Alexandra Hsueh
05:53:46 PM
If my mic isn't working, should I just type here or something?
Can you guys hear me again?
Does anybody have any questions before we get started in a couple minutes?
Why keep doing this error message that says like changes maybe not saved or something?
I think I'm changing the lights.
Things and hang in there, um?
That might have happened when I like just now for the chat. The tried everything.
Yeah, I think I need to refresh my browser.
Yeah, are you guys seeing that too?
I'm gonna give it a shot too, will see.
I think I have trouble changing slides right now is I feel like the oh here we go.
OK, did you click on control slides?
Yeah it got stuck for little while my brother.
So I mean, if somehow it doesn't work from my side, you might just control locally.
No fine, yeah I. I hope that I don't have trouble either.
Yeah, oh it works right now. Yeah, OK.
Yeah, I would try and have only one person be controlling the slides.
Just so that, like as if you were to click on it, then someone else was to click on it. It could kind of lead to some back and forth confusion.
So again, you have trouble though. Just let me know somehow anile.
Yeah, I think it works now. We just got frozen a little bit a little while ago, yeah.
Everybody's here, um, just Alexander. We were having trouble with her sound, so she might have.
I just have a quick question. My one asked question how are we going to silent who answers 1st or anything? Or should we just like chime in whenever whenever the other person's son?
I think just chiming in is fine.
I don't know if there is a like a method to kind of choose who answers, so I think this yeah timing in it.
You went out with him before we.
Do you guys all see the countdown at the top? It says like event schedule to star in one minute 52 seconds.
Yep, so as soon as that gets to zero it will go live. So I would maybe give it about 30 seconds to um like for everyone to sign in 'cause You'll see that guest number go from 11 up to a lot higher.
Um, then everyone will sign in, so I'd give it about 30 seconds for everyone to like, load in and then go ahead and get started.
Thanks Theresa for all your help.
Just testing again. OK, awesome is working.
Everybody just wanna give me a quick like hello to make sure that your sound is still working.
So can you and I are going to keep an eye on the questions.
Like when we get a question, will read it out loud and you guys can just chime in to answer it.
It looks like a little question in the chat box. In my questions boxes right now.
OK, I don't think it is similar to the attendees, right?
No, that's why we're just going to keep out loud, yeah?
Oh wow, we have a lot of company.
Waiting another couple seconds and then we'll get started.
We're getting a lot hello, greetings from the audience.
Alright, so I think we can probably go ahead and get started.
A welcome everybody to our computer science student web bar. We're really excited that we have so many people here tonight. Um, tuning in who are interested your science.
So my name is Megan Potter. I'm one of the two senior student services administrators in the computer Science Department, so I'll be moderating tonight with my colleague Anuj owl. Let her introduce yourself as well.
Hello everyone, I'm genuinely also a senior student services my stroller in the Department of computer science Megan. I both also work in a strong science, so students from all majors in the school of Science and also from the Department of computer science, part of our job also doing planning events for students on campus engage them and also including some kind of recruit events like this. Thanks for joining us today.
And you can also see that we have a panel of six students with us. Tonight. There are extraordinary students who are in our computer science Department. They are actively involved in various activities within the Department and in within the rent sort of community in general. So they're really excited to answer your questions and provide some first hand feedback on basically the student experience at Rensselaer and computer science. Specific questions as well. So without further ado, I'll let them introduce themselves.
Hi everyone, my name is John Allwine, My Computer Science and economics tool major part of the class of 2022 an I'm live from my hometown, College Ville, Pennsylvania and my fun fact is in December I did in 1800 mile drive from Colorado to my home state. Coming back from my archway semester. Never go through western Kansas and December. They don't ice a DSI 70.
Up my name is Jenny Barela. I'm a computer science major an I'm a freshman this year and I'm from Taos, NM an I have a fish named Kiki bubbles.
Prachi Swar
06:04:12 PM
what is the gender balance in these comp sci classes?
Hi, I'm slow Chandra. I'm a computer science and math major. I'm a junior, I'm from Fishkill, NY, and my fun fact is that despite with the name of my hometown may suggest I am actually vegetarian, I've never had anything against fish.
Finally got my bike to work.
So I'm Alexandra sure, uhm, I'm a computer science and mathematics to a major.
More than I am currently in New Jersey.
Yeah, and fun is I Radio City Music Hall. A couple years ago I was in a Concordia Youth Chorale. Will part of the opening show.
If you're interested, video is on YouTube.
Maybe I share the link with everybody later.
Alright, hello everyone, my name is Matt. I'm a computer science major class of 2020. I'm a senior this year. I am from Syosset, NY, out Long Island fun fact.
