»Virtual Preview Day

A: Dr. Elizabeth Stevens - For incoming freshmen, we recommend that they take the first computer science course. So, if you haven't taken computer science in high school, that is completely fine. A lot of our students start out there. You would take a Computer Science I, which is Computer Science 230.

We also recommend that if you're in an AP computer science now and you get a score of four or five, you can enroll in computer science 231. You're more than welcome to stick to 230 if you want just to get the introductory knowledge of computer science 1. That class is offered in Python and it teaches fundamentals. But if you want to skip out on that and have taken the AP exam, you can enroll in computer science 231.

We also recommend the Engineering 101 course and what would be your freshman foundations course or your FFC 100, which will be tied to your GCI experience, and usually whatever math class you're currently at. If you came out of high school taking calculus, or if you haven’t been taking calculus yet, you would start with Calculus.

A: Haley Anderson - I started out as a computer science major at Chapman, but had a very close peer of mine switch into computer science. I believe it was at her sophomore year that she switched because she was undeclared. And as it often happens, she was using our first computer science course to satisfy a quantitative inquiry portion of her general education program, and she really liked the course and decided to add the major. So, in general, it's very easy.

Our goal isn't to recreate the snobbery that you find in other institutions where engineering is this isolated tower and you have to jump through hoops to be an engineer. If you are passionate about being an engineer, then you can be an engineering major. It basically requires a signature from either Dr. Linstead or Dr. Stevens. Engineering should be for everyone, not a select few that have to test into it or have taken two years of AP physics in high school.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - The prints that we're using, the STL file, is publicly available. There have been several companies that have been putting them out, including MatterHackers and Prusa, which is one of our preferred vendors for our 3D printers. So, it's an open design and basically, it's been a pretty grassroots approach. 

We started doing this just because we wanted to do something to support healthcare workers. Frankly, we started printing these frames and putting these things together before we even knew where exactly they were going, and we coordinated with some local hospitals and folks just reaching out to us. 

We've been shipping them all over the place. They've been used locally as close as St. Joseph's and last week, we overnighted a box to a hospital in Florida. So, we're trying to do our best to give these masks to everyone who submits a request.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - I'll let the students and alumni talk about that, but in general, I can say that we are enjoying very high placement rates of our students and internships and in their first jobs after that, graduate placement isn't a problem. But I'll let Haley, Abby and Kaitlyn talk.

Kaitlyn Abdo - So even though my career goal isn't to go into industry, I'm actually pre-med, so I don't exactly have the same internships, but I do have an internship at UCI in their urology department. When I was interviewing with them, that's all they cared about was that I was a data analytics major. They did not care that I've taken all these levels of biochemistry or any of that. All they asked me about was, do you know how to code? That just goes to show that the future is heading that way. Even in a field that some people in biochemistry or chemistry might say that it's the complete opposite, it really isn't. And that proves it. And one of my best friends has an internship with Google over the summer.

Abby Atchison - I think that as an engineering student, internships are not only important, but also oftentimes very available because companies understand that it is also up to them to make themselves an attractive employer to find the next generation of programmers and software engineers. I think that while Chapman prepares you with the basic knowledge that you need to be successful, that is a box that they check. I think one way that Chapman kind of uniquely positions themselves to allow you to get internships that are meaningful and grow you as an engineer is that they have really close relationships with industry partners. I was a part of the advisory board when I was at Chapman and in those meetings, there is in-depth discussion about how we best prepare students with the courses that we're choosing to have an impact over this twelve-week small window that you have at the company. So that is definitely a priority of Chapman’s.

And because ours is a smaller program, they're able to pivot much quicker in order to allow you when you get in there and your boots are on the ground, so that you're able to show what you can do.

There's definitely a lot of opportunity as well for a computer science like internships just in general. There are so many options out there and I know that you can get that at any school but at Chapman, I felt so prepared when I was looking for internships because of the education I received here. I remember I read that book “cracking the code” and it's like a big thing that a lot of people use to practice for interviews. And I realized that I already knew most of the concepts through my classes at Chapman. That made me feel so much more confident when I was interviewing for these companies because I just knew that my education and all the concepts that I've been taught, my classes were going to get me there and that no one was going to ask me a question that I'd be stumped by because my classes had already taught them to me.

A: Dr. L. Andrew Lyon - Everybody's concerned about what's going to happen, and in a case where you're kind of at the whims of a global pandemic, we don't have answers right now about what is going to happen in the fall. What we are doing is planning to be teaching in person on campus in the fall and then simultaneously building contingency plans for all of our classes just in case that that is not possible.

