Good morning, good morning. Transfer students come on in. I see the participant number going up.
It is now 1130 transfer. Student orientation is about to commence. We are excited to welcome you into the Rensselaer community, the Rinzler family. My name is Jade Felder. I am director of student transitions here at RPI. I am the person you have been in the email correspondences with and all of the colleagues that will be joining me today are helping you in this transition to becoming a full time student here at Rensselaer. We are going to jump right into our presentation.
Theresa Abbott
11:31:16 AM
Welcome to Transfer Student Orientation!! Please type any questions you have for the panelists into the chat box and make sure to sign up for the Class Dean Meet and Greet on Thursday! https://apply-undergrad.rpi.edu/register/?id=cd6c7bb6-8a5f-4862-81e9-71ab87310099
For today, because we want to make sure we maximize the time we're going to be joined by a different presenters. And I'm going to make sure I introduce them as they come along, just so that you can start to put faces with names so our first presenter is going to be coming from a student living in learning our Dean of living in learning, and he is going to be walking you through all of the information related to student living in learning. One thing I do want to make sure you all know is that this presentation will be.
Recorded it will be posted on the transfer Student services site so that you can always refer back to it if you have any additional questions. And for our presenters, we will have a Q&A at the very end, and if there are any questions we can't answer here live. We will make sure that we get those questions answered for you after the presentation, so we'll jump right in and get started.
Hi everyone, my name is John Lawler. I'm the Dean of student Living and learning bikes. It really works for me. That's his name underneath my face right there but Mike is covering for us and another operation today because of one of our staff members. Had a family emergency so we shuffled responsibilities today.
As a department, the office Student Living Learning for most students is is most associated with the residential experience living on campus of which are transfer. Students are absolutely welcome to do so. We also though oversee the off Campus Commons, which is basically that community of Rensselaer students who live off campus predominantly are juniors and seniors along with our graduate students as well. We have an entire operation oriented towards that population, and then if any of you are anticipating joining a fraternity or a sorority.
We do also have the office of the Greek Life Commons that report through us. Our goal is to help students grow and become who they want to be during their time at Rensselaer. Ultimately, we really want you bottom line to be successful. Housing is not the core of what we do. It's really about those goals that we have, but we do it in those residential environments with you.
Next slide there, we go are off campus code. The organization is is broken down to professionals across the various comments we just talked about. I'll have you focus in on that middle column. There we put the most amount of energy towards our residential comments, 'cause those are students who are most new to our campus community. So that's where you have the traditional resident assisted in the professionals that live in the residence halls were there to help. We also have our off Campus Commons where we have a few staff members.
In the Greek left Commons similarly, but ultimately our goal is the same. We exist across all those areas and our staff are all cross trains. So if you stumble into one office and unsure what The Who you should be talking to, they can make sure you get connected to somebody. If they can't answer the questions yourself.
One of the pieces that gets a little bit complicated for our transfer students is how do we classify you? We typically for our students who start in their first year Rensselaer. They get house as a cohort together in a series of residence halls and when they migrate to being sophomores, they get house as a cohort. Here at Rensselaer, students do have a housing requirement through their first five semesters at the institution, and if the five numbers sound strange to you, it's because we expect you to live with us during the first year.
Expect to live with you during the second year and we expect you to live with us during the Arch summer program as well. There are opportunities to not be housed with us or very limited, but students can apply for waivers from those expectations. The one that's probably most likely to get approved is of a student joins a Greek organization in their first year and they want to live in that Greek house their second year. That waiver is a deal that we've set up with our Greek community to make sure that those students can benefit from living in their fraternity.
Ultimately, what we're trying to do is understand students based on who they are and where they are. So first year students have very distinct needs from second year students and so on. So the experience of in the residential Commons during the first year is different than what it would be for a second year student. So if you're coming in as a sophomore and you're living with our residence halls, please don't think that our residence halls are going to treat you like you're a first year student. We know who you are, we know where you live, and we know what your needs typically are, and we try and prepare our Staffs to be.
Responsive to the unique needs of the cohorts that are in their buildings, the definition of koford cohort for us is tide to when you arrive on campus and not necessarily by credit hours. That's an important thing to note, given how many of our students show up with a bunch of AP credits, they may have a class standing or an academic standing that would put them as a second year or third year student. But if they came in in the fall of 2021, regardless of what their credit hours say they already first years.
I already talked about the Greek comments in the off campus comments.
