After a week of adaptation, the secondweek of learning gradually hardened: the control system course requireseveryone to do the homework with difficulty every day, and the data sciencecourse needs to complete the final project in only two nights in two days.
After two weeks of intense study, wegradually got a basic understanding of the signal system and the controlprinciple; wehave askillful and elegantuseof Python's pandas, seaborn and otherinteresting and versatile libraries.
Controlsystem:cute teacher with use content!
Prof.Petros combined the signal andsystem control in his courses. He also talked about the wide applications ofthe control system. Thanks to every day’s homework, we got a betterunderstanding of what the teacher taught.
DataScience:Creative Class!
This course is co-taught by two teachers, we use Python notebookto learn Python at class. Through two weeks of studying and the toughgroup work of the final project, we have basically mastered the skills of data visualizationby using Python. By the way, the hardwares here is really nice, we can useAirplay easily for the final presentation.
Final Project
On the afternoon of July 25th, we madeour final presentations of data science creativity course. After two weeks ofstudy, we college students not only learned how to analyze data with python,but also explored many methods and ideas of data visualizations. In the show,the data topics selected by each group were mostly different which includes NBAteam records, population and GDP, Chicago crime, pizza restaurant and so forth.At the same time, the data visualizations created by each group were even moreexcellent. Beautiful color matching, delicate shapes and space layout,humanized interaction... all these amazing things brought us a admirable visualfeast.
After the presentation, we weredefinitely fortunate to communicate with a ECE Ph.D student. He introduced ushow to apply for a master’s degree in a US university. Additionally, hisinternship and doctoral experience benefited us a lot.
ECEB Visit
At 2:30 pm on July 26, our groupvisited the ECEB (Electrical and Computer Engineering Building) of UIUC. The buildingwas completed in 2014 and is a modern building with complete facilities andgrandeur.
The one responsible for leading us is aPhD student here. Entering the gate, you will see a clean room. The laboratoryis theNanotechnology Laboratory. After the tall yellow glass curtain wall, thereis a variety of equipment, which gives us a strong sense of technology.Unfortunately, we did not have access to the lab.
After that, we visited the Robotics andControl Systems Laboratory, the Circuit Systems Laboratory, and the OpticalSystems Laboratory. We were deeply impressed by the complete facilities andhigh-end instruments in the laboratories.
It is worth mentioning that thelaboratory here is not only for ECE students. There is a lab called "OpenProjects Lab". This lab is fully equipped, and students from differentmajors can turn their ideas into reality in this lab. This setting is worthlearning.
During this visit, we learned a lot. Wefeel the relaxed and creative atmosphere here, which is very different from ourexperience in China. We also learned about how the lab works, which laid thefoundation for our future studies.
Graduation Lunch
At noon on July 27th, Central Time, all ISE (Information Scienceand Engineering) students who participated in UIUC held a graduation lunch atUIUC Union after completing the two-week study of control system and datascience creativity.
This graduation lunch was hosted by Mrs. Liu Meng, the principalof this program. After Mrs. Liu’s short but wonderful welcome speech, UIUC’sMatt G expressed his recognition of the learning results of the studentsparticipating in the ISE project, and welcomed everyoneonce again.
Everyone had a deep conversation at the luncheon. During theconversation, the UIUC professor answered questions about the US master'sstudent application and career planning. The professor told us that the USmaster's student application pays more attention to the students' interest inthe field they are applying for and the research results completed in the fieldwhile valued the student's GPA. At the same time, he encouraged us to activelyparticipate in various research groups, find our own interests in differentscientific research processes, and accumulate experience. During the lunche,the professor also shared with us how he found his area of interest and hisown research experience.
After lunch, Professor Wade and Professor Karle, who gave lecturesto the students, took the stage to express their encouragement to everyone'slearning results and were very satisfied with our efforts. Immediatelyafterwards, student representative Lin Mengxin of Zhejiang University gave aspeech on behalf of all the students who participated in the project，and expressed their feelingsabout participating in the project.
Finally, the professors jointly issued a certificate of completionfor all students participating in the project and took a group photo.