I have a bunch of friends and we go to race tracks all around the Northeast so New York safety track all over New Jersey and Lime Rock, Connecticut and I would be in this if I didn't also mention that president of the cybersecurity club on campus, and I imagine there might be a couple questions regarding that.
Thanks everyone for to get started tonight. Uh, we're actually going to be in with a couple of questions that we received from a few admitted students. They registered for this. Then they submitted some questions, so through those, then we'll open up the floor for all of our attendees to submit their questions using the chat feature, which some people have already done.
Angela Rudel
06:07:00 PM
Does everyone help each other within the classes if someone has trouble? Do you rely more on teachers or each other for help?
Prachi Swar
06:07:02 PM
are the classes very math heavy or math based, or theoretical, or very hands on?
Be over here, so we'll try to get through with many weekend, but you know, just given time constraints might be able to get to everyone's questions. So in that case if you don't get your question answered, please feel free to email Jen you or why.
Athavan Gananathan
06:07:17 PM
How large are the classes in RPI, specifically computer science classes
And then the world post our contact information at the end, and we'll do our best to get back to you with Castle.
Andrew Paul
06:07:21 PM
For the seniors, what is your plan after graduating this semester?
See, you want out will majors an we're now it's possible to have a dual with computer components, so we're looking at a few of our students with us. Tonight are actually dual majors. Jon Bellion Alexandra specifically, and Matt has some experience as well with dual courses, so I'm going to turn it over to them to let them answer that.
Whoever wants to go first.
So I'm a CS and math will major.
Yes, I think it's really it's really manageable to duel.
A lot of my compsci friends are also doing duels, and some of them are even like graduating early with the dual.
There's a lot of flexibility for like whatever classes you want to take with cops. I like the first 2 years, is a lot of requirements, but your last two there's like so many options of like.
Uh, you could be taking a bunch of Alexis and then you still have so much room for like many other classes, so it's very flexible to do with dual.
Amiya Lamisha
06:09:04 PM
I'm interested in doing game design or artificial intelligence with robots in the future are there any classes that would help me towards these fields?
Yeah it happened and even second that despite I I start with it, will my freshman and sophomore year but kind of dropped it by the junior year. Partly because I want to make sure I graduated on time, but also because I picked up being in a fraternity and also running RPI set at the same time. And it's all about really what you want to focus on all your at school I would say if you have a genuine interest in another field it's perfectly doable to do a dual major in that field and it's.
Arnav Chokshi
06:09:12 PM
What's the semester abroad like?
Not that hard with computer science. Disclaimer, I was also computer systems tool which has a lot of overlap, but yeah.
Ethan Yuan
06:09:33 PM
is there a recommended RPI provided mobile platform you'd suggest for either CS or Chem-E?
And a lot of departments are very receptive to it. I remember getting an email a few weeks back from one of the humanities administrators and it's like, hey, these are the courses you've taken thus far. These are what you need to take. Let us know if you have any questions and so it's very doable even if there's no template available. It's not hard to figure out.
Andrew Nazareth
06:09:40 PM
How do you declare your CS concentrations?
What you need to do to get all your requirements together.
Yeah I would. I would say if you're like worried about, uhm, the requirements, you should just look over the template for both the major side by side and just see what overlaps and what does.
Angela Rudel
06:10:02 PM
How hard was the transition from high school to RPI?
Great, I saw we had Russian man. Oh I'm sorry. Did you want to say something?
Harshita Garg
06:10:22 PM
for the upperclassmen: what did your arch programs look like?
Jacob Weber
06:10:28 PM
Matt - Are you specializing in cybersecurity? I'm looking at going into the field and would love to know the track you took in terms of concentrations and/or dual majoring
Nachiketa Gosukonda
06:10:37 PM
Can i major in business analytics and minor in computer science?
Um, somebody asked how was the process for declaring a dual major an pretty straightforward in your freshman year. Just make sure to talk with your advisor and in computer science, the science advising hub, and then a staff member in the Department that you're looking for major in and you would go over the course requirements, complete change of major form and get ball process through the Register and that's.
That's a complete the process.
Thomas Broadwater
06:10:44 PM
How hard is taking data structures first semester?
Sunny Le
06:10:51 PM
If I'm in interested in Artificial Intelligence, should I do dual major or one major? When doing dual major, are there classes that can count as credit for both majors?
So moving on to the next book and that will come in the question was what is the circle? Lifelike yet Rensselaer? And what's the best way to me and connect with other students, either in CS or just in general and Earth? Why?
James D'Atri
06:11:00 PM
Are there any local internship opportunities for students on campus?
Raphael Stone
06:11:07 PM
What are some of the most interesting computer science classes you have taken?
