvania State and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign or just a few of those.

All right, uhm? Alive question. Thank you. JD has posted the link.

Google.

Follow up question is can you get to a PhD through the coursework only path? So maybe we should talk about the.

Hold on to children through sheer.

Can we talk about the paths?

Yeah, yeah they can.

So.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Exactly.

I know people who have. Yeah, I mean it. You have to make a relationship with the professor. That can be done in clocks is that could be done in special projects.

It is the key is making the relationship with The Professor.

Yeah, the.

Yeah, that's right. I mean if you if you think of the, you know the reason that the thesis might seem like the more natural path is because you have this thesis and that's going to help you better when you're applying honestly the thesis you'll have developed that relationship with the professor by the time you're doing the thesis anyways, and so the user, the project.

Really.

Yeah.

Yeah, the thesis option is really more used by people who are bringing in a PhD student and want to see what they can do.

It's for someone who they had who they don't know that well.

Project Masters if you build a relationship well enough with a faculty member to want to work on a project, that's project is more common to actually do something.

Because and then the plenty of students have just taken classes, professors and ended up.

Getting to know them well enough and through the class to build a relationship to work in their group.

So I think all three.

I think the thesis is actually the least.

Yeah.

Least good option for people 'cause you have to. You have to already have a relationship to do that.

Right?

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Yeah.

So a student had asked for this breakdown, so I wanted to share it with.

Students, so let's see how are advisors?

It's assigned for all of these different types of students.

Tony, you did that.

Yeah, yeah, that's right, uh, so um, the way that it works is after the.

Certain terms the middle of April when I normally do it, I'll send out to all students that have accepted our offer survey. Where in you can indicate the professors that you would like to work with and then I will collect. You know, as I've got like a.

Majority of that data I'll. I'll just assign advisors based on preferences and availability to sort of weighing that out, but that's it. And then I'll send that out over the summer and that's how.

That is how advisors are assigned. So with your input and based on availability for the most part.

For the most part, everyone gets advisors that there are, you know.

I think everyone gets advisors that they're excited to work, but I can't think of any cases where I've had to like randomly choose someone. Something like that. Just Yeah, just really happen.

Right?

And the academic advisor is.

Right?

Someone is just going to give you some advice as to whether courses are appropriate or not and maybe help you navigate Duke a little bit and send you the places where you need to go to get help.

It's not.

The same as a PhD advisor.

Right?

That's right.

It's it's a. It's like your undergrad advisors that you have when your undergrad program.

I have a few other curriculum and research area questions that I want to plow through quickly. I think we can get some quick answers to this if I intend to concentrate in data analysis and machine learning, can I take technical electives in areas other than ECE but still from the Pratt School of engineering?

Yes.

You can even take them not in.

Yes, I think you guys have a lot of flexibility in electives.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Computer science and statistics, yeah.

Yep.

You can even take another in Pratt. I mean you can take math courses and statistics call to medical courses related to medicine or biology if you need too. Depending on what your topic is that you're interested in.

Yes.

Bye.

Yeah, that's right, especially with machine learning. They'll be a lot of that from outside from the medical school is often the case, yeah?

OK Great I will we will we be given a list of the curriculum to provide a reference for us to register for courses in the fall.

Yes.

Yes, I thought so. Tony will work with you on on on registering for classes in the fall and give you all the details on that.

Yeah, so I'll stand out.

At some point soon.

Kind of a study path.

A an email that just has kind of like you know. Here's you know, some of the areas. The common areas of interest. Here is a typical course plan and for the most part, everyone that joins us will just take the courses that I indicate in that of course, if you have, like, you know how I've got, I've already done something exactly like that, then you'll have minor differences. You'll talk with your advisor and Martin or me and for the most part, yeah, I'll send out something that's like.

Here's what the first semester is probably going to look like.

Yeah.

Perfect these two questions are kind of the same. Are students required to select the tracks they propose in the application or may they choose any major direction in ECE?

