Department of Architecture

I would like to welcome everybody um my name is utter persky and I'm TheGraduate director in the department of architecture um it's good to see so many faces um Ihope there will be more um as I said we had about almost 100register registrants and um I hope that more will join I've heardfrom a couple of [Music] applicants or registrants that theymight have difficulty to see the open house and because of that weare recording this and just wanted to mention this upfrontwe have a couple of my colleagues and also for students coming in here thatjoined that session and I would like first to have that faculty to introducethem themselves maybe I would start with the most important most important personin this session which is Nina and she is in my screen at the top leftI think that many of you have communicated already with her yeah Ninayou want to say anything about your role just hello and I support all thegraduate students with all the administrative behind the scenes work and I'm here whenever you have questions if I can't answer them I'll try to findout who can answer them for you welcome thanks Ninaum who else do we have here as faculty um yeah we want to startshould I go ahead please hi uh welcome everyone my name is I'm assistantprofessor um here at Penn State um the StockmanSchool of Architecture I am Associated to the cluster culture society and spaceum and I usually teach um Christian Theory courses for amarc students thisyear also the doctoral research theory for the incoming PRC class and thesisfor undergrads or Master students and the other Studios which are the designdirected research Studios that the school offers um so pleaselet me know if you have any questions in any of the fields that I can help you withjust say you're you're muted okay uh good morning everybody my name is Jose Duarte and I'm the director of thestickman Center for design Computing and also Associated design Computing cluster and I usually teach the design uhresearch seminar uh the research design seminar uh in the spring and I also didthe concrete building studio uh in the fall so and I'll be happy to answer your questions regarding the design Computingcluster thank youshould I go please hello everyone welcome to the open house my name isbenai grusoy I am an assistant professor in architecture and I am Affiliatedmainly with design Computing cluster and but also with material matters researchcluster and I direct a research lab called format lab which is located within Stockman Center for designcomputing I have thought various Studios from first year second year to fourth fifthin my design research Studios and this semester we're teaching one togetherwith eliga's minion one of our PhD students I see him in these little windows andum and together with Alicia Davis another faculty member in the design Computing cluster and another PhDstudent Plaza okazian a design research studio called Michael knit andum welcome again thank you we also have Andy Cole herehi uh good morning I guess I'm the Unicorn here because I'm not in architecture uh I'm a professor oflandscape architecture and director of epost ecology plus design so I'm mostly involved with thelandscape architecture students but I'm always happy to talk uh ecological aspects of design with with anybody atthe school so feel free to always get in touch with me if you if you have that needthank you Andy and I'm seeing Rahman here hello everyone sorry for joining late uhmy name is Rahman Azari I'm an associate professor of architecture and I also runthe resource and Energy Efficiency re2 Lab at Penn State Department of architecture and happy to be here andwelcome to this open house thank you thank you Rahman and there's also a fewstudents here you want to quickly say hi Alihi everyone welcome good morning good afternoon good evening everyone on the board you are and uh we will be herewith you you always can ask your questions from Nina but there are some questions that you don't want to askNina or any of the faculty members we are here for those questionsPrasad same here hello everyone and welcome tothe open house yes please let us know if you have any question later you can reach out to usthen I'm also seeing twin Li she's an M Arc studentum I want to show your face twin Maybe not maybe later oh hi I'm sorry uhmy camera can't open yet yeah okay so twin is an MR student and um there willbe more students coming in um during the next um two hours I would like to give you aquick overview on the graduate program in the department of architectureof all our three programs which is the professional M Arc the post-professionalMs and the past professional PhD in architecture[Music] um I don't want to forget to welcome you also on behalf of our department headDan Willis um he couldn't make it today but he also wants to say um to send his greetingsum so plan is in the first 45 minutes or so um that I give you an overviewum on our research on our graduate program and then afterwards we will havetwo breakout sessions um one is the m Arc that I am moderatingand one is about the post professional degrees the Ms and the PHD and you seehere that there's a list of our other professors who have introducedthemselves um just a minute ago foreignalso feel free to put questions in the chat and I hope that others will pick itup while I'm in action um and I'm not multitasking able