Alexandra Gu
06:11:15 PM
Is it difficult to transfer into a Computer Science? (from undecided / any other major)
As for me, I know I think most of my friends at school through the clouds I join also threw up. Your classes are really big.
Like you're in your lab sections, maybe the reservations, but I think for socializing and we don't see people miss you.
Athavan Gananathan
06:11:38 PM
Is it possible to play varsity sports while studying computer science at RPI
Mateo Guynn
06:11:50 PM
What are some examples of research you've done?
Uh, I would 100% echo that like most of the friends that I've made here have been through both, uh like inches. Clubs like the dancer from club here as well as like specific clubs that like have to do it like cultural things like part of Shep as well as a.
Rachel Bonanno
06:12:05 PM
With the growing size of C.S. Major, how has this impacted the ability to get classes?
Alianza Latina and um other, just like specific interests. Whether it be academic or like casual gaming clubs. There's like abroad club here, which is really cool. Tons of stuff that you can do, and that's generally how you kind of like make friends here and do things both in that club. Experience an outside of school.
So I would say that like my first friend I met in the restaurant all especially like during freshman year, where at once like really close together. So if you have like friends in your classes or clubs, you could like meet up like.
Area, so it's easier to like. Find people with that.
OK, great, thank you guys.
Um, then the last question that we just wanted to start with was a what type of company or industry connections does the CS Department have? And similarly, what type of internship or coop's?
God or anything close to campus.
So I'm part of a CW which is art science on Pakistan. They help.
Search around clear fair time, so like it seems to go and more, but people in my company ask any questions that they have. Sure there wasn't many. Selling great relations were big name in similar.
Yeah, to echo that within the first few weeks of being at RPI this year, I got to go to an Microsoft Panel, talk to them about how they got their jobs there, and that was really cool.
Being that it was really soon as I got there.
I also do feel that I should interject here too, because, uh, RPI sack the security code has.
Some very, very strong powerful connections. I think everybody graduating this year out of RPI sick as a club has a job. Given time forming alumni of the club from years prior so and it's hard for me to believe that our RPI sex the only cloud where that kind of thing happens so.
And it takes a while for jobs and all that other stuff, connections, internships, all that.
Yeah all the all night care about their students a lot. The current students a lot.
OK, uh, so yeah, I work for the Career Center and uh, like as I said, we have a two big career fairs in each year, one in the fall in the spring. The fall one is hosted by lesbian shut and the spring one is hosted by the Career Center and both of them have well over 100 plus students hundred plus companies coming in each time. And aside from those two large events, there's also tons of different info. Sessions like both open to the public and specifically for individual clubs like Matt was talking about.
The connections for the cybersecurity club that happened just throughout the year, nonstop, and you get tons of email blast from the Career Center job link from the CS Department from the school science everytime. Different research opportunities, different internship opportunities or job opportunities come up.
Yeah, so I I'm president of Hacker P and uhm, I kind of started with the club kinda early on an even in freshman year when I joined I was talking to like all of the companies including like Bergen, like palantir, IBM. So joining clubs that like.
Talk to companies like that. Definitely helped with connections with companies and internships.
I had a lot to talk about during my first interview as well, do that.
Yeah and I mean my my whole first internship which was my arch Co op was entirely because of RPI went up to Western Digital at the Career Center and at the career fair and they happen to have a very good relationship with us for a number of reasons and everyone who ended up getting that coop was an RPI student and so I got flown out got to have a great experience just for the nature of the.
New, I was computer science. I knew I could program and I knew where I went. The name really does carry weight.
Anyone else want to chime in on that?
No, I think at this point will start moving into a kind of our opening floor kewene. So if you have questions I know we've got somebody in the channel but continue to provide those so that we can read them out loud and get as many answers as possible.
Go ahead, yeah, the first question is always saw actually already be answered from Tyler. Is there anyway to make the computer science major and physics minor? Can someone talk about like right now if you have a minor? Can you guys talk about it and for physics? Basically you can talk to Megan myself after the session. Where should as an email we can help you more individually and effectively? Does anyone have a major and major in CS? Ann Minor?
Uh, I had a minor in psychology and, uh, it wasn't pretty difficult to fit. It was essentially, uhm, so the psychology minor is basically you take genci. Can you take three other psychology courses an because computer science curriculum as opposed to most other majors, has a nice bulk of free credit? And there's also a lot of leeway to kind of move around your upper level courses. You can really like. Plan out a minor relatively quickly, and usually a minor is a lot easier to do than a dual.
That difficult, you just have to plan early.
Kelsey Hanser
06:19:06 PM
is there a lot of overlap between the math and computer science majors?
