COMP 4900 Academic and Professional Development (Spring 2022)

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Coordinator: Dr. Cindy Li
Email:

This course is for academic and professional development of students in the programs offered by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Activities may include seminars, workshops, advising and sharing sessions, interaction with faculty and teaching staff, and discussion with student peers or alumni. Graded P/PP/F. It is a required course for both COMP and COSC curriculum.

  • Develop relationships with faculty members and staff;
  • Examine the value of and assume ownership of his/her education;
  • Become self-directed in planning and accomplishing short and long-term academic goal;
  • Identify short and long-term career and personal plans and aspirations and work towards these by establishing realistic development plans.

You are registered to COMP 4900 during your whole stay in CSE. Its grade for each term is PP (Permitted to Proceed). The P (Pass) grade will be given at the final term before you graduate.

Failure of fulfiling the above requirement in any term may lead to an "F" grade in COMP 4900 for that term, and be permanently recorded in your transcript. Please be reminded that it is a required course and an "F" grade will affect your graduation according to university policy.

First term in CSE (e.g. Year 2 Fall)

Course requirements:

Attend welcome meeting with your faculty advisor for COMP students. No compulsory welcome meeting for COSC students;

AND

Attend the department UG orientation (first Wed in Sep) for both COMP/COSC students, and one more seminar for COMP students.

Course grade:

PP (Permission to Proceed) grade will be assigned upon successful fulfilment of course requirements.

Note:

Your respective faculty advisor will initiate the welcome meeting in a context of social gathering. Meeting will be arranged in late Sep or Oct depending on the schedule of your faculty advisor.

If for any reason your faculty advisor is not able to arrange the meeting, the meeting requirement will be alleviated.

In the very rare case, if you miss the UG orientation, you will need to attend one seminar offered in the term as makeup.
All in-between terms in CSE

Course requirements:

Attend 2 seminars each term for COMP students.
Attend 1 seminar each term for COSC students.

Course grade:

PP (Permission to Proceed) grade will be assigned upon successful fulfilment of course requirement.

Note:

The seminar attendances are not cumulative among different semesters.

All ENGG 2010 seminars/workshops (not necessarily IT-related) offered in a particular term can be automatically double counted towards COMP 4900 of that term, only if you are officially registered to ENGG 2010. E2I will hand over the attendance record to us at the end of the term. Please send inquiries of ENGG 2010 seminar to E2I.

You can also attend DSCT seminars to fulfil COMP 4900 requirement. You should submit a reflection report to COMP 4900 Canvas.
Last term in CSE

Last term is Spring/Summer (for majority students)

Course requirements:

No seminar attendance needed in Spring.

Fill a compulsory graduation survey (it's a department survey, NOT HKUST UG Exit survey. The survey is usually sent out in mid-May.)

An optional casual gathering (e.g. tea gathering or graduation dinner) in late Apr or early May (cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Course grade:

P grade will be assigned upon successful fulfilment of course requirement to facilitate your graduation.

(For students who graduate in Summer, PP grade will be assigned in Spring, and an automatic P grade will be assigned in Summer.)

Last term is Fall

Course requirements:

Spring term is still your in-between term.

For last Fall term, since the department does not run graduation survey in Fall, you will have to attend one seminar.

Course grade:

P grade will be assigned upon successful fulfilment of course requirement to facilitate your graduation.
Term with "study leave" You will not be able to register for any courses at HKUST, including COMP 4900.

You are always welcomed to attend any seminars you feel interested. You only need to submit reflection report when using the seminar to fulfil seminar attendance requirement.

Further clarifications of the COMP 4900 course requirements due to the various study programs taken by students:

  • DE students: You usually join the department in Fall term. Regardless your year status (e.g. Year 2 or 3), we will still treat the term as your first term CSE. You will need to meet the faculty academic advisor, attend the department UG orientation and one seminar.
  • Program transfer to COMP/COSC: Usually the program transfer which is approved in the middle of a term will be effective next term. You will be registered to COMP 4900 then. Since you are a seasoned student, that term will be treated as in-between term.
  • Double major with COMP as 2nd major: You may use "Academic and Profession Development" course(s) offered by 1st major to fulfil COMP 4900 requirement, subject to approval. Apply for deviation from curriculum with GR-23 form and send to CSE admin office. Check more details in FAQ.

Seminars organized under COMP 4900 are scheduled on Wednesday 6pm - 7pm. The attendance of a seminar is valid when you

  • Arrive the seminar venue before 6:10pm and take attendance with the TA who is in charge (for F2F seminars), or log in the Zoom meeting before 6:05pm with your ITSC account and stay in the meeting till the end (for Zoom seminars);
    AND
  • (For seminars which require reflection report) Submit a reflection report in time and get a Pass grade. Deadline of reflection report submission is within one week of the seminar (e.g. next Wed 11:55pm). Minimum length of the report is 200 words.

You can upload your reflection report and check your COMP 4900 seminar attendance in Canvas.

Here is the reflection report template, and some sample reflection reports for your reference.

CSE Information Seminars

To facilitate your study, the department offers information seminars, including department UG orientation (compulsory for Year 2 students), Final Year Project (FYP), job hunting, internship and exchange, IT job markets, CV writing training, etc.

No reflection report is required for information seminar.

Only target student group can obtain seminar attendance via information seminars. Your attendance will be voided if you are not eligible.