to readand give a presentation at the same time for those of you who join us from faraway and maybe one more for the screen if you put your um the all the facesum of the participants to the right side that is where the presentation left ablack bar so that would allow you to give to see the entire screenfor those of you who join us from far away just a quick um understandingum where State College or Penn State is it's at the center ofum Pennsylvania um directly here at the center um as you see in this mapum we think of ourselves as being very Central although on the other hand weare um kind of in the woods of Pennsylvania um you see here thatum we reach different cities in two and a half hours to Pittsburgh up to fourhours if you want to make it to Manhattan and also to Washington Baltimore andPhiladelphia but I'm thinking that we have this um this duality of local andum Global because we have many International faculty we have many International students and what we do isthat we travel very of often outside of State College of our location around theworld give presentations do research around the world and then we come back to our Nest here orIsland our safe Island and focus on researchand on our research communitywe have a wonderful campus what you see here in this photo at the lower rightthis is here where downtown starts everything that you see here I hope you can see my mouse everything you can seehere is campus buildings Penn State buildings and you see here that the campus isorganized in a few axes that are connected to downtown there's one accesswhere the president works here um hope you can see my mouse thenthere's another access left to it where at the end is the main librarya very important Library it's in the top 10 of the US so very strong Libraryanother access here is the Student Center the student Hub and then there'sone green access that leads to this yellow circle which is where our building the Stockman family building isthe Stockman family building here you see a photo of the entrance houses thedepartment of architecture and the department of landscape architecture they're around 500 50 students in thisbuilding 360 are architecture students and around 200 are landscapearchitecture students um of the 360 architecture students 74 arecurrently graduate students this is about 20 percent and that is the average ratio that the faculty has so we have avery good ratio aligned to um what the Penn State ratio is you alsosee here that we have about 35 architecture faculty which tells youthat there is a faculty to student ratio of about one to ten which is anexcellent ratio and one of the really the strong assets that we haveum in in our department and what you also see here is there'sthe lower floor the entrance floor is relatively narrow there's where theadministration is where computer labs are where other supportive spaces arebut the really um exciting thing that's going onupstairs there's where most of the students have their desks um and have their lockers and theirworking spaces um show you here a photo from inside that building it is really one big spaceimagine um 500 students working in one big space maybe you cannot imagine that before Icame I couldn't imagine it but it's a really exciting working environment yousee here um at the side here a lower level with uh desks with student desks and then atthe top here an upper level of student desks so students sit on two main floorsand in between we have an space that we call the mezzanine where you see forexample here a pinup is going on um can also get very crowded when ourundergraduate students pin up and have reviews in here and you see here againin the back the open desks and that is the exciting thing that you can alwayssee what do the other students do so learning from each other is a main principle ofum our two departments but also it's manifested in the buildingthe building also at some places has such Forum steps that we use for lecturespaces so we don't have closed lecture spaces we go outside of our building ifwe need closed lecture spaces this photo is just to show you that we really tryto have a very open environment where you can attend lecturesum invited to to listen to lectures even if you haven't signed up or it's not yourclass also in this one big space uh is ourcomputer pods um that are for the students um you see here a small Workshopum on uh on a simulation program um and again here that is to say thatall spaces are integrated it's a very open environment we encourage allstudents to work together and not to be in a silo of an M Arc oran MS or a PhD or a bachelor group um we really try to live and I think welive successfully that all students work together um there's also a a Youtube videoum uh that can give you an impression of all the spaces we have in the building Iwill put this later in the chat um and um you canlook at this video it's a five minute video of all the spaces it has been done over the summer so there are no studentsin there um which is sad um still gives you a good idea of the spacesum all in our building we have a branch library for architecture and Landscapearchitecture um uh one of my favorite spaces because you can see out in the woods and youhave a quiet space to focus on your own work as I said Penn State has a topranked Library one of the top 10 in the nationin addition we have plenty of shops in the