Cool, thank you. You really minor is well 16 to 20 credits. CI S requires 28 to 32 credit hours so we have a law student doing like 1 minor or like a dual major or even double minors. So for physics we can definitely talk about that.
Well then please search or whatever.
Joe Mostika
06:19:33 PM
Question for John - do you find CS and Economics complement each other as a dual major?
Research position by there for credit or for Perry Talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, so I'm involved in research right now and.
The way I got into it is just like I would email my professors and ask that anything that I'd be able to do. So this is fresh and new when.
I had like no experience. I've only taken like computer science one and I was in data structures, but I emailed my processor from computer science one and she said that I could work with her over the summer just for experience and then like during the year for credit or pay so.
Yeah, I worked with her that summer and I've been working with any ever since and now I'm doing it credit. And yeah, yeah, so it's not too hard to get research. You just have to reach out to professors or like someone said before you get like a bunch of emails about like opportunities and that like professors are looking for students to research with.
Christopher Reed
06:20:47 PM
Matt - I am super interested in RPISEC. I have heard a lot about it. I have done many CTF's and Cyber Security competitions. What is the process for joining and how much time do you spend training and competing?
Yes, if there's a specific topic that you want to research and you have a good relationship with The Professor.
Colin Mettler
06:21:01 PM
What is the freshman course load like?
There are these things called undergraduate research projects which you can take on for more or less for credits a semester, and you write a report or a research paper at the end, and professor will often just kind of oversee that you're actually getting the work done and will either support or help with your research, or if it runs tangential to their research, it will be at the discretion of the professor to take you on. So have a good relationship with your professor. You may have a better opportunity of.
Doing some research with that professor, so for example, this semester RPI sick got together, we used winnings from our competition to buy a voting machine, and we we delivered that to one of our houses and brought that into in a seat and start disassembling it. Reverse engineering it all. This other stuff, and we're putting together a report at the end of this semester detailing what the state of basically election security is and using all kinds of symbolic analysis and different kinds of techniques to do that work with.
Professor, so know your professors and know which ones, generally what they're doing, and ask the right 1 three question and you will get a research project.
Yeah, make sure you show interest like if you email them like make sure you know what they're doing and say why are interested in that. And yeah.
Cool, thank you. We saw there's a question about Arch. Can someone explain what is Arjen? How do you like the program?
Lily Dong
06:22:47 PM
How does computer science work with the interdisciplinary science major?
I guess I could feel this one since I got back from that. So what Arch Ascential E is we?
Take classes in the summer after your sophomore year and in exchange for that you get either a fall or spring off the next year and that could be to do a Co-op, an internship, research, study abroad, volunteer a whole host of other things. So essentially for the CS Department, we have course recommendations for that, and the goal is to increase flexibility in the curriculum and also to.
Give people a chance to kind of takes opportunities that are available in these off seasons.
I know while SWAT champion for this.
Uh, so I didn't take arts, but I can like speak to it I guess, uh, so yeah, um.
I think like is like a lot of pressure in which the arch like kind of model to like get an internship. But there's like also a lot more opportunity with it like people were mentioning in the chat that you can do a study abroad as well as like research opportunities. And those are like widely available, especially like on and off campus as well. Lots of professors offer things like research that can be like steps can stand over a semester and can count as your arch credit on studying abroad is also like a really cool opportunity that.
They also had a question about the gender balance and gender ratio in CS classes.
I do any of our female students want to speak to that?
Zachary Roberts-Weigert
06:24:49 PM
How accessible are professors?
I was asking about this question earlier. I notice that and honestly there. Here there is. All is an imbalance in the gender ratio, but they don't know that. I think I noticed it more in high school that I do in college, there's so many students on in the class, this really.
There's I've never felt anything like that, so I don't think that I was worried about that. It welcomed science freshman, but since coming here it's never been an issue for me and I thought I was part of that is also.
So there are supports isn't typically women in CS meter. If you are finding that you're only four divided by the time, they're all like waste any other girls in a meter, but I don't everything.
Tomas Stegemann
06:25:53 PM
Does RPI's computer science department offer classes in real-time graphics programming or other topics relevant to game engine programming?
And any other girl like friends.
Yeah, I feel the same way I. I'm the freshman representative of ACM W this semester and that's been really great. Getting to see other girls. Also interested in computer science and I've been in sisters for this past year. You get to know professors really well and they make cookies for you, which is great so.
It's a good program and you get to meet other girls and it's great.
Yeah, I'm also part of ACM W and sisters. It's a very tight knit group. I'm a measure program or chair of ACM W.
So that's a lot of fun and then for sisters, um, it's like a weekly thing with cookies, so that's nice.
