New MSc students
Welcome to the Department
We're looking forward to meeting you this autumn!
Department contacts
Useful links
- Arrival in the UK - All the things you might need to know when you arrive in the UK from overseas, whether you are just beginning your course or you are already a registered student and this is the first time you have been able to come to the country).
- Virtual tour - a 360 Virtual Tour of Imperial. Get familiar with the campus before you arrive.
- PG Safety Induction Presentation - Please familiarise yourself with the Health and Safte procedures.
Information for MSc students starting in October
Welcome Week timetable 2023
This is the Department of Electrical and Electronc Engineeing welcome week schedule.
Please make sure you also check out the Imperial College Welcome Week website, with details of more events and activities across campus, including Imperial College Student Union clubs and socities.
Saturday 30 September
| Time | Event | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:00-19:00 | PGT Welcome and Networking | Great Hall + Queen's Tower Rooms, Sherfield Building | PGT Welcome by Vice-Provost Education & Student Experience followed by networking opportunity. Also live streamed. |
Sunday 1 October
| 11:00-12:00 | Postgraduate International Welcome | Great Hall, Sherfield Building | Event for new international UG and PG students. An International Student Welcome Fair will run alongside a Welcome event focusing on informational and inspirational content for international students. Organised by International Student Support team. |
| 10:00-16:00 | International Student Welcome Fair | Queen's Tower Rooms, Sherfield Building |
Monday 2 October
| 10:30-16:30 | Discover Imperial Fair | Queen's Tower Rooms, Sherfield Building | Fair with stalls from broad range of teams providing extra- and co-curricular opportunities and support for students |
| ICT Set Up and Induction- Setting up College account, access learning tools, Office 365 | ICT resources for new students website | ||
| 12:00-12:30 | Collect ID cards from SRGAs - MSc in Control | 1107B, EEE Building | Please complete Safety form before attempting to collect your ID card Raluca Reynolds (Senior Research Group Administrator) |
| 12:30-13:30 | Collect ID cards from SRGAs - MSc in FPN | 1107B, EEE Building | Please complete Safety form before attempting to collect your ID card FPN - Güler Eroğlu (Senior Research Group Administrator) |
| 13:30-14:20 | EEE Welcome Talk - New EEE PhD and MSc Students | Room 408, EEE building | Head of Department – Prof Eric Yeatman, Director of Postgraduate Studies – Prof Pier Luigi Dragotti, Postgraduate Senior Tutor – Dr Imad Jaimoukha; Student Wellbeing Adviser – Kelly Greenwood, Safety Briefing – Zia Rahman |
| 14:30-15:30 | MSc Programme Meetings | CSP - Room 408 Control - Room 403a/b AML - Room 406/407 a/b |
Find out more about the course and to raise any questions regarding timetables, exams, projects etc.
|
| 15:30-16:00 | Collect ID cards from SRGAs | AML - Room 406/407 a/b CSP - Room 408 ADIC - Room 509 |
Please complete Safety form before attempting to collect your ID card Joan O'Brien (Senior Research Group Administrator) - MSc in AML Vanessa Rodriguez-Gonzalez (Senior Research Group Administrator) - MSc in CSP Wiesia Hsissen (Senior Research Group Administrator) - MSc in ADIC |
| 16:00-17:00 | MSc Programme Meetings - ADIC | ADIC - Room 509 |
Find out more about the course and to raise any questions regarding timetables, exams, projects etc.