List of CSE information seminars:

Date Time (HKT) Venue Event Target group Speaker
11 Mar 2022 (Fri) 7-8pm Zoom Meeting COMP 1991 (Industrial Experience) & COMP 4910 (Co-op Program) Information Seminar
(presentation slides) 		UG taking COMP 1991 / planning to take COMP 4910 Dr. Kenneth Leung
Internship & Co-op Coordinator
20 Apr 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting 2022-23 FYP/FYT Information Seminar
(presentation slides, video playback) 		UG planning to take CSE FYP/FYT in 2022-23 Prof. James Kwok
FYP/FYT Coordinator

CSE Talk Series to General CSE UG students

Interesting general talks by our CSE professors, alumni, or students to share their research, profession or experience with fellow students. List of CSE UG talks:

Date Time (HKT) Venue Event Target group Speaker
23 Feb 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting How Do Startups Leverage Cloud Computing for Fast Prototyping? All CSE UG Mr. Sze Lok Chan, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
02 Mar 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting When Visual Scene Understanding Meets Deep Learning and Big Data [DSCT Seminar] All CSE UG Dr. Dan Xu, CSE
09 Mar 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting How to Sort 100TB of Data: Algorithm Design for Massive Datasets [DSCT Seminar]
(presentation slides) 		All CSE UG Prof. Ke Yi, CSE
16 Mar 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting Intact Lab HK - an innovation hub powered by the largest general insurance in Canada All CSE UG Speakers from Intact Financial (HK)
30 Mar 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting ARTIQ: an open source physics experiment control system All CSE UG Mr. Sebastien Bourdeauducq, M-Labs
27 Apr 2022 (Wed) 6-7pm Zoom Meeting Introduction to Cybersecurity and Security Mindset [DSCT Seminar]
(presentation slides, video playback) 		All CSE UG Dr. Shuai Wang, CSE
06 May 2022 (Fri) 10:30am-2:30pm Zoom Meeting Guest Lecture on Cybersecurity All CSE UG Ricci Ieong, Enoch Chow, Ken Wong, Charles Choy

Dr. Cindy Li () is the COMP 4900 coordinator for Spring 2022. Inquiries of COMP 4900 attendance can be sent to Bing Yen CHANG ().

Q1. Is the attendance cumulative?

No. For example, taking one seminar is Fall term and three other seminars in Spring term will not fulfil the two seminars per term requirement in Fall term.

Q2. Can ENGG 2010 seminars be double-counted in COMP 4900?

If you are officially registered to ENGG 2010 in a particular term, any ENGG 2010 seminar (not constrained to IT related seminars) you attended in that term can be double-counted to COMP 4900. Note a valid attendance in ENGG 2010 includes "sit-in the seminar" and "submit the reflection report and obtain a passing grade". E2I will hand over the attendance record to us at the end of the term so you will not see the attendance in COMP 4900 Canvas timely.

Q3. Do I need to fulfil COMP 4900 requirement when I am on exchange?

If you are in "leave" academic status, you will not register any HKUST courses including COMP 4900.

Q4. What happens if I fail COMP 4900 in one term?

Your COMP 4900 grade for that term will be F, and it is shown permanently in your transcript. COMP 4900 will still be pre-enrolled to you in following terms. If you fulfil the requirements, you will eventually get a P grade for COMP 4900 upon your graduation.

Be aware that double failure of COMP 4900 will put you in potential dismissal case.

Q5. I am busy on Wed 6pm - 7pm for other commitment, can I be exempted for the seminar attendance requirements?

You are officially registered in COMP 4900 so we would assume you are available during the time slot.

Q6. I cannot find my attendance of a particular seminar on COMP 4900 Canvas but I did go there and register with TA. (Similar question: I did join the Zoom meeting but cannot find my attendance.)

Attendance is taken by scanning the barcode in the back of your student ID card. If you change your student ID card in the middle of the term, barcode changes too and we might not be able to recognize you. Please email Bing Yen CHANG () with your student ID number and new barcode to fix the problem.

Zoom meeting attendance can only be recognized if you log in with your ITSC account. If you carelessly log in with other email account, please email Bing Yen CHANG () to clarify.

Another reason might be you fail the reflection report. Pass requirement of reflection report can be found in reflection report template.

Q7. Is there any makeup seminar near the end of the term?

No. Please check seminar schedule of COMP 4900/ENGG 2010 and plan ahead.

Q8. I applied to transfer to CSE in the middle of the term, what is the COMP 4900 requirement for me?

Normally, the transfer, if approved, will not be effected until the following term. COMP 4900 will be registered to you in the following term. However, since you are a seasoned student, the requirement is to attend two seminars each term. That is, there is no compulsory requirement on department UG orientation.

Q9. Do I need to take COMP 4900 if COMP/COSC is my second major?

If your first major program offers similar "Academic and Professional Development" courses, normally you can use those courses to fulfil the COMP 4900 requirement in COMP/COSC program. You need to submit Form GR-23 (Application for Deviation from Curriculum) together with curriculum document of your cohort of admission and unofficial transcript to CSE Admin Office. We will review the application case-by-case.

Otherwise, you have to take COMP 4900.

Q10. Questions related to seminars offered via Zoom or mixed-mode.

If you temporarily lose Zoom connection during the seminar, no worry, you can just re-connect. Your seminar attendance will still be counted.

If the seminar is offered in pure online mode, then every student will be able to get attendance via Zoom.

If the seminar is offered in mixed mode, only NIHK students will be able to get the attendance via Zoom. Other students will need to attend the seminar F2F.

Dr. Cindy Li () is the COMP 4900 coordinator for Spring 2022.

COMP 4900 Archive