Just wanna give you some data. I think last year our female to male.
I'm being like binary right now. The gender ratio is I think women about 18% of our total class last year.
Another question about the average class size. I think for the first year and 2nd year student you guys are taking more like without level to level courses, and for those of you who are senior you probably have more experience with a force on level like CS capstone courses. In all, like any of you can comment on both.
Say, can you repeat the question?
Oh yeah, what's the average class size?
OK, so yeah, so definitely get smaller as you go up in like the level to like for thousands.
Your first class is like Kansai wanted data structures. There's going to be like really big, maybe like 203 hundred people, but then once you get to like your 4000 levels classes, it could be anywhere from like, maybe like.
20 people to like maybe like 60 or 70, but there's still so big ones like 100.
But yeah, maybe the average 4000 would be like 30 or 40.
And the introductory class is a more like 100 or 200.
I think there's like some systems theory and very like specific niche, higher level courses that you can get into the single digit in class sizes and sometimes in like the lower teens. If you're doing very like popular. So like my concentration is AI and data and it's a very popular field and obviously like lots of people flock to it, so those class sizes tend to be like if the professor wants to restrict it on purpose for a more intimate class experience, it will be like in the 40s or 50s or.
And some of the other courses I've taken like up to 100 students. But I've also seen courses like I said, like, uhm, I think Varela was teaching a course this semester that had like 6 people in it. So that's very like individualized and specific.
So I'm software right now so I haven't taken any about 4000 level, so my class sizes are still like 100 to 200. But if you ever worry about like what if I can't like having relationship with my professor? Like what if he doesn't know who I am? You don't have to worry about that 'cause all professors or spiritual in this. Yes they have a lot of office hours. Or you can go and speak to them so you never have to.
I haven't been able to afford action plans. Are anything like that? Even if the class sizes for internal classes are really big?
And related to that, we had a question come in from about does everyone help each other within classes or somebody has trouble? Do you rely more on the professors or each other for help? So maybe somebody could talk about the programming mentor program in our classes and kind of how that works for students.
I'm a data structures mentor this semester, so we have we hold office hours like some mentors in ATA hold office hours and you can go in, get help with whatever you need it, individualized, they look through your code, help you get through a bug, show you something you didn't know. Just it's really helpful. You get to know other students and it's less than with the Professor 'cause The Professor holds office hours, like once a week while students hold them throughout the week so.
Individual time with her students.
Yeah, I think it's really.
Sorry, I think it's really cool about our mentorship program. Is that you're like, unlike TAS who kind of like have an overview of the curriculum and have like a very like strong understanding of it. The students who are following up into mentorship have actually taken the course Dubai through, so they really know the ends and outs of the material because they've been through it, so they often times have like a very strong perspective on the same issues that you were having because they kind of climbed up the same Hill.
Alright, have one other thing, if you're in a CS related club that has seniors in it or juniors in it and you have trouble with with a particular class, especially if it's something like data structures, it's.
You know, we said RPI sig we have like.
Every Wednesday we have like an extra meeting called hack night. We could do whatever you want and it's just all of us hanging out in a room.
Arthik Dasari
06:32:35 PM
could you give an example of a lab we could expect in our freshman year?
Uh, attending events like those, whether it's in the CS lounge or at a club or whatever else like well, honestly, it's a lot of you're not going to have much trouble if you attend events like that and go to office hours with the in terms of the instructor to student balance, especially in the intro classes.
Kyle Embling
06:32:56 PM
Do classes often have computers in the rooms or are students expected to bring their own computer to most classes?
Another really great thing that we offer is dropping tutoring via a lack, which is essentially a big. They are essentially a big advising Learning Center on campus that the administration runs. I've been an undergraduate programming mentor three Times Now and when I was in my freshman courses, I was definitely showing up to a lack on on nights when I had homework.
The other thing is, I feel in general, like your peers in the class itself tend to be really great to bounce discussions off of people you know it's. I don't find this like cutthroat competitive nature to exist. Everyone is very friendly. Everyone would much rather come to a solution to the problem and see people struggle and lots of people are really active on their own courses, discussion boards and things of that nature. It tends to be a good experience.
And we also again somewhat related to that had a question about what is the freshman course load like and what was the transition like from high school into college and especially the courses. So maybe some of our first and 2nd year students can provide some insight on that.
So I felt that coming into college to make the difference is that you have a choice in what you want to do with your time versus, uhm, you have a set schedule so.
Main thing to make sure you do is.
Like haven't like guideline or like a schedule or like A to do list so you don't like procrastinating too much like sometimes for Castings like OK. Like if you have just a few things, but like if you have.
A ton of assignments due that week. You should make sure to pace out that workload.
