University resources
New graduate student orientation
This is typically before all classes start, and can be a full-day event tailored to new students. If you are also international, then there will be a separate orientation meeting, meaning that you’ll be attending a total of two orientations.
If this is your first time as a graduate student, this orientation is very helpful because they will tell you about the resources on campus, some tips for survival as a graduate student.
You can also use this event to meet new students who, like you, may not know other people. When you go into the auditorium where the orientation will start, if you’re interested in meeting new people, sit next to someone who looks like they came alone and introduce yourself by sharing your name and asking for theirs. If you are somewhat shy, but want to meet new people, this is a great venue to do so because most people will be new to campus and, like you, will be interested in meeting new people.
International student office
If you are an international student, the organization that handles all international affairs at your institution will be in touch with you after you accept the offer. They are the ones that will organize the international student orientation, visas, etc., and who you can talk to if you have any questions on traveling, paying taxes, visa issues, taking language classes to better learn the language spoken at the institution (English, most likely), etc.
It is very likely that they also coordinate social events, or if they don’t, know of the people who do. This is a great opportunity to meet people like you, coming from another country to study at your institution. You may even be able to find roommates through this organization, or older students who have tips, advice or even furniture and appliances that they can lend you or sell you.
Graduate and professional student associations
Almost every school will have an association of graduate and professional students that is run by students and which is dedicated to make your graduate life a little better. These associations are great for meeting new people, for volunteering your time, for giving you a bit of balance during your graduate life, and for networking.
Most likely you will be able to find them by searching for keywords online. For example “X university graduate student association”, try asking your graduate program coordinator or even older graduate students in the program.
I personally recommend that every student check this out. You can send them an email and request to be put in the emailing list, or ask if you can learn more about them and if they need any volunteers. Attend a few of their events and then decide if that’s something you’re interested in being involved. Again, it’s a great way to meet people going through graduate school like you and to have an activity that can balance your life, as you will need balance to not go insane. Additionally, these organizations provide a window into how organizations are run, university resources, funding opportunities, and lead to new opportunities and potentially, future jobs.
Inter-departmental seminars
Once you join a department, you will have to go to your department’s seminars. But there are also other departments that host seminars that may be of interest to you for various reasons. Those can be to network with other students and professors, to learn about the science and methods that other labs are doing because you may use them in your research, or because you want one of the professors to be in your committee. For example, you may be in the Genetics department, but you’re interested in the methods that a lab in Chemistry is doing. In that case, you could go to the department of Chemistry website and see who the graduate program coordinator is. Email this person and let them know that you’d like to be put in the mailing list to learn about their seminars.
Professional growth workshops & funding opportunities
In your first year, you are probably not thinking about “the next steps” (what happens after you graduate) or finding your own funding because, after all, you just got there! However, the first year is when you have the most time and when less is expected from you. It’s when you join a research group that the expectations grow and your spare time shrinks. That’s why you may want to attend professional development workshops and learn about funding opportunities, to gear you up for the future.
Fitness center and sports
As a student of a university, you pay tuition (well, you don’t, but your department does) and so you will have access to the resources and facilities that the undergraduate and masters students also have. If you don’t know what those are, ask your program coordinator or email the university, and they should be able to help you find out about the perks.
Most commonly, there will be an indoor gym and maybe even a swimming pool, tennis courts and a basketball court that you may be able to access for free with your student card (you’ll receive instructions on how to get this card from the student center shortly after you arrive). If you enjoy any of those, then knowing where those installations are and what their hours of operation are is beneficial. Note that there will be certain times of the day when those facilities will be crowded due to undergraduate students or the sport teams using them, or due to sports events, so just plan around those times. As a graduate student, as long as you’re not skipping classes, seminars or important meetings, it is ok to hit the gym at 10 am on a Tuesday, because the expectation is that you will be working at other times in the day to make up for that break, and that’s ok. But make sure you talk about those expectations with your supervisor first.
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Intramurals / sports teams: If you are really good at a sport and would like to play in a team or compete, chances are that your university has teams already in place. You can call or email them to ask. Very often those teams are for undergraduate students, so if they don’t allow graduate students to join, you can also inquire about starting your own sport team (friendly or competitive). If they do allow you to do that, there are ways of recruiting other graduate students through email and departmental announcements. The best place to start is the Graduate Student “Office” (it may be called something else in your institution, like Graduate Student Services or Graduate Student Association). Ask them what would require starting a group for the sport that you’re interested in.