So I say this somewhat colloquially, or our assistant Deans are these professional staff members who help overseas some portion of our campus community in the residence halls. There are these people who are walking around in a little bit older than the standard residential student. All of our professional living assistant Deans have graduate degrees and usually two to three years of professional experience. Before we, we hire them on their job is to be there for you.
Uhm, to be there to support you and to be sort of the grown up in the room when your peers and others aren't the right people to help support you through a situation.
At the end of the day, they're juggling a lot of different responsibilities, but all of those responsibilities are directed towards student success, both individually and as communities within our residents with Commons. The other role that they play that is fundamentally important and collaborates closely with a bunch of other offices, including the Department of Public Safety who you'll hear from in a little bit, is ardene on duty, operation, or staff members go on week long shifts where they are responsible for helping to.
Respond to any situation that happens that impacts a student on campus or off, including sometimes students were studying abroad. We may get a phone call and that's the person. If it's a 2:00 AM or 2:00 PM.
In the middle of the week or over the course of the weekend, they are there to respond and to be supportive of students. Nine times out of 10, it's a relatively low level thing, but if there is a severe situation that we need support, there's a professional staff member who's going to be there to help out and not just you know, the the junior or senior RA who are outstanding staff members, but we don't expect them to know as much as our professional staff do.
Speaking of this, resident assistants and at the end of the day, those are peers. Those are students who know the RPI experience pretty well and are there to help students navigate their experience at Rensselaer as well. We don't think of them exclusively through the housing lens, they're there to help students, not residents. Every single person who lives in our residence hall, with the exception of those assistant Deans, is enrolled. They're pursuing their academic and professional careers in rras.
Are there to help students achieve that stuff?
The interesting thing is, some people will think oh there, for my area has the same major as me. No, that's not always roll. The RE's role is to help you navigate the other resources that are available on campus. And if there is a crisis, if there is something that you're worried about, if you're having a hard time or difficult dynamic with a roommate, there is obviously going to assist with those pieces as well. But at the end of the day, the goal is your success as a student, and that's why we put these staff members in the residence halls.
If you do live in our residence halls, I want to make sure that you are paying attention to our somewhat.
Detailed and perhaps persnickety, a set of expectations. While you can and cannot have in the residence halls, it's posted on our website pretty extensively. If you ever have a question please let us know. If we do encounter a prohibited item, we will lift that from your room, put it in storage, and let you pick it up. When you leave campus whenever.
But ultimately, a lot of what we're doing is enforcing policy, making sure that we're having safe, supportive communities for our students. So keep in mind that you need to be familiar with your student rights and responsibilities. The Student Handbook, our residential Commons policies, and then pay attention to the contract that students have signed with their living with us.
There are some little details in there that are not the kind of thing that students necessarily are thinking of that. If you have Luna residence hall before.
The other thing I do want to say, even if you're not living with us and you want to carry a meal plan, you can do that. You just have to go to the dining website and you can sign up for a meal plan and there were gonna are some responsibilities associated with that, but they're relatively low key.
All of our mail at the university does get delivered to one location in the Union. It used to be that they'd be delivered to various different locations, but all you need to do if you do have to get mail addressed to you, is essentially what you see in front of us here on the screen that will get delivered to the Union and you will receive information about when that's been delivered and when you can go pick it up.
And ultimately, because many of you are not living with us or you haven't figured out you're going to be living with us, I want you to know where we're located and how to get ahold of us. If you have any questions. If you have any concerns.
Take down, take a little snapshot of this screen and drop a note. Check our website for us. A lot of information there, but if you're uncertain, just give us a call or send us an email. We are doing where we are moving in about 4000 students this week, so we might be. It'll be a little slower to the punch.
The best way honestly is to leave a voicemail, or if we don't pick up, will get to the voicemails, usually quicker than the emails.
I'll stop there because we have other folks to chat.
Theresa Abbott
11:41:28 AM
SLL.rpi.edu
Thank you so much, Dean Lawlor for joining us this morning and we want to make sure that the students actually utilized that email address and and go on the website aasldrpi.edu. If you have any questions students related to the presentation on student living and learning, please use the chat feature. I want you all to be chatting in there. I want you to be asking important questions. It could even be something you consider to be silly.
But it will help all the other transfer students that are signed in with us. This. There's 70 of you, so we want you all to be a close knit community and don't feel shy about asking anything. So we want to thank Dean Lawlor for joining us and we are going to move to our next presentation, which is our financial aid presentation and it is going to be given by the director Marty Daniels and we're going to go ahead and get started, Marty, it's all on you.
