MATE 492 Winter Term Update, Important Reminders
Dear MSE Seniors and BS/MS students,
Welcome back everyone. I met most of you at today's scheduled group meeting, but not everyone. Consequently I'd like to take this opportunity to bring everyone up to date on what we discussed in today's meeting, and outline the expactations and requirements for this term.
1. Fall Term Debrief:
- Today I returned, to those students who were present, copies of the score sheets from December's oral project presentations - so that you each get to see the comments faculty or fellow students made during your presentations.
- I also returned marked up copies of any written reports, which I hope you will find useful. Unfortunately I only had about 5 or 6 reports and returned most of those, but I still have 1 or 2 left. Please make sure to contact your Advisor for an additional debrief on your oral and/or written presentations.
- If you weren't at today's meeting [:'(] then please stop by and see me to pick up a copy of your score sheets.
- I think everyone has done a good job so far...and the scores and grades reflected that...and there were no major disasters. Good job everyone, well done!
2. Winter Term Expectations:
- Having said the above, I cannot under-emphasize how important the Winter term is. Winter Term is the time for each you to "break the back" of your project tasks, the time to really put in the effort and get the bulk of your project tasks done.
- There will again be oral and written report due towards the end of the quarter [the due dates are in the schedule in the course syllabus] and at this time NO-ONE should even think about anything major in the future tense! Fall term was for planning and talk about what you are/were GOING to do, Winter term is the time for DOING it, and for presenting lots of results and emphasizing your progress!
- If all goes well then Spring term should be used for tying up loose ends, exploring any interesting offshoots from your projects and finishing off any longer term experiments or evaluations...but the bulk of your work should already be done by then!
3. Advising Meetings:
-Week 2 of the Winter Term has been designated by the MSE Department as "Advising Week".
- The Dept. and faculty view student advising as being very important. Not only does it enable us to get to know all of our students a little better, learn where you've been on Co-op and what your career coals are, but it also enables us to identify any potential "problems" in your plans of study, any missing or incomplete grades, missing required courses, insufficient # of credits and so on...and to do this BEFORE any such issues have major negative impacts on you...like possibly becoming barriers to your graduating on schedule!
- To that end please make sure you meet first with Judy ASAP, to update your Plan of Study form, and then meet and talk with your Advisor.
- For BS or BS/MS students, your primary advisor is your Senior Design or MS project advisor, respectively.
- BS/MS students also need to meet with the departmental Graduate Advisor (Dr. Li) to review your progress on the graduate part of your studies, again to make sure that nothing required or key is missing, so that you can graduate on time.
- If anyone does NOT meet with their advisor then we will withhold grades from this term!
4. Job Opportunity/Recruiting Visit:
- Karen Johnson, a recent (2006) Drexel MEM graduate will be visiting Drexel next Mon-Wed (1/14 - 1/16) recruiting 2008 BS and BS/MS graduates for Pratt and Whitney's Engineering Development Program. I will be circulating details of this by E-mail later today. I encourage anyone with a GPA of 3.0 or better to consider this interesting opportunity.
5. CoE Fall Term Course Evaluations:
Did anyone receive the usual notification regarding completing the CoE on-line course assessments for the Fall term, not just for Senior Design, but for any courses you were taking?
Please let me know.
6. Winter Term Meeting Schedule:
- As previously indicated, we "lost" our scheduled room for group meetings this term. Today those present at the meeting indicated on a grid the times/days they were NOT available, so that I can try to pick the best day and time for us to meet as a group. If you missed today's meeting then please stop by and see me to review the schedule.
- We won't need to meet every week, but I do wish to meet a number of times during the term to hear from you regarding progress on your projects, discuss any problems you may be having etc. While your primary technical advisors are your faculty advisor and graduate student mentor, I can also help in some instances, for example if you're having difficulty getting access to a particular instrument for measurements you need to make.
Happy New Year,
RK