basement in other smaller roomsthroughout the building and all the workshops that you see here are all inour building so a wood shop a large wood shop in the basement with acourtyard outside a digital fabrication lab with um plenty of 3D printers a metalWorkshop a robot that we use for for many different things a CNC machine andthroughout the building um located throughout the building are plotters and laser cutters for studentsfor immediate use now I want to shift to our threeprograms I got anina also we got some um questions about to which program somewant to apply they are not really sure yet and I would like to try to toexplain the differences between these three programs and what qualificationsyou need for these three programs so um aside from a five-year an undergraddegree a large undergraduate degree a five year b art we have the threegraduate programs one is the m Arc this is a professional degreeum it's a three-year program um although you can get Advanced standing when you have already aprofessional architectural background um this is a stem designated degree it'sthe only stem designated degree and stem designation means that for Internet it'simportant for international students in particular because it means that whenyou earn this degree you can work for three years in the US while without thestem designated degree you can work for one year after earning your degree inthe US this is also a nap accredited degree which means this is the degreewhen you want to be a licensed architect in the US this is the degree you want topursue um the MS degree is a post-professional degreeum it's a two-year degree and it is for those um who have already a professionalbackground a professional architecture background um that could be either an internationaldegree a five-year B Arc um or a also from the US a five-year BArc degree so qualification needed is a professionaldegree [Music] um you would choose the MS degree if you'reinterested Beyond working in an Architecture Firmum maybe starting at some point um a also a research career and ateaching career and when you are interested in the PHD in earning a PhDwhich is the last um here at the top PhDis really setting you up for research and also for a teachingcareer although we also have PhD students who go into the professionwe have one student working with Google um and um so profession is always alsoopen um this is here the curriculum of theprofessional M Arc degree um and um you see here in horizontalbars here this is each year um with all the coursework you see it isum a heavy course load it has 97 credits that you must earnum that is because it is a an accredited degree and the NAB accreditation board requiresa lot of knowledge that we try toteach in these many different degrees uh courses what you see here in yellow thatis always the design studio so you see here in each semesterum you will have a design studio uh the M Arc is um design heavy so the focus is ondesign you also see in each semester um greenum a theory history and ethics courses so we also want thatour students who gradiate from Penn State that they have a strongtheoretical and historical background or foundation and then what you see in blueare the technical courses so the ideas here that in the first two years yougain a technical knowledge technical foundation and the last year is moreopen you can choose electives and you select your own Design Studio Iwill talk about this um in a minute and in the final semesterum you um develop your own design thesisthe blue courses are also courses that you can waveum when you have already um some background in architectural studiesum this here is uh the curriculum for the MS degree and what you see hereagain here in horizontal bars this here is other semesters so the fall semesterspring semester of the first year and then um at the bottom here um the second year fall and springsemester you see here that it is a 30 credit degreeum so you see here it's much fewer credits umbecause it is not an accredited degree and the idea of that degree is that youum select more the courses you have more freedom in selection of courses to focuson what you're interested um in in learning and how we organizethat is through four research clusters that I put here on the left sideum it is um the culture Society space CSSresearch cluster the design Computing or DC research cluster material matters andM cluster and sustainability the sus research clusterum as an MS student and also as a PhD student you need to relate yourself toone of these research clusters and accordingly and this is what the vertical bars here are on this chartum you um pick your own courses in these specific research clusters sowhat you would see here is in the first row here um all students take a research methodscourse this is a course that all research clusters take together but everything below thatum is where you take your electives related to one of the four researchclusters so if you're interested in history theory for example you take electives that are related to historyand Theory um you take a studio that is related to history and theory and you develop yourwritten thesis um relate related to history and theoryand so on if you're interested in design Computing um youselect your courses based on design Computing or on materiality or onsustainability if you have later questions about this um we're happy toum