Wellness and counseling
There will be times in your PhD that you will be emotionally down, sad, depressed, anxious, or all of the above, and you may consider getting help or taking advantage of a wellness program on campus. You may be able to release stress through exercise or playing sports (see Fitness center and sports), but some issues may require psychiatric help or counseling. Your institution for sure has a service to help students. You can search online for “coaching” or “counseling” or “psychology” or “psychiatry” services under the “Student Wellness” or “Health Center” page of your institution. They tend to offer a range of services from speaking in person or over the phone to a volunteer or an expert, attending webinars about “Wellness”, attending in-person or virtual group sessions, nutrition guidelines, counseling guidelines, etc. As wellness is an area that the institution is very concerned with, because they want to make sure that you are well, if you have any doubts, questions, or are feeling depressed, go talk to someone or find resources that could help you; don’t keep it to yourself.
Graduate student housing
If you are at a university, besides the undergraduate student dorms there most likely will be designated housing for graduate and professional students. This includes masters students, PhD students, medical students, law students, etc. If you are a student who already has a Bachelor’s degree and is pursuing a higher education, you probably qualify for this housing. To learn more about it, you can search for “Housing” at your institution’s website, and perhaps you can even be more specific by using the keywords “graduate student housing”.
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Advantages of living on campus:
There are several advantages to choosing to live on campus, especially if you are new to the institution and/or area (city, state, country):
No need for a car. You will be walking distance to your building on campus (classes, labs, seminars, etc), which means that you won’t require a car or public transportation, which makes your life cheaper because you don’t have to pay car insurance, registration, or gas.. You will be able to get to your campus destination walking, with the campus shuttles, or biking.
Furnished apartment. The apartments will be furnished for you, so you don’t need to buy a bed, couch, kitchen table. This is helpful if you are coming from abroad or otherwise don’t have any furniture on tow. You may, however, need to get your own desk, kitchenware, TV, and other items. To know what is and what is not included, search their website in case they have it posted, or ask their contact via phone or email.
Washer and dryer included. Washer and dryer will also be inside the apartment or the apartment complex.
All utilities included in the price. Utilities and wifi will most likely be included in the rent price. When you are renting a house or apartment outside of campus, the advertised rent price typically only includes the rent to be a tenant in the apartment. The utilities (water, electricity, gas), internet, and any other possible charges (community charges, trash and recycling charges, sewage charges, etc) are typically on top of that rent price. However, in your on-campus housing, the price tends to include everything. Ask if it doesn’t say in their website.
Free maintenance. If something breaks or needs repair in your apartment, you can request that a maintenance service comes to check it out and/or repair it for free. Usually this involves logging into a maintenance website that the front desk should give you upon check-in (ask for it if they don’t). Such a free service may or may not be free if you are living off campus.
Networking. You will meet other graduate students like you, for socializing and networking. This type of living is great for meeting new people from many other disciplines. Networking while you are a graduate student is extremely important, for finding opportunities and jobs, and because you never know what doors it will open for you in your future. Living on campus is a very easy way to network.
Easy to socialize. Attend social events: very often, the graduate student housing will have a leadership committee (they may be called “resident assistants”) who are there to help you and to build community. Because of that it is very likely that there are weekly activities for education or socializing with your neighbors.
Safe place. It is a safe place. These on-campus buildings are gated or have guards or are otherwise protecting their tenants through privileged access (for example, key card or electronic access). This is not necessarily true off-campus, where you have to take care of your own safety.
Disadvantages of living on campus:
Expensive. Rent is going to be more expensive than sharing a house or apartment off-campus with roommates. Depending on where you live, it may also be more expensive than living by yourself in an off-campus house or apartment. If you are on the fence, you can always stay one year on campus and then move out once you know the area and once you have had time to save up to buy a car, or whatever your goals are.
If you think that you will stay for a long time in that city, and housing prices are cheap, then you may consider buying a house instead of living on campus. Usually, for a house to be worth it, you want to own it for 5 years.
Parking is typically not free. If you decided to get a car, parking may be a problem. Most likely you have to park it on campus, which tends to be expensive. Sometimes there are special rates for students and/or students who live on campus, so be sure to ask. If you can’t find the website for “parking on campus”, the manager or office staff of the on-campus building where you are considering living should know.