You can change.

Yep.

You can change good.

The you can change you can change when you get here. You can change as you're going through the program as it gets further on in the program.

It's harder to change.

Um, we like you to follow a distant pass through, so you might have to explain to us why you're changing what you're changing, and we want you.

Right, right?

Right?

If you changed completely radically from want to go take something totally different from what you're doing, it can get harder to do. But if you know changes changes definitely happen quite a lot.

And we're pretty happy with people changing their minds.

As things go along.

Can you pursue more than one track?

I mean, in theory, sure you could do like a combination of them. Uh, yeah, that's right, yeah.

If it makes sense, yeah.

What we want.

That's the key, right? You mean you need to be able to tell the story, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, if you can tell us why you took these courses.

Yep.

Then we'll pretty much let you take anything that makes sense. We're not. We're not very restrictive as too. I mean, you have to be able to meet the minimum requirements, which is a certain number of courses in ECE and.

Certain number of technical electives, and then when it says approved electives.

Yeah.

Right?

Um, that just means it makes sense, depending you say, well, I'm really interested in.

Applications of machine learning to gene therapies, and so I want to learn about biology, molecular biology that would be totally fine to take molecular biology courses.

Bye.

Yeah, we had a student that was that took a bioethics course. Or one of those approved electives in the Philosophy Department.

And that would make perfect sense.

That

Great.

If that was if they're doing that, yeah.

Perfect.

When asked about research opportunities.

Yeah.

OK, but one thing about do kids is there are a lot of choices from that standpoint. 'cause it is a full University and so we have.

Here you can take medieval poetry from like and things like that. So in some part of some parts of Eastern Europe.

Yeah.

If it made sense.

If it makes sense, right, right, right?

So someone asked about research opportunities in the field of machine learning and big data at dude, that's a hot topic I think. Can you guys give a little bit of information about about that?

Uh-huh

So what research is going on at Duke and machine learning? Is that the question? There's a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Area.

I mean it, it would be hard for me to there. They've got to be what? 30 or 40 faculty pretty deeply involved in that area.

Turns out that our current.

Uh-huh

All right, right?

Right?

The guy who runs the whole research program at at Duke is actually a machine learning person originally. Yeah, Larry, Karen. And so there's there's a lot of and we have some really good people in those fields here. Currently it's a very hot area.

Yeah.

The math statistics.

Hum.

Yeah, yeah, and there's, uh, I mean, you know we've got EC has quite a few people working in it, but then there's also like multi departmental. That's right. Yeah, Sri Right is related to.

Right?

Yes, yes. So many in the end there's people who work with medical school directly. We have a lot of joint appointments. Faculty that are listed in multiple departments.

Um?

Yep.

In her in that area.

Yes.

I.

And that's actually a common source to kind of one off research opportunities that someone from the Med school will contact us and say I need some help dealing with this data in some meaningful way. And yeah.

Will some students their way?

Yeah, so it's, uh.

I mean I.

They said there's just so many faculty doing things.

I can start listing people.

Butt head

What's his last name?

Yeah yeah, it's right, yeah.

Yeah.

I gotta say is very well. It's pretty well known in that field. Larry Karen does that.

I'm just not very good at names.

Yeah, I mean is it? Is it just Guillermo to scare myself?

Uh-huh

Hello.

Yep, Kimo does a lot of an argument really well Gimme Gimme Shapiro.

Uh.

My name, my name. I'm just getting old.

Robert Calderbank Anthea machine learning.

I know so many of these people and I've collaborated with them too.

Uh.

It's not doing well live.

Yeah.

Yeah, there there are, that's yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

It's OK if you can think of it now, but I think I think that answers the question alot alot going on. We've had some live questions be posted so I want to get to those quickly. Is it possible to go into the financial sector after?

Yes.

I'm studying data analytics and machine learning an image ECE. What courses should I take? I think that's a great question for the students advisor, right?