answer these questions um and then here is uh the PHDum curriculum or um I could recommend it plan study planum you see here there's no credit load mentioned um because the focus of thePHD is not um earning uh enough credits it isreally content based very specific to a PhD studentthere is in fact only two courses that a PhD studentis required to take all PhD students are taking these courses in the fallsemester it's doctoral research Theory and in the spring semester of the first year it is doctoral research designso in this first semester um you get the foundations of yourresearch topic collect a literature review and then in the second semester youdevelop your research proposal and from there on you work with your advisorwithin your research cluster on your dissertationso again here in summary what's the difference between the M arc on the one hand and the Ms and the PHD on the otherhand this is here another slide for the M Arc it focuses on architectural designand on the complexity of architectural design it finishes with the designthesis and the main goal is to become a licensed architect in the US[Music] um on the other side the Ms and the PHD degree they focus on architecturalresearch on what is research what's a research question what a research methodologiesum these two programs finish with a research thesis or with a researchdissertation so a written document and the main goal is to become either aresearcher in the profession or setting you up for a teaching careeror for a research career and I'm showing here one work of my colleague benai sheworks on mycelium miscellium are the roots of mushroomsand they research her research team focuseson how can we use this as a building material and you see here at the the lower lefthere the names of that research group so the professor is vinay gorsoi butthere's also two PhD students involved heavily involved Ali gazvinian and he ishere today too and will answer also questions and then you see here also NatalieWalter she um has been a bachelor student so shestarted getting involved in this research as a bachelor student then decided to continue as an MS student sothis example works very nicely to show you that we want all of our studentcohorts to work together and all of our student cohorts have the um possibilityto get engaged in the research clusters foreignI put this slide in here um just um to make you aware that wehave a website so when you want to read this information again you can go tothis website which gives you a direct links to where to find information about the M ARG about the Ms and about the PHDI will put this in the chat um later or maybe some of my colleaguescan do this or you make a screenshot and then you have the um uh the link tothis website already at hand now I want to talk a little more aboutthe research clusters um in the breakout session for the Ms and the PHDum I know that they go more specifically into each research cluster and for thosewho want to apply for the Ms and the PHD program that might give you the breakout sessionmight give you more in-depth um information however I wanted to includethis here because also the M Arc students at some point they can do thisin the first year of their studies if they want but at some point they will relate to the research clustersso all the three programs are connectedthrough the research clusters but also through what we call the directed research Studiosum and I show you what this means um here's um an overview of all of ourfaculty um and all of our faculty are also related um to the research clustersum although we also have um many of our faculty are in tworesearch clusters or maybe three so there's also happening a lot of interaction between these researchclusters it's not that we think of these in silos in fact the oppositeum as soon as there's a relationship between a research relationship between these clusters it gets reallyinteresting the work gets really interesting um I show you hereum Ms and PhD students because when you apply to the Ms and the PHD you alsomust [Music] select one of the research clusters andwe have here the students Ms and PhD students of the mm cluster of thesustainability cluster um and then in the next Slide theculture Society space or history Theory cluster here are the designs Computingstudents Ms and PhD students and then on the right here you see students thatFocus have a focus on landscape architecture um so in our PhD we have a special trackyou can earn a PhD in architecture with a focus in landscape architecture andyou see here that we have a good group of students who select that track andand they call our colleague from landscape architectures here um to answer questions if you want to gointo that route um so as I saidum one thing that combines all uh programs um is the directed research Studiosum and I give you here an overview of the different research clustersum and the directed research Studios that are offered has have been offered um through the last three years I thinkum this semester alone we have seven different um directed research Studios so thisgives you an idea that as a student um when you select a directed researchStudio you really have a variety of Studios to select fromum maybe I forgot to mention that Ms students also are required to take onestudio so also Ms students need to select a directed research Studio PhDstudents can do that