Yeah, to go off that I just came into RPI this year an the difference from high school? Uh, it is that you get to choose what you're doing. You have to prioritize some things over others like.
Is it just did everybody get?
Issues I think. Think we're all coming back now.
Yeah, I think it's crashed.
Kyle Sieb
06:36:34 PM
What made each of you choose RPI?
Uh, yeah. So like with data structures you gotta put in the time and it I really enjoyed the class. It's difficult, but if you enjoy programming you'll Have fun with it.
We had another question in um regarding computers and I received the email is actually about this as well.
Christopher Murano
06:37:07 PM
what is the one thing that you would like to see improved about your experience as a Comp Sci major at RPI?
You know what would you recommend in terms of the best type of laptop to bring or go with you and you know what's in it for assignment? Mostly done on laptops or do you have to have somebody talking about that?
Paul Oppenheimer
06:37:26 PM
Do you find that you have to do a lot of essay and report writing in your freshman year?
Just roll with one of the options at the school puts out the laptop. Pack the there's like a choice. Usually have three laptops and it comes with like a three year warranty, a bag and it said it discount there all more than powerful, full and then as far as the operating systems goes as a mentor. I'm biased that people don't use Mac because the debugging tools for it tend to break frequently and it's a pain.
On both sides, so windows or Linux is fine if you don't have any experience with Linux, you'll still be fine. But yeah, the laptop pack is a great deal.
I would like just a little bit. Yeah some so the school laptops are generally the way to go. If you have your own laptop at home and you're kind of set on bringing that in, I would just look over the laptop options that they have on campus and make sure that you respect Sarah Comperable. When I came in I came in with a MacBook Air with four gigabytes of ram and that was not cutting it for most assignments as well as like a pretty bad space capacity so.
After like a few months I had to change that up for a MacBook Pro, uhm?
Eric Wang
06:38:35 PM
Do students tend to want to speed through the core classes or do students tend to take the minimum amount of courses and take a lot of electives and interests?
Never had any issues with my training, I think.
Lambert, which was again I didn't. I think the only thing.
He wasn't happy with my issues, but you can't find someone so I don't. I have facing double digit.
Heng Shen
06:39:37 PM
Does any come to rpi without any cs background?
I cannot see I again, you're gonna hear me talk about this club a lot, but I applied only because of RPI sack.
I don't recommend doing business. I only applied to RPI because of RP. I said that was my one application. I got lucky.
Chase Grajeda
06:40:25 PM
For the MacBook users, what IDE/Text Editors are you using for classes?
But yeah, there are lots of tips on campus like that, I think. And also it's not a concrete jungle. The campus is beautiful, even it's a little cold. At least there's green and fields that that's really what.
I think for me it was when I came to the realization that.
With all this time I was going to be inventing, I wanted to be somewhere where I didn't just.
Learn from the professors as I was talking to the students at the accepted students day, I realized that I had so much to learn from just my peers, let alone, you know, the school itself, and I'm like I want to be in an environment with these people. I want to learn what they know, and you know, they were very friendly. So it's unfortunate that you guys are going to have the same experience, but it really is a great group of people. I don't regret my decision and I would choose it again.
I picked RPI because I am very bad at.
Pratham Sachan
06:41:47 PM
For pc users, what text editors do you use for classes?
Literature courses and the arts, and I saw that they are. It's almost like I don't wanna say 90%. There is some uh, humanities and social science core that you have to complete, but it's a lot more LAX than most other schools where you have like 64. I think credits of General Education that are like completely irrelevant. Your major and even the courses that you take that are in the Humanities, in the social Sciences they find really neat ways to kind of incorporate technology into that perspective, an.
John Allwein
06:42:11 PM
Joseph Mositka:
What what Jose said. Can somebody talk about the curriculum and what language the courses taught in?
I'm so I know Sears one is in Python. I didn't take CS when I came in with data structures.
Data structures is C++ and then compliment. You have C and nips and.
And then I'll go. You start doing like some Python again, but I don't know about some other courses.
John Allwein
06:42:51 PM
I'll answer you here just because we're short on time, I think theres a lot of interesting overlap - economics is the study of social systems (people, markets, etc.) while computer science focuses on computational systems.
I would say it's never been an issue for me like jumping from the classic. It's not so.
What do you have one or two so you don't have to worry about like I'm going to have to start from scratch?
John Allwein
06:43:35 PM
Plus, there's a lot of formulas and data crunching / analysis in econ - econometrics, game theory, etc. All of these are interesting when combined with CS
Yeah, and I think I'm in your upper level courses the The languages of choice depends on like what you specialize in like I know like if you do more security stuff, you're probably going to be working more and C and Assembly and other stuff like that in the AI and data track. I almost exclusively code in Python And R and there's other.