Thank you Jade and welcome everybody. I I'm glad to have 70 people out in the audience. I I was thinking if we were alive I was going to juggle today. This was going to be the day I juggled for the audience, but unfortunately we're still virtual. I'll have to wait for that for another time so but I do want to provide some important reminders for financial aid and as transfer students, I know that many of you have kind of worked with financial aid at a prior institution, so I I don't need to take a lot of time. So the first area.
Or consent for electronic communication? Just understand that that's something that's important because the student email system is really our official way of communicating with you about your financial aid business within the enrollment year. So it's really important that you're checking your email and also understand that when you accepted your financial aid awards, part of that was also affirming your understanding about the electronic communication consent. So just understand that.
You know, certainly we have a phone service. And yes, we have a walk in customer service station, but particularly these days we're doing OK with online. As long as you're doing on OK with online as well. And for those of you that might not be familiar with our website, we do have a document upload feature to help be a convenient and data secure at the same time, so please just plug into your electronic tools if you have any issues with access to SSIS for example.
Student information system. Please let folks know so that we can help you.
We also have a form available on our website. I'll put the link out in the chat, but it's called the release of information authorization and essentially, as you probably know, your financial business is yours and the law protects you to a large degree, and so if you want us to be able to help a parent or a friend or other people, you might want to have call in and ask about your financial aid or your bill, then please complete the release of authorization form. It's very simple it.
Describes the rules environment. It's just us trying to help you better OK.
Alright, on the next slide we talk a little bit more about the SAS system. Again, you are likely to have already been in there. If you've been able to complete all your admissions tasks, pay your deposit, accept your financial aid award, you're already plugged in, so just make sure you're checking there regularly, because that's where, for example, for my office will send you an email letting you know that you have work to do for us, but will direct you to your student account to see the detail of what that is.
Or to access any specific forms that we need from you, so ensure you have the access and let us know how we can help.
For a student loans, if you weren't were not in a position of borrowing as a student year prior school, then this might be something new for you. But for transfers who have borrowed, just keep in mind it's the same concept in terms of we include the loan amount on your award letter. You have to actively accept that before we can disperse the funds and then also we need to make sure we have the entrance counseling and master promissory note from the federal websites in order to disperse.
As well, otherwise it's just a reminder. Again of making sure that you accept the loan if you're eligible for it that you fill out those other forms to make sure that we can provide the funds and actually disperse at the start of classes. And I think the only other thing on there really is just a note of progression to the annual loan amount, but again, new likely. I've already seen that a little bit already and one thing I will mention for the transfer students is keep in mind, particularly if you had a third year at your prior institution.
That you might end up running out of your federal loan eligibility at Rensselaer if you're here for three years or particularly. If you're going to be here for four. So if you need any help, kind of knowing where to look or with figuring that out, let us know. Otherwise, the main messages come in. Be expedient with your academics and the resources should be there for each term of enrollment.
Alright, for those of you that might need a little bit more funding above the federal programs for the student, the Federal plus loan for parents and the non federal loans for the student can help provide a larger funding amount from one source compared to the federal loans. OK for the student. For example, you saw that the annual maximum for a junior is $7500 through the student borrowed program for the federal well, if the parent wanted to borrow the difference.
Between what our cost is and all the aides of the student, they could request that through the federal plus loan that could be 30,040 thousand. $50,000 is what could be requested. It doesn't mean it's going to be approved, but that's the idea. If you need a larger sum from one source, it's probably a federal parent loan. And then if the parents are credit challenged or based on family choice, then the loan and the student name is same concept. Borrow up to the difference in cost versus aid.
And the student is a bar with a credit eligible Co borrower.
Alright student employment. If you had work study on your award letter, that's a good thing because that means you're eligible for the program if you fill out the application in a timely manner, we should be able to have you placed into a position close to the start of the year we're doing our fault placements here within the next couple of weeks, and one thing I'll let you know is that we have to look back two years now to see when the program was kind of normal before the pandemic and two years ago.
By the time we get to October, we had about 600 jobs and 600 students working, including any student that had been placed on a wait list. OK, so if it's federal work study, hopefully we'll have you working early in the term. If not, we will keep a wait list and hang in there with us. But in the meantime, there's the handshake online tool with the Career Center that is also available and those jobs do not run through the financial aid office. They are also more likely to.