too um but um that is really very specificto your own path of study I just want to point out here quickly the studios thatare offered um this fall for the CSS cluster you seehere my colleague Yasmine offers a Paris Studiomy colleague Darla Lindberg offers a studio on recessionand we have one more here at the middle of the lower row here colleague pepAviles officer Studio on um they call it anthracy Futures and itis about um the land of former coal mines soum a very important topic in Pennsylvania um these are the research Studios andthe design Computing cluster um in the lower row there are the twoum let me see here now on the lower the the micronet is one Studio that isoffered in the fall this fall semester um it deals with the mycelium on the onehand I talked about this already and how to combine this with textile structuresin architecture and specifically in knitted structures um so this is one and I here's a secondone at the top left the concrete printingStudio that is going on for a couple of years now umum I will talk about this um maybe later umthe research Studios for mm um are also hereum the micronet and also the concrete printing Studio whichum I think is not on the slide I need to add this at some pointthe research Studios for sustainability we offer two this semester one by mycolleague Rahman Azari the high performance studio and then by mycolleague Corey Griffin his sustainability Studio focuses on housingand resilient sustainable housingum I showed you um all the um Mr Ms and PhD students umbut I also want to show you our Mr students um and um we have one cohort per yearum and you see here all current and Arc Studio students later in the breakout session we have the first year Mrstudents joining us um the other two are very busy the other two cohorts are very busy todayum a bit more about the faculty research um so all students no matter for whichprogram you apply um can seek um uh research relationshipswith faculty um in all four research clustersum in the CSS research cluster my colleagues pep and Leiaum as I said in the directive research Studio where they look into coal miningareas they also do research on it on the right hand side you see an exhibit thatthey organized put togetheron these coal mining Landscapes and on the right you see an intervention at anexisting landscape so the themine is actually closed but it there started a fire 60 years ago and nobodyknows how to put out this fire so the guest that comes out of the ground worksfor for example making such an installation with a flameum my colleague Kathy barrage looks into research on drawing and drawing methodsum she gave a talk at the Whitney Museum two years ago on her research and shealso does several drawing workshops umbased on her research CSS faculty history Theory what theynormally do is they sit in archives they write books they organize conferences and you see her publications of mycolleagues Professor Staub and Professor Denise constanzo and our most recentsympazia that we organized in the DC clusterum related to the concrete printing studio um that startedum maybe four years ago maybe five years ago um with the NASA and NASA competitionbuilding on Mars um where Penn State uh won the secondprize and I'm showing you here the first two Shadi and Jose are faculty in thedepartment of architecture and since then there's a continuous research onconcrete digital fabrication with concreteum another in the design Computing cluster um uh is actually a PhD student as goodhis focus is on robotic fabrication Pipelinesand then here is another one of my colleague Felicia Davis she did thiswonderful sculpture um that was exhibited at the Museum ofModern Art in New Yorkum three examples of the material matters cluster this is here a studentshe started this as an MS student and is continued this into her PhDit is a research on joinery how to join building elements and you see in thelower row here they test um joining um clips thatum Liz was researching I'm showing this example because Liz work ended up in apublication of the Bauhaus in Dessau Germany and we were very excited thatshe could go there and give a talk on that research another student Master studentum Tiffany applies for the PHD currently is on building with sandbags and you seeher her drawings how to create these sandbags and then how toum stack sandbags for construction and the third example here is a PhDstudent his research was on how to use recycled cardboard for structurefinally the sustainability cluster um my colleague Rahman Azari will latertalk more in depth about his work but in in a nutshell his research isum on the one hand on life cycle analysis of buildingsum then on developing an envelope system that can create energyand he is also deep into simulationand data-driven modeling of sustainabilityum we um house also in uh the Stockman schoolum and in um in the architecture department and energy efficient housing research groupum and we also participate every year um in the race to zero that is acompetition um that is organized by the department of energy it started as the solardecathlon has changed its names a couple of times and since 2007 we continuouslywork and a very strong in this design and research combinationwith that um I want to come back and have a few more slides on student support I thinkthis will be of interest for many um applicants um on the one hand