Welcome ECE Undergraduate Students!

The Undergraduate Advisory Board was formed in Spring 2015 to give students a unified voice in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the largest Engineering Department at UT Austin.

The Board Members are elected by majority vote each Spring, First-Year Representatives are elected at the start of the Fall semester.

Please see the About page for information on your representatives and feel free to contact any of us with your questions.

Current Working Groups: Curriculum, Industry Relations, and the EERC and Space Allocation.

Meeting Minutes: Nov 13, 2015

Intros

 

Space in EERC

-Planned layout for club spaces in EERC may cause issues among orgs

-Planned layout provides insufficient space for orgs to meet

 

Student Body Social

-Event to have ECE student body meet UAB representatives

-Will be held during the Monday(7th) or Tuesday(8th) of dead week

-Students will be asked to complete surveys regarding curriculum

-Moojo’s or other incentive to increase attendance

-Survey will be emailed to ECE student body after event

 

Curriculum

-Following course should assume all students made a C in the previous course

-”C” is considered by the department as a sufficient score to move on to the following course, but many times these students find themselves unprepared for the next course in the sequence

-Courses should be graded based off their effectiveness in preparing students for the following course

 

Connect

-Finder’s fee

-May cause imbalance among student org budgets

-May pit orgs against one another (who recruits the company first)

-Will be problematic in the future, best to end it now

 

Action Items

-Contact Moojo’s and get an estimate

-Prepare and finalize curriculum survey

-Edit Connect email that will be sent to Dr. Tewfik

 

Feel free to edit with anything I may have missed or clarify specific topics.

 

Meeting Minutes: Nov 6, 2015

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== 11/06 ==

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.ece connect:

-sending tewfik the doc then ask him if we have any questions

-won’t have a meeting

-logistically this plan for waiting till EERC is up to start this connect partnership thing

.space:

-moving in nov 2016

-leland is leading moving stuff

-student orgs think about potentially having setting up storage for our stuff if space found isn’t big enough

-leland has floor plans for EERC: we can email him sometime and ask to see them

-he’s pretty busy though

.curriculum:

-340L is going to be taught differently.. more relevant

-right now in the PLAN doc have a definition of standardization

-survey for this semester: what are the gaps

matt has start of survey in the folder

**review questions in “Curriculum Standardization Survey” also in the “Plan” in curriculum task force.

send out survey week of thanksgiving..

-after we get results from the survey.. meet with the curriculum committee (valvano, evans..)

.Q-drop survey:

-send out this list also to people who have Q-dropped

.registration:

-not going to open seats for software electives…..ta allocation, space allocation..

-no power classes cuz no power professors.. they should go study abroad

.faculty interview:

-IC/biomed.. valvano

-talked a lot

-usually this happens when we interview faculty for a position at UT

this is just part of the interview process for dean’s requirements

-look out for more of these in the spring.. a lot more.. and at a short notice

.newsletter:

-staffing ECE issue

-before winter break we will have a plan so we can

-orgs will have to send in info for this

-livy uses IMODS (HTML service)

-include advising hours, UAB feedback

.FB

-monitor it more/be more proactive

-ECE FB page.. look @ what people say

-post to ask how people are going/introduce ourselves

.townhall.. open UAB meeting

-not next week will have it some other week

.tewfik town hall..

-he will have a separate one

-should ask other orgs to have dinner or meeting with Tewfik

-department will buy pizza

.tewfik will be at the next IEEE meeting

.UAB can organize social events for all ECE students meet UAB reps

-ice cream social.. moojos

-study breaks in finals

-at social.. can only come if fill out standardization survey

 

tewfik email thing connect

survey for course standardization

Meeting Minutes: Oct 23, 2015

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== 10/23 ==

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.course curriculum changes..

talk to curriculum board (valvano, evans,..  not sure who else)

^these people look @ CIS

see if they will meet with us .. we need to get our information together

   where is Sabee….

   reach out to students who Q drop…………….

   the professors push back b/c they don’t want to be told how to teach

but we are trying to tell them what topics to teach.. not how to teach

  

   why you want standardization?

definition of what that means: general syllabus for the specific course

survey:

do you feel prepared?

missing information from a previous course that you need for your current course?

   next steps:

questions for survey by friday

make survey.. send it out

have meeting with curriculum board to present this information

.semester ‘check in’ survey

either though chase is worried about this he should know its not as formal

   as long as info is not publicly viewed

   only EE courses…. but if it’s blank (not course specific)

.newsletter

   new ECE staff started; Sarah will talk to her about this in nov

.sponsored orgs:

  supposed to get support from department

   separate conversation on this b/c IEEE doesn’t get any sponsorship..