These are challenging issues, not only because teaching online can be difficult, but also when you're a program that really prides itself on hands-on learning there's additional planning that needs to go into making sure the students have a meaningful experience in an online environment. We certainly hope we are teaching in person because that's way more fun and way more exciting. But in the case or in the event that we are not teaching in person and we are still online, I think we've done really some fantastic work behind the scenes to make sure that that experience is also awesome.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - Grand Challenges Initiative is an interdisciplinary program where the teams are made up of students from all different STEM disciplines. In fact, we hold about a quarter of the seats in those classes open to non-STEM students. So, you're really working in a team that's designed to tackle the challenge from the broadest perspectives possible. I don't know if any of the students maybe Kaitlyn has some insight into that as well.

A: Haley Anderson - It's pretty important to make sure that you always stay on top of your workload. Like as most people probably know, engineering majors aren't easy. So, it's important to make sure that you're staying on top and not letting things pile up too much. But also, it's important to make sure that you don't get discouraged if something's difficult, because when you start any kind of engineering major, it's always difficult to begin with. So, you really have to make sure that you're not going to get scared away by small problems in the beginning because it really is worth it if you stick with it.

A: Dr. L. Andrew Lyon - The answer is yes. I think it's always challenging to be a student athlete no matter what your major is. There are lots and lots of student athletes both in the sciences and in engineering disciplines. I actually was speaking on the phone the other day with a prospective student who is also being recruited by our soccer team. And she was, I think, very excited about the fact that she was finding a way to strike a balance between her passion in terms of engineering and computer science, as well as playing sports. We also see that it can be very difficult sometimes for students who are in the performing arts to balance science or engineering degrees. We work very intentionally with students in those areas as well, where you've got lots of rehearsals and lots of late nights getting ready for performances. I think that the performing arts also tends to be very similar with respect to that kind of perceived difficulty, a balance between a STEM major and being a student athlete or even an artist. We work pretty diligently to make sure students can strike that balance.

Dr. Erik Linstead - Continuing with that, right now, if you look at the size of our student body in the Fowler School of Engineering, we're about three hundred students total with the majority majoring in computer science, but then also data analytics, software engineering and a couple who have declared computer engineering early. So when you have three hundred students, naturally they're going to have very varied interests among them outside of their major.

The great thing about Chapman is we really encourage folks to build academic programs that holistically check off all the boxes that they think are important to their education. And so naturally, we have people doing very popular combinations like majoring in computer science or the game development minor or majoring in computer engineering with mathematics minor. But we also have students that do things that are very different, majoring in computer science with a creative writing minor, majoring in data analytics or the theater tech minor. This is all stuff we support. We want you to build an academic program that really speaks to all your interests so you're intellectually satisfied. In addition to being well-prepared to go off and get a highly paid job in industry, I think the way that we're able to support all these students with very broad interests is we have a lot of personalized interaction with them. Our class sizes are about twenty-five students each. So, when you're in a room with twenty-five students and not two hundred students, you really get to know them as individuals and understand what their goals are. That way, when you're working with them to craft their overall academic plan, you can balance all of their interests to not just their major courses.

You have a very nice mix of strong technical courses, but then also more creative courses. And we want to spread those things out. And I think because of that, we're very successful in allowing our students to succeed, even if they have very non-traditional pairings of majors and minors.

Our retention rate in the school of Engineering for our majors is about ninety-two percent. For the folks that choose not to finish their major in the school of engineering, they typically go to the College of Science and do another major there. I can say quite strongly that if you work with Dr. Stevens and myself and Haley, our peer advisor, you will complete your degree in four years. I cannot think of any situations in the almost 17 years that I've been at Chapman, where someone hasn't been able to complete in four years if they work with us to plan their academic programs. So anyway, that's my spiel, and hopefully I also answered a lot of the questions that are in the chat at the same time.

A: Abby Atchison -  I have interned pretty heavily at Microsoft. It was a company that I enjoyed and stuck at. I also interviewed with Facebook, Google, Space-X, Amazon. I interned at Amazon after my freshman year and am now a full-time engineer at Microsoft.

Kaitlyn Abdo - But also, I think one cool thing about Chapman is that you have the opportunity to interface with companies that perhaps are lesser known. While I was at Chapman, I interned at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, doing data work with them. And I learned a ton from them because I was able to directly interact with one of their head data scientists. So that was a really cool opportunity and really localized to Chapman.

