The Online Master’s in Computer Science

Yunlong Shao:
My name is Yunlong Shao. I got my PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Victoria, BC Canada. I'm currently working as an assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology, Vancouver Campus. I have been at New York Tech since 2019 as an adjunct professor. And I'm very happy to see all of my student they can get a good job after they complete the degree here. No matter is I'm going to teach them knowledge. I am going to share my experience with them. I believe I can help them in their life. I got this award, which is Educator of the Year 2022, from Instructure which is the platform behind the cameras. I designed two courses before I earned this kind of honor. I never thought I would become the Educator of the Year. [laughter] I thought, oh, that's kind of joking.

One day, they give me a call. I don't know where they find my phone number. Maybe they find on the website. They gave me a call. "Oh, are you Yunlong?" "Yes, I am. Who are you?" "Oh, we're calling from Instructure. You got this prize." I was so surprised, I was so surprised. I was so excited. It's kind of a reward for my contribution to this kind of course building or my teaching, my commitment, all kinds of stuff. Then I replied to their email, send them my kind of short description, what kind of stuff they required from me. And eventually they send me those kind of rewards. It's a kind of a bear or panda or something like that, shows my name on it. That's really interesting story. And after I got that thing, I got a lot of emails from my colleagues, like whoever, from New York or from Vancouver, I don't know them at all in the past. They said, "Congratulations." Now I've become very busy since then.

My teaching style is kind of very interesting. Sometimes my students give me comments. They say it's humor. "Professor or something like that, he's interesting or he's cool or something. He's nice." So when I'm teaching the students, I usually could bring some real examples from past students. So I got a lot of examples. Student, they made a mistake, but we learn from the mistake. Of course, I'm not going to mention the student’s name, who made... So I always combined hands-on experience and a normal teaching in my class, and always ask students whether they have question. But mostly important is I'm going to encourage them, encourage them to ask questions. With the question, I always told them there's no stupid question. You can ask any question related to this. Or even they want to ask me something, unrelated question, I would like to give them a short answer, which make the students relaxed, comfortable in the class.

I still have passion for teaching, I have passion to talk with my student because I love learning. I'm not teaching always. There's a lot of things I don't understand, so I can learn from different students. We have student that has 20 years industry experience. Compared with me, that's definitely a lot. So I would like to learn from students as well, but somehow at least there's something I can teach to my student. I can give them advice, which can save their time when they are going to adapt to a new culture. I always suggest to my students to think about what you want after you graduate. For example, my program is cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is very broad area.

You can be data scientist, right? You can be... You can do something related to cloud security like data structure or data center security, operating system security, cryptography experts, and so on. So I would like to suggest to the student to think about a couple of areas you want to work first. First of all, our courses are really, really industry-oriented. We build based on what is the new technology, what is the new concerns from the industry? And our students can think about what they want to do. They want to become what kind of engineer, what kind of experts after they graduate. So I always give them very strong, very good ideas, good suggestions based on the current job market needs. Alright? I usually talk with my students after they graduate and finding jobs. So I know what's the up-to-date requirement from the market.

Our online program is an asynchronous program. The student can learn anytime, but we provide... We give the students time window, for example, two days or 24 hours. They can learn in the morning, or they can learn in the afternoon. For some students who are parents or who has a full-time job in the daytime, they can learn in the evening, right? They can send them... They're charging to the bedroom, right, to the bed, then they can start to learn, or they can learn in the morning, early morning, whatever they want. So the most important things is flexibility. And then the second thing is the technology we're using with the learning platforms, right? They can use Canvas or they can use other tools, other softwares to help them to learn. So that's the unique part of our online program.

This program is flexible and future-focused, career-focused online program. We have a lot of industry experts, provide engaging in interactive virtual instructions in our highly ranking program. So this should be the best choice for you. And I hope you guys can say... One day you guys can say like me, New York Tech made me.

I can see our students can find good jobs after they graduate from us. And there are some companies, they recognize our students, right? They don't even need to do reference check for some students. They know that's a good student. And we have a very strong connection with the industry at New York Tech.

New York Tech, it's a place, if you make the effort, you're working hard, your dream will come true.