Yeah.

But we do have.

And and you.

Quite a few students who go into that area and and.

Yeah.

We're actually starting a Fintech Masters program.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

We are we are this year but that kind of leads me to another question. Can the Ms thesis advisor be from a different Department?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some. There's some like you know, rules about like you have to have a couple of ECE professors faculty on your thesis committee. But you know, we can. We often will do is have like a Co Co advisor from EC. It doesn't matter there like administrative rules. Yes, your thesis advisor can be from from a different Department.

Great, someone asked if you could give a timeline of the coursework.

Of course, the timeline of course work. 24 credits, an ungraded, research 6 credits for the thesis track with a standard duration of three semesters. So how might they arrange their courses in their research if they're doing that path?

Yeah, it's it. You said the probably the most common way is just to do.

Uh.

So what would it be?

I guess three courses.

Three courses in your fall semester.

4.

Three courses in the spring semester and once I can leave you with more, yeah.

Two horses in your research.

Two courses and your research in the final semesters. That being a three semester way of doing it.

Pretty standard.

You can also push it, you know. I mean, I guess three courses in the first semester is almost always the way to go, and so then you've got like, yeah, that's the sort of moving into Graduate School. There are a couple of early courses that are very work intensive that most students take three courses. What we really recommend in general for that for a semester and then after that there is like as you get into more specialized courses, it just becomes a little bit easier to handle manage the workload.

And of course it become more comfortable as a graduate student. So I think that like 3 and then four courses in the second semester, and then just one course and the two and then doing your research is another way to do it. But you can also spread it out and that happens sometimes that you find a right in your first semester. You just made a professor and you find a project to work on right away.

And so you do some of your research in that second, second semester spring semester. And you do that ungraded research course at that point and then do a second ungraded research course along with the regular coursework in that second fall semester.

And and use that time to write your thesis.

So there's like there's lots of.

Potential pathways

Potential pathways, yeah?

We have a live question that kind of dovetails into pre segmented question if he want if a student wants to work in a machine learning research lab, how do you get? How do you enroll in those labs and generally how do students obtain? Are a research assistantship and TA teaching assistantship positions in ECE?

Uh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess the short answer is you do well in classes and and people. People offer them to you.

Yeah.

We have quite a few teaching assistance and some people who get.

Research assistant sub. Typically. Maybe in the summer.

Um?

It's more common to get a teaching assistantship and.

Less common to get any kind of research assistantship alot does happen.

Um?

Yeah.

So getting getting to work in a lab once again requires getting to know professor being involved. If you being involved with a group.

Hum.

Yeah.

Did not a way to sign up.

Right?

Yeah, that's right. It's not like you enroll in a research class. It's a sort of finding those. And yes, In addition to those things too, like we get, you know.

Why?

Like announcements from professors in ECE. But from all over also that are kind of like hey I need students that's.

Yeah.

So has the background that Newsy student has to help with this project.

Now I will say a lot of the machine learning classes have projects.

And I've seen some of the projects and they're pretty darn good.

Um, and they're based on very real world concerns of the faculty, so that's one way to get to taking some of the machine learning classes that are project oriented. You will get to work in, essentially, in a lab environment.

In the image, degree is not set up for a thesis. Student asked about that. You can only do a thesis in the Master of Science. Is that correct?

Yes.

Yeah, OK.

Yeah, right? I mean so that you know the The Master of Science has this final exam.

Can't see me, of course I'm doing air quotes there.

Requirements which varies right? So I mean even if you do, the course is only we have this poster session at the end of your program where you give like a very brief presentation to some faculty in a poster session style, and the thesis is a different way of satisfying that requirement. The Master of Engineering degree has no final exam requirement like that, so in that sense you can't do a thesis for final exam.

Like the project too.

Master of engineering students can do independent studies if they you yeah, that's I mean so you can do these.

