Graduate student orientation

[bedmas]

I start at my new school soon and I signed up for a grad student orientation. It's sort of a `build your own' orientation, so there are 4 sessions (plus a campus tour) that I can go to, but only 3 time slots. I am signed up for a campus tour, so I could go to 2 sessions, or skip the tour (maybe a bad idea? but i could explore on my own) and go to 3. I'm wondering which of the following sessions you guys would recommend?

A. Student Supervisor Relationship Workshop

This interactive workshop will focus on how to maximize your relationship with your supervisor, develop a clear sense of your rights and responsibilities as a student (and those of your supervisor and others involved in your graduate program), and solve common problems that sometimes beset the supervisory relationship.

 

B. Network and Connect: Building Community

A fun, interactive session run by graduate “veterans” that is your chance to meet new and existing grad students! Grad school can be lonely and this session will not only introduce you to some of the opportunities to get involved and meet people on campus but in the broader community as well. Perfect way to offset all the heavier orientation information!

 

C. Securing Funding (Canadian/permanent-resident focus)

This session will provide an overview of the funding opportunities for Canadian and/or permanent resident students. This will also include information on work opportunities and some tips for budgeting and managing finances.

 

D. Staying Sane in Grad School: Wellness Workshop

Often we don’t think about our wellness in grad school until we are struggling. Here is your chance to develop some skills to “stay sane” and avoid those crashes! This wellness workshop will not only introduce you to services on campus but will be a hands-on session to develop skills for emotional, physical, and mental well-being.

 

advice is appreciated! thanks!

[MsDarjeeling]

Of those 4 both A and D seem the most interesting to me.  If you are a Canadian student then you probably shouldn't skip C though.

[zapster]

B-C-A

[Guest |||]

Largely depends on what you already know as is

 

If you know nothing about funding, C is the massive winner.  I would then say its a toss up between B and A.

 

I personally would skip the tour and do the workshops, if possible maybe get a friend in the area to show you around, or explore on your own?

[juilletmercredi]

Personally, I would skip a campus tour unless I really only wanted to go to 2 sessions.  You can get a map and explore campus on your own, and I am the kind of person who loathes guided campus tours.

 

I would definitely attend the funding workship and the networking workshop.  I think I would choose the student-supervisor one as a third, because the wellness stuff is usually easy to find on the health services center website.

[TakeruK]

I think B would be good, especially since it's run by those who were in your shoes just a few years ago. C is also important if you don't know how to secure funding but if you already have a NSERC, OGS, SSHRC, etc. then you can probably skip it. A is also great too. D sounds like a good topic but I'm not sure how it will be presented -- I've attended these workshops at two different schools now and sometimes they are very useful and others they are just restatements of common sense. At one school, the "TA responsibilities" workshop was really just the Vice Provost reading out the University's policies to us, paragraph by paragraph for about 70 minutes.

 

The campus tour could also be a fun way to talk to your fellow students and walking around might break up the long orientation day. Also, you can learn tons of cool facts about the campus that you can use when giving a campus tour of your own when your friends, family etc. visit you at some point.

 

I would pick:

 

Only 1 out of B or D -- they seem to cover the same ideas, and personally, I would rather hear it from fellow grad students!

 

A is a great choice.

 

Then I guess you should pick between C or campus tour, depending on your current knowledge of funding.

[bedmas]

I think I'm going to skip the tour and go to A, B, and C. I can wander around myself another day, and as juilletmercredi mentioned, the wellness stuff is accessible online somewhere. I'm guaranteed funding from the school but I'd like to apply for a NSERC so the funding session is important! Thanks for all your input!