uh one of our studentsupporters that we organize every year um a career dayum last year so this is a movie from last year January 22we had 70 firms coming to this career day all of them with internships withjobs many of them were alumni and we'retalking also with the students about the experience at Penn State and how to get into the job marketthese this career day was so the 70 firms were from architecture landscapearchitecture and graphic design and combin combined firms so if you searchfor other firms outside of architecture for example in graphic design orlandscape architecture that is also a menu to look at another support is our career advisor soin my role as the Director graduate director I'm advising academicallyadvising all graduate students no matter which program but we also have a careeradvisor Ross weinreb and he helps you with becoming a licensed architecthe gives organizes talks with ncarb and helps you with setting up your yourown website to count your hours to become a licensed architectwe also have several student clubs so where students self-organize we havethe um aias as the standard um all um all departments should havethat we have the numbers um National Organization for minority architecture students also very engagedstudent Club seed is an internal Club stands forstudents for of for environmentally engaged designwe have the digital beehive that is a student club that helps other studentswith digital questions they organize Rhino workshops renderingworkshops and so on grid is our PhD student Clubum and you see here a photo maybe I should get a bit more an updated photo becausetwo of these students actually graduated last year and then we have the digit digits astudent Club mainly in the undergrad and they look at digital fabricationthese students organize by themselves going to conferences inviting lecturersand coming together coffee coffee talks so very engaged student bodyum another support is um a summer abroad we have a summer abroad programum this is um uh mainly our M Arc students participateum in that but it's open also for Ms and and PhD students obviouslyum and in-house we have a Japan and Korea program and a Copenhagen programum and then we um connect to other departments so forexample last semester a student went to Ireland this is organized by the visualarts department we have a Barcelona program a Romeprogram that is related with architectural engineering and the Tanzania Pro program that is related ororganized by landscape architecture okayum then um we have um funding for students andthis is an older slide I don't know who came up with the number 62 endowmentsand student scholarships um I couldn't count them but I left thisslide in here because if it's five years old or so I'm sure that we have moreendowments rather than fewer um with that I want to say that ifyou're in doubt how to fund yourself get in contact with usum um maybe I should say that you do not have to applyum specifically for endowments or scholarships or teaching assistant positionsum this you will automatically be considered for that um so but there is some money toum fund um about in the graduate program I would say at least half of our studentsokay I think this is um one of my last slides here application requirementsum I um this is for all um applicants of all threeprograms um with different um importance so all of you have tosubmit a statement of purpose um a portfolioum I think might not be required for the PHD I'm not exactly sure a curriculumVita your transcripts and GPA recommendation letters threerecommendation letters and GRE scores GRE scores are not required for the MArc applicants and GRE scores are also not a hard requirement so we got somequestions about this already and try to answer this explicitlyum the website says um particularly The Graduate School website says it is a requirement it hasbecome a soft requirement since covid because in many countries you stillcannot do GRE exams and we don't want to leave these applicants outso because of that it has become a soft requirementum still if you have taken gre's submit them we will consider them and there aresome specific scholarships where a GRE is requiredmost are not um but so if you have Gres or if youhave the opportunity to take your ease please do so and the deadline forapplication is January 15 for all programsum and with that um maybe um I would open it up for questionslet me see here let me stop here okaythank you very much for your attention and um I wonder so the idea is that we firsthave a general round of general questionsum and um after that we will have the breakout sessionsI think there are some questions in chat okay two questionsokay let me go through this here so there's the first question are TheBachelor of architecture um I'm interested in pursuing an MS in computational design do I need to takeGRE um well as I said um just said Gres are not requiredwe will consider all applications um without GRE scores[Music] there is mainly one the University graduate Fellowship that requires GREscores but we also have other fellowships um andum so if you also look for support umyou don't have to take the GRE score exam but if you have an opportunityyou're encouraged to do thatum next question I have a Bachelor of Science and architecture and also an m ain architectural studies of Iran umI want to apply for second graduate in um as in