The project has the final exam.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, there's like you can't do that thesis in that sense of like having it.

You know, like kind of get you out, of course is in the same way that ungraded research doesn't matter of science students. But yeah, I mean, you can use it for an independent study.

You could you know? Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to do a thesis to do like research to have something that you'd like published, well then that's the same as it is for Master of Science or anyone, right? You just can't have it apply in the same way.

Right someone I wanted to know the admission rate for Ms and PhD. Do you have that off the top of your head, Tony?

I don't have that off the top of my head.

I don't either, but that's a good question.

So let's talk about scholarship.

Have all scholarships been posted?

And can students apply for scholarships?

Uh-huh

We consider every application for a scholarship. There's no additional application for scholarships, so there's yeah so no. In that sense you can't apply for Additionally, but we have reviewed every application.

Hesitant to say that all of them have gone out, but a majority of them have gone out.

Yeah.

So we're still.

Reviewing applications.

Yeah I mean that's.

Is it possible that there would be some more that would go out? But I think a majority of them, and I think that's safe to say.

OK, thanks and a student asked is it possible to earn a scholarship later if I get good grades in the first semester?

Right?

We are, so they're asking that presumably because we had a program where we did that and we didn't find it to be particularly successful. So we're we're no longer going to have that program. So no, from the Department will only be giving out these. These are upfront admission scholarships.

Great, thank you. We had a few visa questions and so I want to give.

Another quick plug for all of my other admitted student events, especially the steps to securing a US student visa. So sign up for those at the admitted student site.

There were a few more questions that were a little specific. Can I transfer my major and get a Masters degree in electrical engineering if I was admitted by the mechanical engineering Department?

We have a spy in our attendees. I'm just kidding.

You can, but it has to be approved.

Yeah, yeah.

It does and I would say you need to do that as soon as possible.

Yeah, the lady you do it, the more difficult it goes. We had a student who do that recently, but they had taken a lot of ECE courses.

Yeah.

Because they are leaning was in our direction with sort of machine learning robotics kind of direction and so and so it can be it it just if the courses need to be appropriate, you need. Basically what I tend to the students as they need to be able to fill out our program of study which has as part of it.

That's right, yeah.

For ECE courses that correct depending on which one you take, yeah.

Yeah, that's right, depending on which we have.

Yeah, so you got a certain number of EC courses you have taken. If you have. If you can't take those then you can't transfer.

They can transform.

Right?

Um?

Like

Yeah, now that's why I'm doing it early is good because some of those ECE courses that students take actually have restrictions on will only let ICI Ms students in or MSN imagemaster students in.

They're very popular.

Bye.

Yeah.

Until we've made sure that everyone has gotten in that needs to get in, that's very popular. And so then yeah, few mechanical engineering students or a few BME students might get in, and then they will be better positioned. But if you don't get it and then you're kind of at a lock, right? So that's why it's better to do it. Do it early.

From the start.

Yeah, that's right.

It's like it's like one or two a year, maybe that do that so it's not like you can't do it, it's just that it's it can be.

Difficult.

Yeah.

Uh.

Alright, I'm someone said they could only hear me talking can can you guys give a shout out?

Oh

Oh

I don't know how to fix it.

Can you hear them saying, uh, oh?

Oh

Yeah, I'm not sure what that I don't know what to do about that.

Let's see, let's see.

Can anyone hear me?

I can hear you just fine. I can hear both of you.

I can hear, yeah they can. I don't know why they can hear you, that's not good.

The page can hear everyone alright.

Get cut, get closer to your microphone's.

OK.

Cram them up against your mouth's great great yeah, just just. If you can't hear someone pipe up and let us know in the comments.

Here are some questions that, uhm.

I can answer if I'm an international student. I got into ECE. What's the length of opete granted after my graduation you get the stem extension with this program, so keep that in mind. Someone else asked about transferring between the image to the Ms program and from Ms to image. I am your transfer advisor, so if you're interested in doing that, once you get here, I would say just like.

