The aspect I appreciated most about my university, especially my department, is its flexible course structure. In particular, the graduate course design gives faculty members considerable independence to tailor courses according to students’ research needs. This flexibility allows students to focus on coursework that directly supports their research area. For example, although I am from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, my research focuses on signal processing. Therefore, instead of taking many generic ECE-related courses, I was able to take several signal-processing-related courses that were carefully designed by my advisor and other relevant professors to support my research progress.