architecture and my question isis it important which field of study we have studied for first master I shouldmention that I took part in some workshops okay it is not importantum what your master your previous master was about um you should enroll in the master inthe cluster that you're interested in um we are here an institution where wewant to have everybody Joy have joy in learning and there's only this one life for youto live pick the one topic that you're interested in workingokay okay Ali made a good comment uh grid isnot only about PhD students but about all graduate students thank you for clarifying that AliI noticed that the MS architecture does not mention the need for recommendation letters I can check thisum later um but three recommendation letters are required for allum for all graduate programs I would recommend to you that you go tothe application website um Penn State's application website andstart your application you can just save itand come back to it 20 times or as often as you want and then when you find it isready then you can submit it and there it gives you some specificsteps so the three recommendation letters are definitely mentioned thereyou put the email addresses in of your recommenders and they will benotified automatically it also asks you to select a research cluster so juststarting that application will give you additional insightsokay [Music] um is the PHD program a stem program uh noit is not um Penn State makes it very complicatedum to have our architecture program designated for stem and so far we havenot been successful how many students does the PHD programexpect to admit this year um each year um we admit between four and six PhDstudents [Music] does the Mr program has the same gradedassistantship opportunities as the MS program yes it does we have many Mrum students who have teaching assistantships in the undergraduateprogram and also research assistantships um working with our centers the HamerCenter or the center for design Computing working with faculty on theirresearch so yes um assistantships are openum for all um Ms and Mark when do we get admission results sowe normally try to get um offer letters out before our springbreak which is this spring break is the second week of March so we try to sim toto send all offer letters in the by the first week of March that um is very condensed we evaluateall the applications that takes a lot of time um but we still try to Target that date[Music] um can Mr students be associated with morethan one research um I assume you mean here the researchcluster um so in our studentsdo not have to relate or associate themselves to a research clusteronly the Ms and the PhD students have to associate themselves to a researchcluster associating yourself to a research cluster doesn't mean you only work withthis faculty and you are in this box in fact wereally want our students to work together um and many exciting research projectsHappening by bridging through at least two research clusters maybe even threeresearch clusters um so although you have to associate yourself with one research cluster youare encouraged to reach out to other research clusters and this is the same with our faculty we have we have onedesignated main focus but you will find later that my researchso I'm for example in the research in the sustainability research cluster but my focus is also on the history ofsustainability so I'm automatically tending to the CSS clusterum so and this is many of us Bridge so faculty and students reach differentclusters I have found out a program architectural engineeringum I've completed my bachelor degree can I apply for the Mansion program so the architectural engineering is in adifferent College we collaborate with them but it is a different department different degreesarchitectural engineering is the College of Engineering we are in the College of arts andarchitecture um you can you apply for it this isum your decision where you want to go in your future do you want to become more of an architectural engineerum with the focus on um structure on project management onlighting um on heating ventilation cooling systems for example or do you want tofocus more on architectural design and also architectural design researchso [Music] it's it's your you obviously your decisionum I think Penn State The Graduate School allows you to apply only to one degree so you would need to select whichdegree you apply um maybe I also want to mention thatum so also the the students The Graduate students um have strong relationships toarchitectural engineering um I was just um attending a presentation of anarchitectural engineering PhD student where I was wondering oh she should be in architecture and not in architecturalengineering so there's a fluent um when it comes to specific topicsthere's also affluent um connection[Music] umis it possible um so financial aid question is it possible um that students get fully fundedum yes this is possible this is possible in all uh three programs in the emark inthe Ms and in the PhD you do not have to apply for financialaid separately um the way how we do this is we rank allthe applications um a top pool gets a full funding offerum a the second pool gets a half funding offer or some kind of funding and thenthere is another Pool um that gets no funding so your fundingis based on the quality of your application and you