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Each year, undergraduate students in each of the three majors are required to attend a 1-hour mandatory group advising session.
- for CpE and EE, one faculty from CpE and one from EE host each advising session (but the department may want to consider relaxing this requirement). Faculty are asked to volunteer for these sessions, based on Faculty Advising History (maintained by Pauline).
- for CSE, the steering committee chair hosts the advising session for all CSE students in Winter quarter.
Usually, two advising sessions are offered for each target group per year.
- For CpE and EE, the target group is mixed EE and CpE students of a given year (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior)
- For CSE, the target group is all CSE students.
Topics to Cover
There is no strict requirement on what to say during the advising session. You may do a slide presentation or just chat. However, the more common topics are
- whether or when to start doing undergrad research
[typical answer: get really good grades in lower division courses; junior year may be a good time, but don't expect profs to do "training" -- there is a lot of learning on your own] - is it better to get a summer job, do an internship, or take summer school?
[typical answer: depends on the job and your own financial condition.] - is it a good idea to do an MS degree first and then work, or work for a few years before going to grad school?
[typical answer: MS degree is good bang for the buck. 1-2 years of investment will allow you to start with a higher salary and can allow you to get promoted more easily; also, it is harder to go back to school after you have worked for some number of years, though it is not impossible.] - how to decide whether to do a Ph.D.?
[typical answer: if you want to become a professor, get into research, or want to prove it to yourself and you have good enough grades, then go for a Ph.D. Often time you get paid a stipend as a research assistant or TA.] - what kinds of jobs are in demand in this area? silicon valley?
[typical answer: SoCal: medical devices, defense, communication, ...]
It may be tempting to reuse slide presentations from before but keep in mind that some students may have seen the same slides before, possibly multiple times. So, it is a good idea to update the slides. here are some previous slides.
EECS
- Senior Advising (Spring 2012) by Pai, based in part on Mark Bachman's
- Junior Advising (Spring 2017) by Ender, (Spring 2015) by Pai on senior projects, (Spring 2011) by Pai and Mike,
- Genral Advising (Spring 2015) by Mark Bachman, not recommended because many students have seen the same material multiple times before already!!
CSE
- All CSE student Advising (Winter 2017) by Eli Bozorgzadeh
- All CSE students Advising (Spring 2016) by Pai
- All CSE students Advising (Spring 2015) by Pai Chou and Alex Ihler
Best Practices
- Staff should try to nail down dates for the advising at the beginning of the academic year, if possible, and the dates should be posted on as events on the EECS portal as early as possible.
- Faculty should be asked to volunteer for the advising session as early as possible. They should be reminded once at the beginning of the quarter and a week before the advising session. They should be reminded that this page is available with old slides, but they should be enouraged to make new slides. Old slides can be tiring to the students.
- Faculty should be asked if they made new slides and if they would be willing to share the slides. If so, staff should get a copy of their slides and post it here with the date.
- It can be interesting to the students if we invite recent alumni and outside people to say a few words at the advising session. It is not required, though. Also, the inviting faculty should know the alumni relatively well or can at least agree with what the alumni would say, or else it can be counterproductive.