.connect partnership stuff…

   table this until EERC comes up. it is a way to convince companies to partner with us

   sarah thinks it is worth bringing up to Tewfik

don’t have leverage right now

if we do wait, we can tell partners that they can partner with us and become a connect partner and then they can table in EERC lobby for access to many ECE students. works well in CS; companies are there all the time and get to connect to hundreds of students

side thought: if we push back now and wait until building comes department might take away financial support to orgs for agreeing to plan

  before the end of the semester we will have a meeting with Tewfik to talk about this

   **we should have a meeting with CS.. TSSA & GT(don’t remember acronym)

^walter said he would talk with them to see how it works w/ department

-don’t know if building will actually go up in time anyway: or if we want to go through with this now they can be partner now then when building goes up you get a discount  (early bird special

  department should be asking companies to be connect partners.. not through us

Meeting Minutes: Oct 16, 2015

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== 10/16 ==

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.tewfik needs:

    **one email**

  1. do we need to be all together
  2. if together do it together
  3. if not one by one
  4. what time we need it for
  5. who needs access

 

how much we have and so he has an idea of what kind of space to have in email

access/usage statistics

  when we are in there

do we need space with student orgs connected?

    or study space connected?

.can’t use aces (POB)

.when aca goes down: vacate around late oct/nov 2016

  this time around department will have to arrange this

.tewfik will check on ESS with Tricia Gore

  do staff members have to meet with students regularly? if so they can’t move

  think about moving them to another office

.PCL was only study space Tewfik could find

  this time around he doesn’t think this will change

may try and do it electronically.. let people know when they are where

through app.. new thing

pilot new video conference/streaming of OH

 

.looking for new space:

**notify SEC and ESW and SEEK

**maybe reach out to Tricia or Ana

**check basements and should be space that’s temporary and doesn’t need touch ups

**

 

.course curriculum changes:

standardizing 312, 411, 313, 422,

overlapping..

we should consolidate our thoughts on this and have a meeting with Tewfik

 

ask TA’s for review on what class is covered and use that material

compare syllabus

write up a report on what the differences are

we need to not only note the differences but also track how it has affected students

 

survey for this:

who did you have for this class?

do you feel prepared for this course?

 

.consensus:

need two different surveys: one for getting class feedback and one for checking how prepared people feel course content wise

Meeting Minutes: Oct 9, 2015

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== 10/9 ==

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.meeting with tewfik: wece, ieee, hkn

 to voice our concerns…

.with aca going away..

 may have to think of why student orgs need space

    storage, organization serve as source of information we serve student body and office space   makes us accessible, networking bonding, etc.

 rent a house in north campus

 study space, org space, ta offices,

 

.tech core night or peer advising: academic enrichment

 tech core:

   have valvano talk about academic enrichment how he feels about it

 peer advising:

   sarah will address since major sequence goes away how does that work and academic enrichment

 

———————————-ece connect partnership stuff———————————————

what happens when we get a push back from companies?

   these have severe monetary issues

google doc of questions.. include everyone..  add in other ieee presidents.. invite them to the meeting tewfik

invite will hoenig and wece corporate

 

this plan is to form more long term commitments

————————————————————————————————————–

 

next town hall:

 week before make agenda

 reach out to tewfik ask what he is going to talk about.. we don’t even have to have him talk

 facebook event for meeting

 will be in november

 

google doc of questions on survey.. town hall on this.. to include students on this decision

table meeting: first space, then budget,

Meeting Minutes: Sept 9, 2015

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== 9/18 ==

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Introductions – Trevor is cool

 

Weekly Newsletter discussion

  • Emulate the Engineering Student Life newsletter? – Walter will talk to them about their system
  • Topics to cover:
    • ECE events (Connect, UAB Townhalls, Company Info Sessions, Research Talks)
    • Academic deadlines (Drops, Q-drops, OTE, registration dates)
    • Major course changes (no more major sequence, pre-req changes, etc.)
    • Common registration problems (bars)
    • Words of advice (dean, faculty)
    • Alumni advice
    • Scholarship opportunities
    • Research opportunities
    • Lecture (University Lecture Series?) dates
    • Study abroad news/info sessions/deadlines
    • Department news (new faculty, anniversaries, EERC updates)
  • Jason can do graphics/layout if we can incorporate images

Calendar discussion

  • ECE Google Calendar managed by UAB?
  • Links to IEEE, WECE, etc. calendars
  • System for getting access/posting on Engineering Student Life calendar is hard/too complicated/messy

Curriculum Committee

  • EE 302 lab needs major revamp
    • TAs need to know LabVIEW/get trained!
    • Each lab should be components of the car project
    • Lab isn’t major component of grade, so instead of being harsh on grades, focus on helping every student really learn LabVIEW, circuits, and how to do a functioning car
  • EE 313 maybe we could learn MATLAB at some point/with the class?