don't have to applyfor separately for financial aid thank youwhat are assistantship opportunities for PhD students maybe I want to have somePhD students talk about this I have talked already too much and maybe we can get a little discussiongoing so I think I have already uh answeredthe question but to just reiterate that PhD and MSC student are almost providedwith the same opportunities for a graduate assistantship other Tas or Rasbased on faculty you are working if they have funds and project running you willbe awarded to work as a ra for them or department will provide you with it'snot like uh always available but if there are youwill be awarded with uh teaching assistantship too so uh both Tas and Rasare available for our MSN uh PhD studentbecause in addition um PhD students Advanced PhD studentsalso from time to time get an instructor positionum so umjust to add to that there are of course more opportunities like grants andfunding that you can apply with your faculty uh there are students that are already receive different uh fundingsfrom AIA or even in internal Institute here at Penn State like instead ofsustainability so uh there are many opportunities that you can start with Tas and Ras but they aren't they are notlimited to these two opportunities of course you can always search for other funding resources mm-hmmyes um let me see here umsomebody said in the application website there is no spot for uploading an sopum maybe it is called differently there it's maybe called um statement of intent or cover letter Iwould need to check that um however um this would be all the same a coverletter or a statement of intent or a statement of purposeum the statement of purpose particularly for PhD students andum also to some extent for Ms students is a crucial portion of your applicationyou should become their very specific in what you're interested in doingum and also the specific faculty you want to work withso the chances for getting um accepted as an MS and a PhD studentis that you contacted faculty um beforeum that you let them know about your research interestum and that you elaborate on that in your sop so talking aboutwhat a potential research questions um what methodologies are you interestedin um so is this more simulation based or more Hands-On or do you like to go toarchives do you like to be out in the field and this would be a research method you'reinterested in so as the faculty we try to get a picture of the applicantsum what they want to do and if we can really support them in what they want todo so generic Sops like I'm interested insustainability will not be a strong sopyou should really become specific and contact faculty and have faculty supportokay ummaybe if one of my colleagues want to jump in here while I'm reading herethere's a question about whether there's a template format for a research proposalwe don't provide any template format but as UTA said it's highly advised that you contact with thefaculty that who you are interested in working with and get maybe you can discussum with them your ideas about what you want to do in your Master's or PhD or um andget to learn more about what they're interested in doing what they're currently doing so there's no templateformat for a research proposal here's one question can I apply for amasters and a doctor uh program at the same time no you cannot you must decidefor one but as soon as our applications are inwe discuss all applications so for two months we will discuss all applicationsum and um if somebody applied for a PhD position and we think this is a veryinteresting application um but that students should start in themaster program we let you know also vice versa soum what I want to say with that is um apply whereyou think you're fit um but you will get um a response from usum and we want to work with these students um several of our students start in the MSprogram and then um get moved to the PHD which will then be ashorter period likely a shorter period when you do your PhDit's possible to send our sop to related facultyand thus improve the SOP what do my colleagues think about thisit depends on the faculty I I'd say um I think yesand it's some but don't forget thatum we get we so we that the admissions process is is a time it's a very busytime like we review all the applicants all the Sops uh but it's it never hurtsto get in touch with the faculty and ask if they'd like to review your Sops I think it's a goodum again it depends on the faculty but it's perfectly possibleforeigntouch with one of the students who is working there in that cluster to checkyour soapy and see it is that something that can work for the research groupsthat are working in that uh facility or notyes um I I don't want to open it to everybody but as for the M Arc students if youwant to um uh submit your statement of purpose uhto me um you're invited to do this um I can give you feedback on your sopum for the Ms and PhD students only if somebody want to work with meum sent me your sop otherwise I I cannotgo through all Sops I was going to say something similar if anyone who's interested in working with me and in ourteam it I think I it's good to for me personally for me to read the Sops so Iunderstand what the interests are I'd be happy to do that personallyokay with that um we want to have the two breakoutrooms um benai can you help with that yesEnglish (auto-generated)