Correspondence w/ Cornell regarding M.Eng.

cornell_meng

############## MY QUESTIONS ###############

Regarding the course listings, I'm trying to get a better understanding of 
the variety and flexibility in the M.Eng. curriculum. Here are a few specific questions:

- Are all courses available to M.S. students also available to M.Eng. students?

- What courses are required? From the website, I gather that "Entrepreneurial Life" 
and the "M.Eng. Project" are the only two required courses. Is that correct?

- What technical courses were offered to M.Eng. students for the 2013-14 year?

########## ANSWER FROM CORNELL ############


Great questions! We’re still finalizing classes for the fall, but I’ll be happy to 
share them when they’re all set.
 
You are correct that there are very few required courses. You have to complete your project 
both semesters as well as Entrepreneurial Life, Studio (mentioned in Dan and Greg’s e-mail), 
and the business course. All the technical courses are up to you which means that you’ll 
also be able to take some of the connective media courses. There may be a couple that are 
for connective media students only, but others will be an option for CS students. As far as 
the project is concerned, CS students typically work in teams on a company project in the 
fall and a startup project in the spring. (If you don’t want to do a startup project, you 
can do another company project.) The companies involved range from small startups and 
non-profits to large companies like Google and Qualcomm. (This past fall we had over 60 
projects proposed for 6 student teams.)
 
As far as classes are concerned, we’re currently offering the following technical classes 
this semester:

§  Mobile Health (Seminar)

§  Modern Analytics

§  User Interface Design, Prototyping, and Evaluation

§  Understanding, Designing and Building Connective Media Applications

§  Security Protocols and Privacy

§  Connective Media (Seminar)

 
The following courses have also been offered over the last two semester and some will 
be offered again during the 2014-2015 academic year. (Keep in mind that we’ve only offered
classes since January 2014.)
 
Mobile Systems | Deborah Estrin
Mobile is a component of almost every digital experience; from retail to health, games
to social, music to money, etc. This course will cover the basics of mobile technologies
(communication, sensing, location, cloud interaction...) while engaging students in 
application-inspired, project based, learning around the key challenges of resource 
management, context-sensing, user experience design, cross-platform operation, and security
and privacy. Through guided explorations of the literature students will learn to navigate
trends likely to influence the future of mobile systems, including underlying technologies 
and emerging applications.
 
Cryptography | Rafael Pass
Introductory course in Cryptography. Topics include one-way functions, encryption, digital
signatures, pseudo-random number generation, zero-knowledge and basic protocols. The emphasis
will be on fundamental notions and constructions with proofs of security based on precise 
definitions and assumptions. 
 
Parallel and Distributed Computing | Rajit Manohar
Modern computing platforms ranging from smart phones to data centers have one thing in common:
they are connected either directly or indirectly to a myriad other computers. How can one 
harness the computing capabilities of a large number of computers to perform a task efficiently?
This course covers the foundations of parallel and distributed computing, focusing on the 
concepts that don't change even though computer technology is evolving at an incredible pace.
 
Signal and Image Processing | Ramin Zabih
Prediction, smoothing and filtering of 1D signals, with an emphasis on data from mobile devices
(e.g. accelerometry, audio, GPS). Fundamentals of time series analysis. Image analysis and 
enhancement techniques, including deblurring, registration, segmentation and recognition. Methods
that scale to very large image collections. Programming in Matlab, Octave or Python.
 
Architecture of Large-Scale Info Systems | Yaron Kanza
Deals with the architecture of large-scale information systems, with special emphasis on 
Internet-based systems. Topics include three-tier architectures, edge caches, distributed 
transaction management, web services, workflows, performance scalability, and high-availability
architectures. The course includes a substantial project in the context of three-tier 
architectures, involving web servers, application servers, and database systems. Students study
and use technologies such as Web Services, .Net, J2EE, ASPs, Servlets, XML, and SOAP.
 
Entrepreneurial Life | Greg Pass
This course explores the question of what it means to be entrepreneurial. Through spirited 
discussions and exercises with real-world, entrepreneurial practitioners, students develop 
working models of entrepreneurialism they can put to use after graduation.
 
Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation
This is an introductory management course covering the strategic management of technology 
and innovation in established firms as well as startup organizations. This course is designed
for students who may someday work in, consult for, and/or create firms whose primary product 
is fundamentally related to technology or innovation. The course typically includes both M.B.A.
students and graduate students in science. It starts by examining how industries are transformed
by new technologies and how these patterns of industrial change generate both opportunity and 
high rates of firm failure. We will then explore the questions: Why do some technology leaders 
fail? and How do technology innovators successfully take on and replace incumbent firms? This 
leads to an examination of internal management issues, focusing on the design of innovative 
organizations: designing reward systems, managing growth, overcoming resistance to change, and
using organizational culture to promote innovation.
 
MODERN ANALYTICS | Serge Belongie
Analytics is a critical component to the success of most modern organizations, but all too often
it manifests itself as little more than "counting things." In this course, we go beyond the bar 
graphs and pie charts to explore applications of machine learning, data mining, signal processing
and time series analysis to make predictions and extract meaning from messy real world data 
including images, text, audio and mobile sensor measurements.

TECH ENTERPRISES | Rhett Weiss
Tech Enterprises is all about entrepreneurial thought and action to successfully blend business
feasibility with technical feasibility in a wide variety of technology-oriented enterprises. 
They can be existing mature companies, research labs or similar settings, governmental 
organizations, start-ups, or scale-ups. Tech Enterprises is loaded with practical content, 
experiential (hands-on) learning, as well as presentations and exercises from top Cornell 
business professors and industry practitioners. Throughout the course, students “pitch” to 
gain confidence and fluency in preparing, communicating, analyzing, and defending presentations
with both business and technical content. Students work in teams; no one flies solo.