Not having a car makes mobility difficult. If you decide to not have a car because you live on campus, every time that you need to attend off-campus locations may be a bit problematic. Many services will be either on campus or in walking-distance of campus, but others may not. For example, the grocery store or a department store (e.g. Macy’s, Walmart, Target, etc).
The best thing to do is to write down a list of places that you think you’ll need to go to once a week or more often, and then pull up the online map to see where they are located from your potential on-campus home, and if you could go walking. Sometimes, you may not be able to go walking, but the institution may provide a ride-share service or other type of public transportation to get to places like this. Or the city has public transportation that you can take. You can also ask about all of this if it’s not obvious online.
Finally, if you are someone who makes friends easily, chances are that some of your friends will have a car and can take you along when they do their own grocery store run.
May be noisy if close to undergraduate dorms. Unless the graduate housing is far away from the rest of the undergraduate housing, living on campus means being somewhat exposed to the on-campus experiences. There may be nights where the noise is too loud because the undergraduate dorm next door, or even one of your neighbors is having a party. Luckily there are policies that implement “quiet hours” and if those people are violating those hours, you can report them to the front office (or whomever they tell you to report to, like the resident assistants) and someone will take care of it pretty quickly.
Maybe less privacy. If you are someone who prefers to be alone and live alone, on-campus housing may not be for you. Check their floorplans to see if they have studios or one-bedroom apartments. In those you live on your own, without sharing. Even if they do, chances are that those are the most expensive ones; more expensive than getting the same outside of campus.
Campus police
If you experience or observe an unsafe, dangerous or suspicious activity, don’t hesitate in calling the police. In the US, when you call 911 and you’re on campus, you will be redirected to the on-campus police. This means that there is a taskforce there to help you and keep you safe. When on doubt, call the police. Better safe than sorry.
Email and free software
Once you join an institution and you’re in their system, they will provide you an email address that tends to end in “.edu”. Some places allow you to choose your name (e.g. “Cristina@universityX.edu”), but others will assign you one based on your name, last name, or a combination of both. This email is great if you like to keep your personal life separate from your professional life. If that’s the case, don’t forward your new email to your personal email. However, if you can’t deal with keeping up with multiple accounts, then forwarding everything to one is the best idea. Note, however, that some institutions won’t let you set up a forwarding service. For inquiries like these, contact the IT department, which is the one that sent you instructions on how to set up your email address and the one who will periodically contact you with instructions on how to change your password.
Each institution also has some form of virtual storage space or cloud. Common platforms are Microsoft Outlook, Google, Box for email, sharing files or storing files. Your account will be free while you are affiliated with that institution, and will most likely have unlimited storage space. Some places allow you to keep your email and account after you leave, but others close it up and you no longer can access those files. You’ll want to ask this question to the IT department, because it the account closes when you leave, you’ll want to back up your files to an external harddrive before you graduate (of course, before doing that you will have to have a conversation with your boss about what intellectual property can you take versus what stays behind). These services are great for storing big files, but also for sharing with collaborators from your institution or other institutions.
Just like with email and storage space, the institution will provide their students and affiliates with free software that you can download and use while you are affiliated with the institution. Frequently used programs include Microsoft Office (with the latest Word, Excel, etc), Adobe programs (like Photoshop and Illustrator), statistical software (e.g. Matlab), and many more. If you can’t find these searching on the institution’s website, contact the IT department..
IT department
The IT department in most institutions provides support both online and in person. If you are in an academic institution, chances are that the IT department is mostly run by students. The offered services should be detailed online, but you can always email and ask them what those are. Most commonly, if you have issues with your computer, even if it’s your personal one, you can go to them. Just be sure to first learn how they handle inquiries and emergencies: do you have to first submit an online request or can you just show up to their on-campus offices? Other places won’t have a centralized IT department, but a specialized one for each department, meaning that you will have a point of contact in your department who you will go to with software and hardware issues.
Other
Institutions often have many other resources for students and employees. For example, if you have a great idea that you want to develop and patent, there likely is an Office of Research that can guide you through legal issues and patents. Or maybe you want to learn what the travel policies are for going to conferences and workshops. For all these resources, you probably can easily find them by searching online or in your institution’s main website (look for the search bar that tends to be on the top right or left corners of the page).