Alexey
Morozov
My Experiences in US
January 12 2012
Disclaimer: most photos are taken off the internet and don’t belong to me. Hopefully it’s ok since I’m not using them
to make money nor am I pretending that they are mine.
Big Picture
School
Major
Awesomeness
Northwestern
Michigan College
(NMC)
Engineering/Scien Small school,
ces
challenging classes,
(ASA in 2007)
superb professors,
cheap, hands-on,
extracurriculars
Michigan
Technological
University (MTU)
Electrical
Engineering,
(control)
(BSEE in 2009)
Medium-size school,
hard classes,
specialized professors,
lots of hands-on,
outdoors
University of
Michigan (UofM)
Aerospace
Engineering,
adaptive control
(PhD in ?)
Gigantic school,
super-hard classes,
famous professors,
lots of theory,
football
NMC
 It
was a great place
to start. I began



polishing up my
English,
learning the culture,
figuring out what I’d
like to do for the rest
of my life (both
academically and
for fun)
 Traverse
City, MI
 nmc.edu
NMC: classes
Name
Description
Name
Description
English Composition
(ENG 111)
Essays: structure,
style, peer review
Calculus 1, 2, 3
(MTH 141, 142, 241)
From 1D
integration/different
iation to 3D
English for
Engineers(ENG 112)
Creativity,
experiments, reports
Differential
Equations (MTH 251)
Linear, nonlinear,
autonomous/forced
US History since 1865
(HST 112)
Civil Rights, WWI,
Depression, WWII,
Cold War, etc.
Statics (EGR 201)
Forces, moments,
strength of materials
Mohr’s circle
Survey of American
Government (PLS
101)
Congress, President,
courts, elections,
etc.
Dynamics (EGR 202)
Moment of inertia,
angular momentum
equations of motion
Macroeconomics
(ECO 201)
Gov-t regulation vs.
free market
Engineering
Graphics (EGR 113)
sketching/computer
aided design (CAD)
Microeconomics
(ECO 202)
Supply, demand,
opportunity cost
Physics 1, 2 + labs
(PHY 221, 222)
Kinematics to
energy to waves to
electromagnetics
Eastern Religions
(PHL 122)
Overview: Hinduism,
Taoism, Buddhism
General Chemistry 1
(CHM 150)
Elements, reactions,
compounds, mole
Kuntaw 1 (PE 148)
A martial art from
Philippines
Computer Science:
Java (MTH 116)
Classes, objects,
methods, libraries
NMC: fun









SAE Mini Baja!
Math Club
International Club
Phi Theta Kappa Honors
Institute (Arun Gandhi)
Habitat for Humanity
Alternative Spring Break
Student Government
Association
Kuntaw
Backpacking
A little bit of sailing
Transition 1


Applied and got a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. It is a nationally
competitive scholarship program (my year there were ~700
applications, 51 of which received it).
“The JKCF scholarships are designed to encourage and
support outstanding students from 7th grade through
graduate school who have a breadth of interests, work hard,
demonstrate a strong will to succeed, and have financial
need.” (jkcf.org)

Young Scholars


College Scholars


possible continuation of support for Young Scholars
Undergraduate Transfer Scholars




seeks high-achieving, low to moderate-income 7th grade students,
and cultivates their talents and abilities throughout high school
honors excellence by supporting outstanding community college
students with financial need as they transfer to and complete their
bachelor’s degrees at the nation’s top four-year colleges and
universities
up to $30,000 per year
plus you get a couple hundred super-awesome cousins 
Graduate Scholars


Graduate Arts Award
Jack Kent Cooke Dissertation Fellowship
MTU
 Small
school in a
small town far away
from big cities – just
what you need for
studying and
enjoying outdoors
 Houghton,
 mtu.edu
MI
MTU: classes
Name
Description
Name
Description
Tech.Communicatio
n (HU 3120)
Technical
communication
Electric Circuits
(EE 2110)
Kirchhoff’s laws, AC,
Norton equivalence
Engineering Statistics
(MA 3710)
basic distributions
and tests
Intro to Photonics
(EE 2190)
geometrical optics
Introduction to
Cryptography (3203)
classical cyphers
and DES/AES, RSA
Electronics
(EE 3130)
diodes, BJTs,
MOSFETs
Intro Partial Diff.
Eqns. (MA 4515)
Heat, wave, Fourier
Series
Electric Energy
Systems (EE 3120)
AC energy systems,
transmission, alt. enr.
Complex Variables*
DeMoivre’s thr.,
functions, integrals
Intro to Motor Drives
(EE 3221)
DC (brush/less), AC
(sync/induction)
Enterprise
(ENT 3950)
Building an SAE
Supermileage car
Digital Image
Processing (EE 4257)
img. domain, freq.
domain filtering
Electronics Labs
(EE 2304)
from PCBs to
microprocessors
Digital Signal
Processing (EE 4252)
z-transf., DTFT, DFT,
FFT, filtering in DT
Intro to Signal
Processing (EE 2150)
simple time domain
and freq. domain
Linear Systems and
Control (EE 3160)
linear systems,
transfer functions
Digital Logic
(EE 2170)
Flip-flops, memory,
Karnaugh maps
Classical Control
(EE 4261)
stability, Bode, root
locus, PID, lead/lag
Electromagnetics
(EE 3140)
Maxwell’s
equations
Digit. and Nonlinear
Control (EE 4262)
observers, ZOH,
phase locked loops
* Independent study
MTU: fun





SAE Supermileage!
IEEE Student Chapter
Backpacking
Skiing
Sailing
Transition 2
 Grad
school is harder than you think (ie: allnighters in the beginning, before you get in
the rhythm).
 Ann Arbor is a bigger town than Houghton,
which has pros and cons:

Pros:
 More
things to do
 More restaurants to choose from

Cons:
 You
don’t know everybody
 There is traffic (not Moscow-style, but compared
to Houghton, this is not fun)
UofM
 Big
school in a
medium-sized town
with world-renown
academics and an
active arts scene
 Ann
Arbor, MI
 umich.edu
UofM: classes
Name
Description
Name
Description
Intermediate
Dynamics (AE 540)
Newton, Euler,
Lagrange, Rayleigh
Research
(AE 590)
Directed study
Linear Systems
(AE 550)
Controllability, Obs-y,
Lyapunov fcns
Research
(AE 590)
Directed study
Information
Systems(AE 740)
(N)DFSA, Shannon,
Bayes Nets, Markov DP
Research
(AE 990)
Pre-candidate
Nonlinear Systems
and Control (AE 551)
Lyapunov fcns, sliding
mode, in/output lin-n
Research
(AE 995)
Candidate
Spacecraft Dyn. and
Control (AE 573)
Orbits, transfers, 2 body
problem, 3BP
Research
(AE 995)
Candidate
Probability and
Random Processes
(EECS 501)
Discrete and
continuous distributions,
processes
Research
(AE 995)
Candidate
Flight and Trajectory
Optimization AE 575)
Convex programming,
QP, Newton’s, SQP
Research
(AE 995)
Candidate
Adaptive Control*
(NA 531)
Direct/Indirect, Model
Reference AC
Research
(AE 995)
Candidate
Stochastic Control*
(EECS 551)
Discrete time,
centralized, Markov
policies, DP, LQG, KF
Research
(AE 995)
Candidate
* Audit
UofM: fun




Tai Chi
Climbing
Sailing
Eating
Transition 3
 Who
knows where I’ll go next… but send
me an email in case you have questions:
morozova@umich.edu
This presentation and video can be found
at
umich.edu/~morozova/bio