Another question we had was, what is the most interesting CS course that you take in at Rensselaer?
I really like insurance again.
Right, that's, uh, I really like into the algorithms a lot. I really like.
David Zhang
06:44:19 PM
How current is the curriculum in your guys' opinion? Is the curriculum more theoretical or more project-based/practical?
Feathered my understanding of Kansai and like just like a different way of thinking. I think that's the most important class for like.
When you have job interviews 'cause they're going to ask you algorithms questions and I don't ever since I've been taking that class, I think a lot more about like efficiency and like what's the most efficient way to implement this algorithm?
And I just thought that the material is interesting too.
Last semester I took my clothes, which is our open source for Sarpy and I like that class is super different.
But some idiot even Mrs Merkel ablative class. He worked a lot with other people who are honestly partially working on it was like with people you know other projects cut out people who tracker or.
I love different groups around campus. Focusing on is that they were interested, so that was my most collaborative last year, so I think that's why we really enjoyed that one.
For me, my favorite class was actually, uh, design. In analysis of that.
It reviews alot of this stuff from in charted algo 1st and then it like goes deeper into the material. So that was definitely nice.
For me it's a definitely, uh, introduction to data mathematics. It's, uh, an upper level course, and like because it was like a nice balance of kind of very like practical data manipulation and basically the entire process that you would go through, like from getting a data set to modeling it too. Kind of doing visualization an it also gave a lot of background on the linear algebra that you would see in a lot of machine learning, and it really opened the door for me to do research on campus, lift the professor, Ann.
Yeah, it's just really like.
OK, thank you everybody. Someone is asking how the food on campus.
Alright, so in answer you're probably not going to hear much is parallel computing. That was my favorite curse because you got to play with some absolutely sick hardware. It's not often that you thread code for super computer and had it run and then measure how the efficiency of your code basically scales over multiple cores on like a network.
Paul Kratsios
06:47:47 PM
Can you speak to the school spirit of RPI. How proud are students, to be going to Rensselaer? Do people go the D1 and D3 sports games? Or are students much more invested in academics? what is the balance?
I think it's not better this year. I know on the dining Hall Commons has had a huge renovation, so I've been going, you know, not Rushmore. I go there a lot more often now, um. Yeah, it's it's definitely better than how was class everything.
Giant massive machine, so that was definitely the most interesting course. It's a lot of reading papers on your own, but if you're interested in the material is definitely an interesting course.
That's good. I mean it's not I don't have too big of a comment on the dining halls actually tend to be nice little places to work during off hours. You know they're comfortable and the staff is very friendly. So that's another thing. It's always nice, little experience.
As for Sportimes Inc. RPI hockey games are the big attraction closer inside campus. I don't know about the other side. Mainly happy because it's art 1D one. But yeah, I've never been, but from what I hear it's it's a good experience.
Amiya Lamisha
06:49:31 PM
Is there any thing taught about robotics or any extracurriculars on it?
I don't know much about the sports on campus 'cause sports aren't really my thing, but I think students are particularly like proud of RPI. UM, like the student Union is the largest and longest running. I think student run union on in the country, or at least I think that's this that don't hold me to that. But I'd like the students are very, very passionate about how involved they are and kind of like the administration with clubs and things like that. And you'll see like students very like.
Just local about that generally.
And actually, on the quidditch team.
Matt Raneri
06:50:05 PM
Christopher Reed: Jacob Weber:
Um, an they have a lot of fun with that because it's not like a common sport that you would find. But like it's it's gaining some traction and they tend to travel to different campuses to play.
I think they got into Nationals this year, yeah?
Matt Raneri
06:50:14 PM
you guys can email me at ranerm@rpi.edu
Another great way to engage school spirit, which isn't is kind of nontraditional, is just kind of the sheer amount of work people do for the school itself, you know, is particularly CS Department. We have our own core scheduler, bunch of students built it. There is extremely active Reddit discord communities where people have written bots to put all the classes in and bring people together. People wouldn't put this much time into things, and making the University better, we wouldn't be here if we didn't love it.
You know there's there's a really.
Active presence of a lot of people, a lot of great ideas floating around. There's a lot of Energy. Frankly, I do miss the campus right now. But you know, it's just how it is.
Thank you everyone. Was it a lot quite good questions but.
Uh, we get through the the rest of our slides so we have a slide of all the RPI resources. I think some of them were already mentioned. Can somebody from the panelists and just comment on and off the resources you have been using? Or you have used before as a student? Just briefly?