Haley Anderson - During my two years I had an internship at Siemens and then I interned at Microsoft the next year and I'm going to be going back full time at Microsoft after I graduate in May. But I also know a ton of people at Chapman who are going to be working at Boeing and a few people who are working at Amazon and Google as well. There are a lot of people who are working in other companies as well. So, it's pretty spread out, but there's definitely a lot of big names if that is something that you're looking for.

Dr. Erik Linstead - Some other companies that come to mind are LinkedIn, Instacart, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. Naturally, Southern California Aerospace is still around. So, a lot of our students take advantage of those opportunities.

Aerospace Corporation in particular over the last few years has developed a very strong relationship with us. They've been hiring our students for both machine learning and cybersecurity. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we've just placed a student at the NSA. We place students pretty much wherever it is they want to go.

A: Dr. L. Andrew Lyon - This is an odd year for AP, and so our expectation is that students who are successful and as Elizabeth said, get a four or five, we will continue to honor that equivalency with respect to Computer Science I. I believe that we'll have to keep a very, very close eye and make sure that those students are really prepared to the level that the AP exam would suggest. And that's something that I think we're prepared to do, because we do have small class sizes in computer science I and II, which means that the students don't have the ability to fall through the cracks. So, you won't lose that connection with the faculty member. And that connection will allow the faculty member to keep tabs on you and make sure that you are prepared appropriately.

A: Haley Anderson - I am in Greek life at Chapman and it's definitely not a time issue or a commitment issue at all. Greek life at Chapman is honestly for me at least I believe it's the perfect balance. It’s important and you make a lot of relationships and friends through it. But it's not as exclusive as other schools. So, you're not going to have any issues or like time commitment issues. Between Greek life and your engineering major, I was actually on the executive board of my sorority for two years there is no time issue or any problems at all. So it is definitely very manageable and I highly recommend it!

Kaitlyn Abdo - Yeah, I agree. I'm also in Greek life. There has never ever been a time where I'm so overwhelmed with my Greek life activities that I couldn't possibly attend class. It's never been like that and definitely we try to foster a community that isn't exclusive at all. You should never feel one way or another towards another chapter. It’s important to me as well as all other members on panhellenic. And if you ever feel like someone's not doing something that they're supposed to be doing in Greek life, let me know.

A:  Kaitlyn Abdo - There are many research opportunities. One of them that I'm involved in on campus is the Machine Learning and Assistive Technology Lab. They do a lot of autism related research or computational related solutions to better the community. So that's one that I really enjoy. There are so many, there's cancer research, there's clinical studies, so many things that you can get involved in. I've had professors approach me to ask me to help them with their data because they don't know how to do it. So, if you're looking more into biochemistry, chemistry, and bioinformatics you can definitely do that, too. I've done research at CHOC as well for data science while working with their electronic medical record system. I currently work at UCI in their urology department as a research intern. So, there's a plethora of things for you to get involved in and there's definitely not a shortage of research if that's what you're interested in. All you really have to do is ask.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead -  It'll be finished in the fall of 2021. The building is already there. It's in the Keck Center for Science and Engineering. The engineering wing is a shell space right now that we're adding all the internals too. Thus far, none of the issues that we've been dealing with COVID-19 have impacted the construction schedule.

So, for fall 2021, the students will be able to access the building and we'll be using that. And we'll also still maintain our computer lab spaces in the science wing as well. So, we'll just be growing, but we're not going to lose any space as part of that move.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - That will happen in a couple of ways. One, the University registrar’s office and counseling services will reach out to you as you approach the summer timeframe for registration. And they'll work with you to understand what your general requirements are for graduation. In addition, they will make a list of courses available that we recommend for your first semester at Chapman.

In addition to that, we'll reach out to you to provide a lot of that same information, but then we'll make sure that you also have a way to communicate with us to schedule your courses. One of the ways that we like to do this is we use Slack a lot internally for the Fowler School of Engineering. It's our favorite communications platform. So before registration happens, we'll add you to Slack and you'll be able to ask registration questions in a channel so you can try and make sure that there's an archival record of the common questions that come up as new students register and it’s an extremely straightforward process. Dr. Stevens and I work diligently to ensure that our students get the courses that they need. This is another nice advantage of Chapman. So, we'll work with you to make sure everything's okay.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - The way to think about these courses is it's more about the fundamentals of computing than any particular programming language. So Computer Science I, CPSC 230 we teach Python. But we use Python as a way to sort of understand the way that computers operate and the way that a program executes. It's not that it really is about learning Python in and of itself. Similarly, for Computer Science II, CPSC 231, we teach Java, but mostly it's about object orientation and not about Java itself as a programming language. So, all of that is to say that if you have taken an AP computer science course, you receive credit for a CPSC 230. If you feel confident about the concepts of computing, you understand how iteration works and understand what happens when a method is invoked and why we organize things and methods or functions, that's what matters. Not so much if you know Python or not.

