April 16 2009
This year's edition of Kaleidoscope will take place on Saturday April 25th. Kaleidoscope is the university's annual festival and open house event. It was established in 1985 to open the campus to its neighbors, highlight the academic pursuits of the university and celebrate the diverse array of individuals and activities that help make CSULB the unique campus community that it is.
This event is a lot of fun… bring your family. There is a lot to do and kids of all ages (especially young ones) love it! You can also stop by to support the different student organizations as they do a lot of fund-raising by selling food or selling other merchandise.
There are many opportunities to travel abroad and earn credit towards your degree. Visit the the summer session abroad programs maintained by the International Education Center for a complete list of destinations and courses. Act fast, while the deadline for some of the programs have already gone by, there are still some which have deadlines coming up very soon.
ENGR 302I is one such course. The course title is Energy and the Environment and it satisfies several GE categories: capstone, B3 or D2, global. The course will be set in Germany and the Czech Republic (Berlin and Prague) from July 13 to July 31. Check out the website above for complete details.
The University Awards Committee has awarded Dr. Anastasios Chassiakos and Dr. Burkhard Englert each with the 2008-09 University Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award. Congratulations to both!!
Friday April 24 is the last day to drop without the college dean's signature. Please be sure to allow enough time to get all signatures (instructor and department chair). All students are encouraged to speak with their instructors regarding their grade to have a clear understanding of a grade before making a decision to drop. Students should also speak with their adviser regarding consequences that dropping a class may have in their path to graduation.
Students are asked to enroll in classes as soon as possible. All departments have been notified that classes that have low enrollment will likely be canceled by Enrollment Services at the end of April. A class may need as many as 15 students in order to keep it on the schedule. As you know, due to a decreasing budget the University has to take measures that are beyond the control of the department. Thus, it is critical that students enroll in the classes they need so that the enrollments show the demand needed to maintain them in the schedule.
Finally, students are reminded of the following policy affecting drops after this date. The University contacted all students already about this policy. Here is important information about this policy:
If you are having trouble enrolling in a class due to not satisfying the prerequisites it may be for a number of reasons. First, check the current prerequisites of a class; this can be done via MyCSULB by clicking on the link with the section number and class number. If after checking the requirements of a class, you feel that you do satisfy them, then contact your advisor to get assistance determining the problem. It may be that you really do not satisfy the prerequisites, or that if you took the prerequisite course somewhere other than CSULB that your degree progress has not been updated with said course, or that the prerequisites being used for the course have been updated and are different from the ones you assume. In any case, as long as and advisor can determine that you do meet the prerequisites, a permit can be submitted for you to enroll. Again, contact your advisor.
Advisors cannot grant a student permission to take classes that have a time conflict. If you need to take two classes that overlap, you can enroll in one of them and then get permission from the instructors of both classes to enroll in time-conflicting classes. You will then need to WAIT until the third week of classes in Fall 2009 when CSULB switches from the automated to paper add/drop process to add the time-conflicting class. Do not let this process discourage you from enrolling in time-conflicting classes. For the most part, CECS faculty understand the problem and generally do allow students to enroll in their classes even with a time-conflict (as long as it's not a significant amount of time!).
Students who are required to follow a catalog that lists course requirements of CECS 261, 325, 340, and 443 are once again reminded that these courses have been phased out and thus are not being scheduled. Contact your major advisor to help you to determine the course to take in their place. Here are some straightforward substitutions that apply, although you must still contact your advisor to accurately reflect these in your degree progress report.
The following information regarding a new University policy taking effect Fall 2009 is provided by the the Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Studies:
The academic success of our students is a priority for all of us at CSULB. The CSULB faculty and staff work hard to provide our students with quality academic programs and the support that they need to meet their academic goals. Timely progress toward graduation requires that students complete their courses successfully. We understand, though, that circumstances occasionally make things difficult and students may find it necessary to withdraw from a course or may need to repeat a course in which they received a D,F, WU or NC.
To ensure that students make timely progress toward their degrees, CSULB will begin limiting the number of times that students can withdraw from or repeat courses, based on maximums established by the CSU Chancellor's Office. Effective Fall 2009 undergraduates will be limited to 18 units of withdrawals and 28 units of repeats of which a maximum of 16 may be for grade forgiveness (first attempt does not count toward the GPA). Courses repeated or withdrawn from prior to Fall 2009 will not count toward these limits. Only courses attempted at CSULB count toward the limits.
Additional changes will be reviewed by the Academic Senate. Upon the conclusion of the Academic Senate process, I will distribute details about these limits. As students register for fall, it is imperative that they create reasonable and appropriate schedules. As you meet with students or answer their questions, please encourage them to plan their course schedules wisely.
The latest issue of The Engine Ear can be downloaded in PDF. The newsletter is from the Associated Engineering Student Body (AESB). Included in the newsletter is information on how to apply to be an officer with AESB for next year. Applications will be accepted until 9:00pm, April 23, 2009 and the election of officers will be held at the AESB Meeting, April 24, 2009 at 1:00pm.
This Friday April 17th is the deadline to apply to the 2009 International Summer University's Computer Science program. Visit the local web page for this summer program to read about the program, courses, and activities that will be available and also to apply to the program.
j2 Global Communications has a summer internship program and will need a couple of undergraduate students majoring in computer science/engineering. The pay rate is around $8-10/hr and students are expected to intern for 2-3 months. The company is located in Hollywood, right across from the Kodak Theatre.
About the company: Founded in 1995, j2 Global Communications, Inc. provides outsourced, value-added messaging and communications services to individuals and businesses around the world. j2 Global's network spans more than 3,100 cities in 46 countries on 5 continents.
Interested students should the Corporate Technical Recruiter contact Linh Pham via e-mail. Visit their Careers website for other career options.
The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council is a 501©(3) non-profit organization of community groups, government agencies, business and academia working cooperatively to solve problems in the watershed. Our mission is to facilitate an inclusive consensus process to preserve, restore, and enhance the economic, social, and ecological health of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed through education, research, and planning.
The Watershed Council is seeking interns to assist our Sr. Developer in supporting the development and production of the Watershed Council's web-based applications, driving QA processes in order to find appropriate solutions and writing test cases.
Additional information:
"The single best payoff in terms of project success comes from having good project definition early"
By the Rand Corporation as quoted in the article Project Management - The Key To A Successful Project.