Oct 2 Townhall

  • Introduce ourselves and present our roles and contact info
  • If students want curriculum changes:
    • Mid-semester survey
    • End-of-semester survey
    • UAB/Curriculum Committee processes responses
    • Consolidate main feedback and present to professors mid-semester
    • If End-of-semester results are still bad, then long-term changes might be necessary

Action points would be to talk to Engineering Student Life about the newsletter. I can try to organize the topics we wanted on the newsletter into some layout/format.

Meeting Minutes: August 21, 2015

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== 8/21 ==

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zack

matt

jason

tyler

walter

qian

sabee

maddie

trevor

miranda

ismael

mehtaab

 

–send sarah head shots

–send blurb to sarah by end of the week

  miranda 5th year graduating dec 2015

  bring issues discussed among HKN community

  email president@hkn.ece.utexas.edu

  office hours 930-11a to talk to me

  

–sept 25th, oct 16, nov 13th, dec open

town halls once a month

–courses w/ drop down for tech cores

–ece website updated

–advising: transfer to making appointments

Meeting Minutes: May 7, 2015

UAB Meeting Minutes: 5/7/15

 

In Attendance: Jason, Qian, Miranda, Walter, Ismael, Maddie, Mahtaab, Matt

Absent: Tyler, Sabee (Sarah’s fault for not sending email), Will (no longer board member, replaced by Miranda)

 

Purpose:

We spent this meeting talking about other issues besides the Connect program and the future of student organizations and possible budgets.

 

Old Items:

Will H. is working on transferring log in info to the website

Mehtaab interested in helping be webmaster, talk with Will

 

New Items:

Org Space in EERC:

Sarah will set up a meeting with all org Presidents, Dr. Tewfik and Leland (EERC Project Manager) to go over current student org space

Connect Partners EXPO:

May be an event hosted by UAB in the future

Invite industry sponsors from student orgs as well to help recruit for Connect?

Sarah will discuss this with Nancy, we may need to wait until there are more Connect Partners

 

Future ECE Events:

Looking for more ways to keep students connected

Ideas: Games days, shared meals with professors, weekly ECE newsletter

Newsletter: most popular idea, to include: org events, Connect events, advising/course announcements, needs to be in rich text not plain text and look official from the department

Sarah will look into getting this done for the Fall

Research Opportunities:

Eureka website is outdated

Some students use Hire a Longhorn to get positions

UAB hosted research fair/poster session for ECE students, used to recruit undergrads for unpaid/paid positions with faculty

Possible future 1 hour course on how to get involved with research and maybe graduate school prep? NOT replacing X60 (research) course

Will be discussed further

 

ECAC and Resume Help

ECAC is too general, students want examples of resumes that got job offers

Maybe offering large database

ECAC is not very focused towards ECE

Students want alumni advice:

maybe advice “column” in newsletter?

Live talk or fire side chat?

Alumni panel before EXPO on career tips and how to get offers

Master contact list based on industry with alumni who are willing to talk with current students?

Mehtaab and Walter working on more formal proposal and detailed issues with ECAC and ECAC website

 

ECE Webpage:

Course info is still out of date: Sarah will work on

It would help to have tags for technical core electives and better organization to see what order upper division tech cores courses should be taken

Information is hard to find: put links to information in various places

Flow Chart would be more helpful in a table with links to course schedule

Will be discussed further

 

Orientation:

Concerns about quality of information

All board members charged with thinking of 2-3 things to put on a FAQ sheet

Orientation is a large event that the department has little control over, except the department 80-minute meeting

 

Future Meetings:

UAB will host a monthly Town Hall open to all students

Weekly board meetings with public minutes from each

UAB office hours?

Times when student can walk in to discuss issues

Shared space with WECE, if WECE gets own offices

 

SEND FALL CLASS SCHEDULES AND MAJOR PERSONAL EVENTS TO SARAH ASAP!

Taking time to go out of town? Know when a major project is due? Give Sarah a heads up ASAP!