The student who got into mechanical and was thinking about transferring to EC. The sooner you do it, the better. We want you to be in the right program if your international your visa is going to be issued for your specific program. So we really need to get that going as soon as possible. But if you're interested in that, let us know.

Um?

Two texts.

A couple of people asked about life in Durham.

Marten.

I'm back, the whole thing went down.

Yeah.

The whole thing went down OK, alright.

Hopefully soon will come back.

Yeah, OK.

This isn't their page.

Oh, she not really everyone's back. The whole thing went down.

I'm back, I don't know what happened there, um?

The whole thing that.

The whole thing just crashed. I think it's gonna start happening will.

The whole thing just crashed, but but everyone is still here with us. Thank you for staying with us faithful students.

A great great great. So where did we? Where do we fall off?

I was mid sentence.

You are mid sentence uh yeah yeah.

Yes.

OK.

Ah.

I will see.

Some people asked about drums have a tender Durham Session. You can find the cost of attendance for all these degrees on either the grad school site for Master of Science or the image site imageduprat.edu for Master of engineering.

Let's see, we talked about transferring. Are their language courses for international students? Is it mandatory? Yes, there are language courses for international students. Will be tested when you get here and placed in those classes and it is mandatory if your place but they are a great resource for questions for students.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, that's I want it. Yeah, I'll give a little plug for that. Also 'cause it's I mean, it's something that we've improved on significantly. I think over the last few years that hour.

English for international students.

Program has been taken over as it were by Pratt, so the courses are.

Their way more geared towards engineering students and the sorts of you know, like writing and presenting that you would be doing so. I think that there are.

They're pretty helpful and I've like.

Participated is like an audience member and things or been.

Is it?

Testing

Dissipated like meet and greets. This is like you know they almost end up being like professional development. So yes they are required. If you test into them. But yeah I do. I think they're they're pretty.

They're pretty great classes, and it's a pretty good resource.

Excellent.

Yeah, I think it's important that students develop good language skills, and particularly if you're hoping to get a job.

Afterwards, being able to talk and sell yourself is a good skill to have, and I really notice in our Farnam, in students that come through and have to give their final presentation to me for their internship, that people have been through the program really improved in their abilities.

Oh yeah.

An I would say that the Graduate Communications Group is good for domestic students. Well as well it's all about communication and improving your communication. I think good communication can set you apart from a lot of other engineers.

Probably the biggest problem engineers have with getting jobs and keeping jobs is lack of communication skills.

Right?

If you can't tell people what you're doing, they won't know.

And that's not good.

That's right.

Yeah.

All right, so we've had a few live questions. Can you explain more about Annette ID and how it works? Your net ID is how you access all Duke systems and you will get more information about that if you accept the offer of admission. It's not automatic. It does take some time, so I'm going to ask coursework against research. Which one is preferred? I think that's up to the student. What do you guys think?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I mean you, you can look at the numbers and to see which is preferred in that sense, right course work is definitively preferred by students. But yeah, it's it's really up to you like where your interests lie.

Yeah.

And yeah, I think you have to have the interest in research to go and pursue it. It won't just fall into your lap.

Like

Great, so someone asked. Well, when will a specific program in software machine learning selection start?

Yeah, so I think that, UM, this is. I've had a few questions via email that.

Oh good.

Are asking about like being admitted into particular tracks and it doesn't work that way, so you just choose as you choose what you want to do, and so you're interested in software engineering.

For example, right, that's great you go and you do software engineering. There's not like cap on the number of students that can do software engineering, or they can do machine learning. Everyone that wants to, for now, at least in the way we have it set up. And this seems to be a stable point that we've reached will just do that so.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah, so there is no, there's no selection process in that sense.

Great.

Alright, we're done with pre segmented questions. It only took 15 minutes but we have about 10 more minutes. If you have other questions you can post those now.