|
Tuesday 3 October
| 10:00-16:00 | Imperial College Union Welcome Fair | Across South Kensington Campus | Imperial College Union main Welcome fair showcasing the Union's Clubs, Societies, & Project, as well as much more. |
| 11:00-12:00 | MSc Control student only - Preliminary Test | Room 305, EEE Building | mandatory attendance test to evaluate whether you need to attend the Control Engineering module |
Wednesday 4 October
| 13:45-15:00 | Postgraduate Services - Induction | Room 408, EEE building | Blackboard - Induction Careers Service Enterprise Lab Imperial Award Centre for Academic English Library Services Graduate School |
| 15:00-16:00 | Plagiarism Awarness (Compulsory) | Room 408, EEE building | It aims to equip all Imperial postgraduate students with a working knowledge of the concept of plagiarism and how to avoid it. Preparation for the Graduate school course. |
Thursday 5 October
| LECTURE START | |||
| 13:15-14:30 | MSc Lunch Social | CSP Room 509 Control Room 305 FPN - Room 508 ADIC - Room 406 AML - Room 407A/B |
Meet your cohort, Student Reps and The Student Union. Lunch provided. |
| 14:45-15:45 | Wellbeing session - ‘How to do well and feel well’ | Room 408, EEE building | Session run by Dept Student Wellbeing advsisor Kelly Greenwood |
Friday 6 October
| 14:00-15:00 | MSc Programme Meeting - Future Power Networks | Room 508, EEE Building | MSc Future Power Networks - Dr Balarko Chaudhuri (Programme Director), Güler Eroğlu (Senior Research Group Administrator) |
Wednesday 11 October
| 12:00-13:00 | Women in Engineering Lunch Social | Room 305, EEE building | MSc and Undergraduates social event. Lunch will be provided. |
Wednesday 25 October
| 14:30-15:30 | Positive Communication session with speaker Scott Solder | Room 408, EEE building | Equipping delegates with skills to communicate positively, manage/prevent conflict, manage expectations, communicate assertively, hold difficult conversations and negotiate constructively (verbal and email) |
| 15:45-16:45 | Active bystander with speaker Scott Solder | Room 408, EEE building | The Active Bystander training programme aims to empower staff and students across the College community to challenge poor behaviours and bring about cultural change through the reinforcement of messages defining the boundaries of unacceptable behaviour. |
Keep in mind these upcoming help sessions throughout the year.
June 2023 - Mastering Presentations: Informational Posters – Layout and Design.
- Wednesday 21 June,10:00 - 11.30, Room Read Lecture theatre, Sherfield building – All MSc
January & May 2024 - MSc Project support sessions - The two sessions are fairly similar, so you only need to attend one of the sessions.
- Wednesday 18th Jan 2023; 1:00 - 2:30pm
- Wednesday 24th May 2023; 12:00 – 1:30pm
August 2024 - MSc Turnitin support sessions
Information will be sent closer to the time.
Joining the EEE department - Everything you need for week 1
Imperial College Welcome Season
- Imperial has a lot of different events and activities to get involved with during October's Welcome Week Download the 'Welcome to Imperial' app in the App Store or Google Play for most up to date information.
EEE Welcome Week Timetable - starting Monday 2nd October
- The EEE Department also organises our own welcome programme which can be found on the Welcome week tab.
EEE Course information
- The MSc A-Z List is where you will find the most important information for your studies in the department. Please bookmark this page.
- Make sure you take some time to read through the MSc Handbook 2022-23. It is full of useful general information about the Department and about Imperial.
Before you start - registration, email, College services
- You should activate your college account. Any communications from the 1st October '22 will be only via your College email account.
- You must register online before starting your course. You will be asked to upload your photograph which will feature on your student ID card. You will not be issued your student ID card if you do not upload a photo in time or do not complete day 1 safety induction.
- Imperial Mobile app will give you access to College information and services, including your programme timetable, College emails and a library catalogue search tool.
Learning Resources and background reading
MATLAB
There may be a need for you to use MATLAB during your MSc course. These tutorials from the web and YouTube may be helpful to you:
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/student_center/tutorials/launchpad.html
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MATLAB&annotation_id=annotation_736368&feature=iv
http://www.math.utah.edu/lab/ms/matlab/matlab.html
Another good way for a novice to get started is to open one of the demos within MATLAB and work through it step-by-step (you simply need to type “demo” or “help” in the command window to get to the demos).
PYTHON
Python and its packages such as numpy, pandas and matplotlib are essential programming tools for the Applied Machine Learning
course.
Linear Algebra
These notes on Linear Algebra will assist students on our MSc courses. It might be worth studying these before you arrive.
