Thanks for all of your recent questions about ITP. Please keep them coming.

By now, you are probably familiar with the University of Colorado’s Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program and have been exposed to a lot of material about the department. The purpose of the prospective student blog (located at http://colorado-itp.blogspot.com/) is to provide insight into the culture, the courses, the students, and the community by bringing to the fore issues, questions, and comments about our program.

Many of my friends in the program have different reasons for choosing ITP at CU. Some come from the military and need training specific to their assignment, others are fresh out of competitive undergraduate programs, and some have been working in the industry for a while and are here to refresh skills or change the direction of their careers. Personally, I fall into the latter category and chose ITP because of the faculty and the resources. I wanted to work in a laboratory environment, have access to a variety of equipment, and attend classes taught by faculty who had experience in the telecommunications industry. I also wanted a program that would help me not only increase my technical proficiency, but also build global, national, and regional relationships within the telecommunications field.

My advice to an incoming or prospective student would be to use this blog to help you understand the people, the culture, and opportunities available to you in ITP. Ask questions and start thinking about how your decisions and course selections will map against your personal goals. Ideally, using this blog will help you learn as much as you can about the opportunities provided by the University of Colorado’s ITP program including the seminars, the self-improvement focused lectures, and the community. We hope this tool helps you get the most out of your education here in ITP and assists in building your familiarity with a variety of characteristics of our program. Also, take some time to look into the many activities that characterize the Boulder community. We have some of the best hiking, trail running, and of course skiing in the United States and we are the cycling capital of America. Please feel free to ask me any questions about the social and cultural opportunities in and around Boulder and Denver.

Tuition & Financial Aid

ITP has limited funding to offer incoming students. At this time we have awarded all available financial aid to the top candidates who applied to ITP by December 1st. Tuition rates for 2008-09 have not yet been set, but you can estimate tuition costs at ~$12,000 per semester. Although tuition seems relatively high, students have the option of completing the degree in 3 semesters, which can significantly reduce overall costs.
Also, there are some students that are awarded a research assistantship position outside ITP which might provide tuition help besides a monthly stipend.
Post comments to this topic if you have questions about financial issues, such as bill payment, enrollment deposit, etc.

General information about this can be found on ITP's website.

Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program (ITP)

The program offers the possibility of obtaining different degrees: either a Master of Science (MS) or a Master of Engineering (ME) both in Telecommunications, depending on your personal interests. Students can earn an Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program (ITP) degree as a distance student from anywhere in the world or as an on campus student in Boulder, CO.
Approximately 80% of the student body is comprised of on-campus students and the other 20% is comprised of distance students. On-campus students are usually full-time students, that are dedicated during 4 semesters to pursue their degree. Distance students usually are full time professionals seeking additional education, and usually they take more than 4 semesters to complete the program. Nearly all of ITP's courses are offered to both on-campus and distance students. Sample recordings of our classes can be found here. Click on view video clip under any of the individual courses to look at a small portion of one of our classes.
For more detailed information about the program, you can contact us by clicking here here.

Please feel free to post additional questions that you have about earning your ITP degree.

I've decided to attend ITP @ CU, what's next?

This section is meant for posting questions about what you need to do in the period between deciding to attend CU and your first day of courses. Students will receive notification of admission from ITP via e-mail, I-20s should follow a few weeks later and then the office of the Registrar will mail registration materials.

Also, please review the New Student Checklist. This is more designed to help students when they first arrive in Boulder, but it should answer some of your questions.

Why choose ITP @ CU?

ITP is one of the most recognized Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program among the Telecom industry in the US and worldwide. One of the main reasons for this international recognition is that ITP students come from many different countries around the world (for example India, China, US, Tanzania, Kazakhstan, Mexico) and had provided excellent working results while performing their jobs after they finish their degree.
If you like to study, make new friends, have contact with the industry before finishing your degree ITP could be the program for you!!!
This section is intended for prospective students to converse with current students about enrolling in ITP @ CU, so please feel free to post any comments.

More questions???

If you are not sure about a specific issue regarding ITP, please feel free to ask and we will try to answer your doubt with accurate information.
Remember that many different topics are explained in detail the ITP webpage...

On-campus Jobs

Once you are enrolled as an ITP student, you will have access to job postings all over campus through CU Connect. ITP offers several student assistant positions that pay $15 per hour, however, they are usually awarded to students who have completed at least one semester in the program.
Also, the web page www.jobsatcu.com is a useful resource for students that were not awarded with a student assistantship, but still want to find a job in the university. This link provides a big variety of all kinds of on-campus jobs.

Boulder Living

CU Boulder has different types of housing. From single room studios to 1,2, and 3 bedrooms apartments for families. The key advantage is that prices are not as high as in the regular real estate market. If you think this can be helpful to you, please check out the following link:
http://housing.colorado.edu/fh/ for more information.
If you have more questions about housing, climate, activities, transportation and other topics related to life in Boulder please fell free to post them here...

Academics & Courses

Not sure what courses to take? Post your questions about ITP curriculum and courses here. For detailed information about our course offerings and to view schedules, please visit our Courses page.

Internships & Career Opportunities

Many industry leaders recruit directly from ITP. We are currently growing our student body in order to keep up with demand from prospective employers. Students have seen great success over the past few years getting jobs at places like Level 3, Cisco Systems, KPMG, Deloitte, Accenture, CableLabs, Samsung, and more. Securing placement at these and other companies is up to the individuate student.
Each semester there is a student challenge where students show their abilities to people from the industry by doing research and presenting it in a specific date. For this challenge, there is a jury formed by employees of leading companies like the ones mentioned above, which is in charge of deciding which team performed best over all. One of the main ideas of this activity is to get exposure of how the industry sometimes works. After all the presentations, students get the chance to talk with this employees. This is a great chance to find an internship or a career opportunity.

If you have any questions about job placement, please ask them here.

Other topics?

Anything we missed? Please add comments on all other topics here.

Disclaimer

ITP faculty and the blog administrator reserve the rights to make editions to the postings and comments.