Toniann, Marten.

Yeah, yeah.

I do want to put up our Contacts. There's Tony and there's our admissions team. Email our admissions team for anything regarding your visa. Your Fasa, your your admission status, that kind of stuff Tony can help with, like coursework questions. I would say and programmatic questions.

Is that right?

Right?

And I just want to put a general general comment at the students is, you know things. Things clearly are not normal right now in the world. Oh, and so if you're.

Thinking strongly about coming to Duke.

Acting more quickly.

Right?

Is a good thing because we expect there to be a lot of.

Unusual things happen and delays and and while we're planning what we'll do if a lot of students have difficulty coming to campus in the fall, I think one of the things I would encourage you all to do is to be proactive in trying to.

We tried.

Get the process going as soon as possible and we've tried to speed up our process of this end the semester to try to get offers out earlier than we normally would have. I'm hoping that will help in 'cause there's going to be a lot of strange things. Go on. Nobody can predict the future and nobody knows what's going to happen, and maybe everything will be fine in the fall.

And over the summer, but I would think I would assume you should all be careful and and and start planning early.

Yes.

Yeah.

Right take care of yourself. We did have one question we miss. Can Ms students participate in SA MSI events courses groups Sam see I think that's the statistical analysis group.

You can participate in any group at Duke that will take you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

It's up to the group, and it's not up to us.

Good, so uh, again, um, we're here for you. Here's our team page posted in the comments that we do answer an we are here for you. Um, we're going to work on getting visas issued as soon as we can, and we're going to have these other events that I'm going to plug one more time career services. Anna vibrant community life in Durham there tomorrow. We're pretty excited about that one that life in Durham one is is a lot of fun I think. And of course.

Steps on securing US student visa.

Do we have any other live questions? We have about 8 more minutes if we do.

Yeah, the.

Someone has been posting what's better image versus Ms and you know, I think that's up to the student. I think you should really look at the curriculum and say do the business courses really appeal to me?

Yeah.

Right?

So.

Or do I want to do more ECE classes? If you look at the data visualization tool, the jobs they get are similar.

Yeah.

Yeah, I actually ask all the image students 'cause I see each one at the end of the program in ECE. Ask him you know, are you happy with the program? What did you think was different? and I would say about?

I would say.

80% of them really love the business courses and there's about 20% that wish they'd done the Ms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's just the way it is. So some people have that inclination and want the business.

Right?

Yeah.

I think.

And if you're gonna, if you're thinking of becoming a manager and engineering, that's the path for you. If you just want to go and be an engineer and work and build things which is great in the world, needs plenty of people like that, then maybe those aren't the courses you want to take, and you're not going to enjoy them. And so, but.

Gone.

Right?

Yeah.

Well, a good question to ask yourself is do enjoy teamwork right? Because of those, this business courses are all about teamwork. If you like being an individual contributor, may be the Master of Science is a better is a better fit.

What I hear is that the really technically minded engineers who have that are very, very.

Internship?

It was.

Right?

I am technical. Feel like the the management stuff is kind of out of their field, realm of interest and they feel like they wasted their time. But the 80% that are in that program that really are interested in in business say it was invaluable. It made a huge difference in their internship. You know it's like for them. It was absolutely the right thing to do. So it just depends on you.

Someone is asked how do we get in touch with ECE alumni? Does Duke have a portal to connect with alumni? I know that current students can connect with alumni and alumni portal, but you know Tony. How do applicants? How can applicants be connected with ECE alumni?

Well, I was actually hoping that you'd be able to answer that, but.

Well, I was gonna hoping that we could talk about it so we have.

Uh-huh

Right?

Let's talk about it. I mean, so yeah we can, I? I, it's uh, we keep in touch. The Department keeps in touch just a little bit with alumni. And then we suppose that the Alumni Association kind of keeps in touch with them going forward after that so but we do one of the things we ask people is like hey can we reach out to you and send people your way?