So, no, I don't think that because you didn't take computer science 230 here that you are put at any sort of disadvantage. But the other thing that I also feel very strongly about is that computer science right now as an AP program still has a lot of variance compared to more established programs like the AP calculus courses. And so just evaluate yourself as you're getting close to starting your university studies and as you look at the course catalog, and see what the topics are that we cover in computer science, 230 and 231.

If you feel like you have some gaps that maybe are best taken care of by having you take the course, then take the course. One extra college course in the grand scheme of things will do nothing to your ability to complete your degree on time and finish in four years. So, if you think that will be beneficial, then no big deal. Just take computer science 230. We have many students that used to do that just because they think that it'll be good for them for whatever reason. So definitely, we can take it on a case by case basis.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - Yes, and not just computer science courses, engineering and courses in general, computer engineering and electrical engineering. As part of the new Fowler School of Engineering, we are growing our faculty by leaps and bounds. This past year we hired four new faculty members, and for the upcoming year starting in the fall of 2020 we have hired five new faculty members and we're waiting for a confirmation from the sixth. So, what does this mean for us? It means that we get to offer even more courses on top of everything that we've been offering so far. We know for sure that we want to continue pushing in the area of machine learning and artificial intelligence because our students are doing so well with that. Cybersecurity is another area right now where as soon as our students learn a little bit, they have job offers waiting for them. Embedded systems certainly with computer engineering and electrical engineering coming online, it makes sense for us to really add additional courses in cyber physical systems, Internet of Things. So those will be added.

And then the other important thing that is a part of our curriculum. Are these one-unit computer science courses; we call them - the Computer Science Colloquium and there's a corresponding computer engineering colloquium and something similar for electrical engineering. So, we do that across the programs. These are one-unit courses and you meet 50 minutes a week over the course of the semester. These are courses that we use to teach topics that are bleeding edge, or maybe a little bit controversial and atypical for an engineering curriculum like effective communication skills and things like that. But we offer these courses, and these are another great way to add a huge amount of breadth to your academic program. And our students really seem to love that. I mean, we've offered some courses in fundamental electronics, Salesforce, and deep learning. Dean Lyon has done an amazing course in nanotechnology. He's going to do another one in the fall called Innovation out of Failure. I'm toying with one maybe for the spring about reinforcement learning. So that's another way that we're always adding new courses. It's kind of like a buffet, just go and you pick the computer science courses that you like, and you learn something.

A:Dr. Erik Linstead - In general, I think that coding lets you be better at anything computational just because you sort of understand how the hardware and the infrastructure's working. That being said, you don't have to live and breathe programming to be successful in computer science in general and cybersecurity specifically. There are certainly folks that make a career of writing code all day. But most of us don't. I worked as a software engineer in industry at Boeing. And even though my job classification was real time software engineer, I only wrote code about 20 percent of the time and the rest was really thinking about solving problems and designing solutions and things like that. So, coding isn't the end all be all of computer science or engineering or cyber security. And in fact, I know some absolutely phenomenal computer scientists and engineers that frankly, they're just not excited by coding, but they're excited about everything else that the field has to offer. That being said, you know, the other thing, too, is also give it a fair shake and wait until you get into your courses.

We hear a lot of students say: I don't like math. I'm not good at math. I promise you that as someone who is just coming in to university, you are not at a point yet where you've been exposed to enough mathematics to really be able to make broad claims like you're not good at math or you don't like math. So be open minded. And as you interact with some of our faculty who are just absolutely phenomenal, you might be surprised. Then all of a sudden it becomes more interesting and accessible to you.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - The idea behind the four plus one is that as a senior undergraduate student, you can take up to twelve graduate units that can then be counted toward the master's program at Chapman. And so, one of the more popular masters for students right now is the master's in computational and data science. So that senior year they would take the introductory coursework in that master's program. Typically, courses like data mining, mathematical modelling, multivariate statistics and some others, and then they would take that off their master's requirements.