MSc in Control and Optimisation
- “Introduction to linear algebra” by Gilbert Strang
- MATLAB courses available on-line at: https://matlabacademy.mathworks.com (recommended: MATLAB onramp, Simulink onramp, Control Design Onramp with Simulink, MATLAB Fundamentals, MATLAB for Data Processing and Visualization, MATLAB Programming Techniques, Introduction to Symbolic Math with MATLAB, Solving Nonlinear Equations with MATLAB, Solving Ordinary Differential Equations with MATLAB, Introduction to Linear Algebra with MATLAB)
- Book by Astrom, Murray: “Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers”. By Karl J. Åström and Richard M. Murray, available on-line http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/amwiki/index.php/Second_Edition
-
Linear Systems, by Panos Antsaklis & Antony Michel, Birkhauser, 2006
MSc in Future Power Networks - background study materials
- AC transmission system operation, powerflow and basic stability analysis. Chapter 3 and 8 of ‘Electric Power System’ 5th edition by Weddy, Cory et. al.
- Analysis of the performance of linear closed-loop controllers using frequency-domain tools. Chapter 1 and 2 from 'Multivariable feedback control: analysis and design.' Vol. 2. New York: Wiley, 2007 from Skogestad, Sigurd, and Ian Postlethwaite.
- Basic stability analysis and control design. Chapter 5, 10 and 11 from ‘Automatic Control Systems’, 10th Edition by Farid Golnaraghi and Benjamin C. Kuo
- Challenges of future power system with high penetration of inverter-based resources https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nh22PgScCQ&t=2844s https://lowcarbonconversations.libsyn.com/episode-2-a-tricky-balance
- Digitalisation of Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xpoTZP8Aew
- Generation of electricity by wind turbines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KE65O44q9o
- Operation and characteristics of Thyristors and IGBTs Chapter 23 and 25 from ‘Power Electronics: Converters, Applications, and Design’, 3rd Edition by Ned Mohan, Tore M. Undeland, William P. Robbins
- Operation of synchronous generators https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8zJKXkU_yM
Library
Microsoft Teams for lectures
Information and instructions for using Microsoft Teams.
Computing and laptops - Bring Your Own Device
updated 25 Septmeber 2023 - for students starting in October 2023
Advice on laptops
The Department runs a Bring-Your-Own-Devices (BYOD) scheme. Electrical and Electronic Engineers need excellent skills in using computers for programming, controlling equipment and many other tasks. There is no better way to become proficient than by managing your own laptop, including all the software installed on it.
Financial assistance may be available from the College to support purchasing a laptop https://www.imperial.ac.uk/students/fees-and-funding/financial-assistance/student-support-fund/
What laptop to choose?
Our recommendation is to buy a laptop with the following specifications:
- Intel i5/i7 CPU
- 8/16GB of RAM
- 512GB hard drive
- 13”/15” screen
We do not make official recommendations on the specific make of laptops. When choosing your laptop processing power is less important than weight (light) and battery life (long). The more RAM you have, the better. An SSD hard drive can speed up some processes but is not essential. A touch screen can be useful for annotating notes but is also not essential.
The Department’s laptop loan scheme uses:
HP EliteBook 840G5, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD drive, 15” display
Mac users can consider the MacBook Pro 13”, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD drive.
Operating system?
This depends solely on personal taste, but if you bring a MacBook make sure to install both OS X as well as Windows 10. We advise you run an English Windows 10 version on any laptop. Every student can request a key for their own license to Windows 10 educational version from ICT (via software shop). Help will be available for installing and converting operating systems. Windows is more compatible with a lot of the software we use. Also, some software packages are incompatible with the new M1/M2 chip Macbooks.
What about Software?
We use Office 365 at Imperial College. It is free to all students and can install on up to five devices. In addition, we offer students a wide range of free software to support their work. The ICT resources for new students pages have information about the available software packages.
Do I need a desktop as well as a laptop?
You are strongly advised against purchasing a desktop machine. Instead, you may want to buy a lightweight external monitor and connect your laptop to it. This configuration is much more portable and useful than a desktop machine.
Do I need a printer or other computer peripherals?
Scanning, photocopying and printing services are available in public areas, including the library. You access the printers and purchase print credits using your College ID card and details. If you intend to print lots of paper copies, it may be cheaper if you use your own printer.
Do I need to subscribe to cloud-based storage?
You do not need to pay for your own cloud. Instead, you will be provided with 4GB of secure file space in your Home directory and 5TB of cloud-based space on Microsoft One Drive.