Yeah.

Students that as they graduate. So yeah we can. I mean I can just I can just put people in touch.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm we sent a survey to as many aluminized we could think of last summer and said, you know, are you willing to be connected with with Admette? And so we have a limited list of people have agreed to do that. Send us a note and preferably one that we can forward directly to the alarm that introduces Yuan, introduces your questions, and asked us if we can forward that to an alarm and we'll see what we can do. Someone asked if you get a scholarship in this semester, but you defer. Will the scholarship passed to another student?

Or do I get to keep it in the future?

The.

Yeah.

So no, not necessarily. I mean it doesn't. It doesn't work that way. It's not like you handed off.

Yeah, here take my scholarship. Know if you if you defer we will reassess our scholarship situation for the next year in. In all likelihood re offer it.

Oh, I'm sorry if the question is like if for whatever reason, so not like we don't under normal circumstances, you're not allowed to just defer. That's not typically what we do right, but if there is.

For the Master of Science, you're not allowed to.

Yeah, um, but uh, if there's some reason that you have to.

Settings.

Bye.

Oh

Setting aside the big reason that we're on right, but like some some personal reason, under normal circumstances and you have to defer, then we will honor any scholarships that we offered. If you decide not to come, which is the question that I was thinking. If yeah, if you decide like what I'm not going to come to do, what's going to happen with my scholarship? Well then it's on.

That's unclear.

Yeah.

Right, once once we offer you a scholarship, if the deferment is for a good cause, there's no way we're not going to. You know we're going to. We're going to stick with that so.

Uh-huh

Um?

Right, right?

Yep.

And we have good cause like students get in situations where they just for good reason and can't come, and that may there may be a lot of people in that situation. It will go really badly.

Yeah.

The.

No, that's fine.

What Tony thank you. I think I misunderstood that question so that's perfect is it possible to finish the Ms curriculum in three semesters is it advisable.

I had a student who finished it in two.

What?

It was, it was a real challenge, but they did get it done and that needed the summer.

OK.

Yeah.

But you know, so that's something you have to talk to. Normally it's very difficult, but this was an exceptional student. She got all A's and she did a research project with me.

Wow.

And she got it done in a year.

There.

But I think that's very exceptional.

It is.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah yeah, now finishing in like a less like not over the summer, but finishing in like first fall, spring and then next fall. That is, yeah, that's.

Totally doable.

It's like it's it's only doable. Yeah? I mean, it's it's something like.

Um?

Light.

Uh-huh

15% of our students maybe 1520% do that. Will graduate in three semesters and it sort of it.

Weather

Right?

Yeah, right?

Whether it's advisable not just depends on your particular situation. Yeah, there's a reason to get out quick. Normally people have like a job offer from an internship over the summer, and that's a pretty good motivation to finish up right away. If you need a little bit more time to continue to look for a job, then it's good to push one class back to that fourth semester. That sort of more standard way of doing it.

Thank you for hosting.

Yep.

Alright, well this has been a lot of fun. Tony and Martin. Thank you for joining me. We had a lot of questions.

Yep.

Um?

We even survived, it will difficulty.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

We did. We had a technical difficulty and we bounced back that CC at Duke right? Technical difficulties don't bother us. I do want to point out that we will send communication about COVID-19 as soon as we can. Big Duke is working on that. We have our other admitted student events. One more plug, but if you have questions please please please contact our team. There's Tony, there's us page JD and Me Suzon.

We're here to help you.

Any last things you want these attendees to take away Martin and Tony?

We are very excited about you all having been admitted and we're looking forward to seeing a lot of you in the fall in some way.

In some way.

You

Yeah, in some way, one way or another will see I would very much like to see you in the fall, so yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I echo that as well. Congratulations to all of you Martin and Tony. Thanks for your time. If you have questions, let us know.

By everyone.

Bye.

Bye.