So, then an additional year they would complete the M.S. degree. A lot of our students do it. They find that it gives them a leg up when they are applying for jobs. Having a master's degree seems on average to be translating into about a ten-thousand-dollar difference in starting salary for our students who are fresh out of school, who don't have other industry experience that they're using as part of their salary negotiations. So, it definitely pays dividends, especially for our folks that just frankly like school and they want to learn more.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - I think it really is the people. It's a great group. Like I said, I worked in industry beforehand. The reason I ended up being in my current role as associate dean is because my daughter was diagnosed with autism and I wanted to build a research lab that intersected artificial intelligence and autism. Chapman was very supportive of that. Andrew Lyon in particular, really worked extremely hard to help me be successful in that. And I think that's what's so great about this place. Everyone wants you to succeed. It's a place where there's a lot of collaboration and not a lot of unfounded competition, because, frankly, it's not healthy and it's not useful.

It doesn't make you any better at doing your job either as a student or as a professional and you when you graduate. So, you know, there are phenomenal people here on the faculty, on the staff, and the student body. And it's a real pleasure to work with them. And, you know, while certainly these are interesting times and I would much rather be on campus right now interacting with all of you in person, I still like the fact that I have a job where on a Saturday I can jump online on a zoom call with a bunch of my colleagues and students and have fun doing this. They're good people. To me, that means the most out of any other thing that you could say about why you'd want to be someplace. No secret, I'm also a Chapman alum. I graduated with my bachelors in computer science in 2001. I can also say without question that the relationships that I built while a student here set me up for success for the rest of my career, whether that was going off to Stanford to get my masters or going to my get my PhD at UCI or getting jobs or figuring out that I like teaching or deciding that I wanted to be a full time academic professor. And it all sort of gets back to Chapman and the fact that I met folks here that have just invested in my long-term success and well-being. So that's pretty amazing.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - For me, quite a bit. I'm a tenured faculty member, which means that about half of my effort is in formal teaching, actually being in a classroom, teaching classes and things of that nature. And the other half is research. And a big part of my research group is undergraduate students. On a good day, 8 to 10 are working with me right now. I spend a lot of time interacting with students. And then on top of that, with my administrative responsibilities that I share with Dr. Stevens, we're always meeting with students to talk about four-year plans or giving advice on where to apply for internships or thinking about the right choice of electives to prepare for a particular career field.

Chapman would not be a place to come if you don't like getting to know your professors and your peers. And we like each other, you interact with each other a lot. And that's really great. As a professor, I would have absolutely no interest working at an institution where I was rewarded for doing great research by not interacting with students. I think I would slowly descend into insanity. So much of what's good with my job has to do with the fact that you interact with students that are learning cool stuff and they're so excited to be learning it. So, this is great.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - Many do. Certainly, the majority of our students graduate and go into industry, but plenty end up going into graduate studies. Some of them do that at Chapman and some of them do that at other places, like the University of Washington, Georgia Tech, Harvard, and Notre Dame and what not. So, I think when it comes to graduate school, you really have to find a master's program that has coursework and a program of study that is synergistic with your career goals.

And of course, for a PhD, it's really all about finding a mentor and an advisor who's working in your area that can help you do the type of research that you want to do. So, PhDs are a little bit weird in that perspective. It's almost like you're picking an advisor more than you're picking a school. Or at least that's the best way to be successful at it, because you'll find that you're your PhD advisor makes a huge difference in how successful you are.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - Our students that want to be gainfully employed are gainfully employed. And typically, it doesn't take six months. I would say within three months most of them are in that position. Naturally, some of them decide to go to grad school and some of them want to travel around the world and do that a little bit before they settle into their career. I know that Abby Atchison did just that when she graduated.

But our students don't have any problem finding employment, which, you know, we talk about as faculty and as administrators. We talk about how you measure success in a program.

There are all sorts of ways to do that. Maybe they're useful, maybe they're not. For me, the way that I judge our programs is to look and see when our students go to companies that are known for hiring excellent engineers. Are they able to get through the interview process and get a job offer from those companies? And they do so to me, that's the most important thing. Our students are able to go out and compete with students from much larger institutions and do extremely well. So it's satisfying.

A: Dr. Erik Linstead - Yes, we encourage you to study abroad. Now that we have a school of engineering, there will be even more opportunities because we'll be able to partner with other engineering schools and other institutions a little bit easier.

We have students travel all over the place. The only thing that we ask is if you want to study abroad as soon as possible, let myself or Dr. Stevens know, and we'll work it into your four-year plan.

A:  Dr. Erik Linstead - Yes, absolutely. You can do that. And highly recommend it.

And the other important thing to know is that work study also is applicable as an undergraduate research student. So if you meet a professor and they have an opening, an open position in their research lab and you want to get involved and they have the funds to pay you, then that will also satisfy any federal work study that you have.