Tips for Graduate Students at NCSU!
As a new graduate student at NC State University, I was confused and missed important information on occasion. Once I went to the classroom in a hurry but I found that no one else was there since the class was canceled through an email, but I didn’t notice that in time. Hence, I have compiled several tips that are of benefit to start off your graduate study at NC State well. If you are not a member of NC State, don’t go away, these tips may also work well for your university too!
Check your email and Google calendar on a daily basis. Try not to miss any significant events and opportunities. If an upcoming class is canceled or delayed for some reason, professors will release notices over emails.
Keep the important dates of enrollment and paying fees in mind. At NC State, you can do this by accessing MyPack Portal: Main panel ->Student Accounts -> Important Messages, you’ll see a blue hyperlink named “Important Dates”
Research classes before enrolling. From MyPack Portal -> Planning & Enrollment -> Enrollment Resources, you can find the history grading of certain courses through “Grade Distribution”, and what you’ll learn from that class through “Course Catalog”. If you’re interested in students’ remarks about some professor, you may refer to this website: https://www.ratemyprofessors.com
Review class recordings. At NC State, Panopto is where you may review the course recordings after class. Sometimes they are allowed to be downloaded. If so, download it to your computer and then open it with “Potplayer”. You may use this software for adjusting the playing speed or translating the subtitles into the language you are familiar with.
Borrow supplies from the library if you forgot something. You don’t have to be embarrassed when leaving your apple pencil or laptop at home. At NC State, the “Ask Us” area in both Hills and Hunt library offers you the convenience of borrowing most of the technologies including laptops, calculators, chargers and charging cables, etc. What you need to do is show the staff members your Student ID, then you can keep them for a duration of no more than 8 hours. Many US universities offer this service as well.
Class discussion tools are very helpful. Make the most out of the Piazza (if you have a class that the professor uses for question discussion), office hours of professors, and the senior students of the same major as you when you’re confronted with knowledge points that you cannot solve
yourself.Know where to look for an internship. If you are going to seek some internship in the summer, Symplicity, Iindeed, and LinkedIn are good places for releasing latest information. Here are also two more websites that help this: https://careers.dasa.ncsu.edu/ and https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/
- Shuai Chen, GHP @ NCSU
References:
https://smartblogger.com/how-to-write-a-blog-post/
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/81090272