Uh, I can speak to the CPD Augustum. So like I said, I work study there they were are really like instrumental in me getting my internship in my full time job opportunities. So they helped me from like constructing my resume from scratch. They helped me in terms of like cover letters when I needed them too. They actually help me write my.
I'm so the school science advising hub is definitely very useful.
You can go there if it's like for like general information or if it's like Advisors not available during a certain time and you need to like.
Get like a quick question in um, there like always open up. I don't know. There are specific hours, but I think that's on the website, right?
Yeah, we post our hours on our website. Is doing kind of schedule appointment with us through the link on there is no right now Megan. I all doing Webex advising meetings.
Has anyone used any resources in life like?
Or, or a lack or anything in that area.
I like when you say like if I ever have a question about the homework that are working on then there's a lot of.
Like not too. I'm more like 1.
1 joke please? Or mental talking around. So that's.
Anna were throwing out a lot of Acronyms on Black. Is the advisory warning and assistance in pair that Rensselaer and they provide out of Crayola.
Uh, also the opportunity will learning specialist who can help me with things like time management. No other sorts of skills that will help you be.
Also interested in sales for commanders on LH earnestness in so there.
Jose Figueroa
06:54:35 PM
@Chase G. I use Sublime mostly, as well as RStudio and Jupyter Notebook. But I almost exclusively work with data analytics
Here in terms of academic you have any questions or there's out and everything was installed.
John Allwein
06:55:05 PM
Visual Studio Code is also a great text editor. Plugins for everything, runs really well
Jose Figueroa
06:55:07 PM
For some courses you may need a specific IDE (Eclipse for Java)
The Department of computer science website has a lot of good information as well, including a lot of things that will talk about today, like the curriculum like the different capstone areas and things like that. I saw some questions or asked about that, so feel free to we're going to share all this and this is going to be recorded. We're going to share this with all the tendies so you have this.
Your hand and you can refer back to the website For more information.
And so we just wanted to remind everybody about our upcoming events. For accepted students, we have quite a few over the next few weeks in, particularly in lieu of our inputs, than expected students day, which we are bummed that we're not going to be able to be ready in person this year. But we are going to have our Department head Chuck Stewart providing a live broadcast presentation.
On Saturday, April 4th at 11:00 AM and shortly after that, we will open the opportunity for accepted students talk 1 on one roll. Current RPI students so.
Check our website for more details about how this process will occur, but one of our students have developed a queuing system so that current students will be able to contact are accepted students were one on one conversation to talk a little bit more detail.
Output down there so you don't answer how to write the URL on there. So if you wanna take your phone Alain skin, this will direct you to the right place.
Nishma Shakya
06:56:46 PM
is it okay if I have not decided what specific part of computer science I want to pursue yet?
And like you know, we said a little bit already. I think. Definitely, we definitely encourage you to be part of the online online chats, because that's really, I think. In our experience, the accepted students can learn really about the Department. As you can see, our students reform passed openly. They're willing to share, you know, as much as you like them to about their experience at rental. Here in the CS Department. So definitely take advantage of that.
John Allwein
06:57:14 PM
Nishma Shakya: More than okay. myself and many of my friends have bounced around different concentration areas
Jose Figueroa
06:57:22 PM
^
Varun Ramani
06:57:22 PM
Is it mandatory that you use Eclipse?
John Allwein
06:57:35 PM
Varun Ramani: Nope! Just helps in Principles of Software.
Uh, then on Monday, April 6th will be doing another webinar at 6:00 PM for women computers plan. So students who are interested in including that can sign up via the admissions website. This will be a chance for you to talk more with our female students in the Department about their experience. You know the woman at Rensselaer. The resources available. Different groups and organizations so.
That will definitely be a great panel.
And then our weekly throughout the month of April, we're going to be holding a one hour.
Faculty members and this is a really great time to our faculty. A little bit more personally learn more about our curriculum, research opportunities, ways to get involved in the Department, and will be happy to answer your questions as well.
Am I forgetting anything genuine? Oh yes.
Um, so it. Like we said earlier, if you did not get your question, your specific question answered tonight. This is my ninja news. Contact information. Please feel free to email us if we we can. Also our panelists in as well to answer your questions. I'm sure they'd be happy to do that. I'm sorry I'm putting you guys on the spot, but we won't overwhelm you too much.
So yeah, we're really excited that we had such a great turn out this evening. Thank you so much for attending and you are awesome panelists who were willing to share their experience and take the time to welcome our accepted students.
Congratulations guys, good luck with your decision.
Take care, everybody would hope to see you in the fall.
It's interesting to see the gas number keeps going down.
Send if you guys want to closeout you, go to settings and then close event in the lower right corner.
Have a good rest your week. Every once in a safe.
Truly, we really need it tonight.