Be working with professors or doing research as an undergraduate. Those types of things are more through the other campus employment. For our office our jobs. It's mainly administrative support, you know, so we don't place into the dish room, but we also don't have you working in the nuclear lab. Alright? It's kind of in between there, so if you have questions I'll let us know. We've been had to be a little conservative on our awarding a work study just because of the jobs environment, but if you are interested, let us know will get you on the wait list.
And for outside awards, just make sure you let us know. Federal rules indicate we have to consider those before we process the federal loans, and in most cases the amount received is really not going to change anything in the awards. We really try to retain as much of the RPI gifted as possible. I won't go into the policy details there, but we rarely have a situation where we have to adjust RPI grant because of outside funding. So go out, get that ton of money first and then let me know and I'll be glad to.
Let you know what that impact is. Otherwise our form for that is available on our website, so I'll try to remember to put a link in for that as well.
Yeah, and I think this might be one of my last slides, but I just wanted to let you know that I actually were kind of transitioning back to campus this week and heading into next year so our service center is in Academy Hall. For those of you who haven't been here, that's located at the corner of 15th and college across one street from the fire station and the other street from Moe's so it's a pretty good place to be. Most of the time, and our normal business hours are there as well.
We are requesting social distance in our service area. We're putting a maximum of six customers in our waiting area at a time. Like I said, electronic is really still the way to go and a lot of that is just wanting everybody to be as safe as possible. So let us know if you have questions and I'll go back and put the links out there and turn it back to Jade. Thank you.
Theresa Abbott
11:50:38 AM
https://admissions.rpi.edu/aid
Theresa Abbott
11:50:45 AM
finaid@rpi.edu
Thank you so much for that presentation, Marty. If you all have any questions, please, as Dean Lawler said, take a screenshot of this page right here because you want to make sure you're able to follow up with the office directly for any questions or concerns or comments related to your financial aid package specifically. And if you are all set for the fall term, you also want to make sure you're considering planning for the duration of your time at Rensselaer, not just the first semester.
Martin Daniels
11:51:20 AM
Release of information authorization: https://admissions.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/FERPA.pdf
You want to make sure you're good to go for every semester until you graduate, so we are going to keep moving and we're doing so well on time this morning. Our next presenter is from public safety. Patricia is joining us this morning in the place of our Associate Vice President because of course duty calls OK and she is going to be walking us through the important safety information related to our campus that all students need to abide by and adhere to.
So please make sure you are listening carefully to all of the information that she's going to be providing you. And again I want to make sure you're utilizing that chat feature to ask any questions that may come up as our presenters are presenting, so I'll turn it over to purchase at this time.
Martin Daniels
11:52:00 AM
Outside Scholarship Reporting Form: https://admissions.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/Oschreport2122.pdf
OK, good morning. Am I OK? As Jade said my name is Patricia grow Romney assistant chief here at the Department of Public Safety and I welcome you on behalf of myself, the department and our Chief Associate Vice President, Vadim Thomas. The department is here to assist. We see our role as being critical to your safety and also in support of your success as students here.
Abel Hagos
11:52:49 AM
I have 51 credits transferred, so do I sign up for the Sophomore or Junior Class Dean Meet and Greet?
OK, I'm just going to go over what our department looks like. We have a full patrol unit. Investigations and administration we have now. This is a slightly older number, but our total staff is about 60 and we have about 40 anyway before 40 and 44 public safety officers are out on patrol available to you at at all times we do. We're on a 24/7 operation and we're one of the only departments on the campus.
Theresa Abbott
11:53:28 AM
Hi Abel, If you have 51 transferrable credits you will be coming in as a sophomore. The registration link is the same for sophomore and juniors.
I think the only that you can access 24/7 and we hope that you do do that and we make the connections to other departments around the campus in an emergency. We do possess statutory arrest authority. Hopefully none of you will have to be subjected to that and I think if you follow the rules that should be an easy, measured or meet. We respond to all incidents on campus. We do conduct investigations, particularly with the Troy Police Department. And again where.
Where who you call after hours.
OK, we have road patrols and you'll see our cars out and about. We do do foot patrol and we also do bicycle patrols. UM, and we have our station is on 15th St when you come in we will have a temporary location for about the first two months of the fall semester, but you'll get information on that as we move further into your into your time here.
We have a fairly large command staff. We have a couple of lieutenants that handle investigations. We have a clear compliance officer to make sure the Institute as a whole is complying with the regulations in the Cleary Act, and also that we're putting out our annual security report on time that it's accurate. It's complete and that has some value to come to our community.
Alright, the services we provide. Obviously it's it's pretty much a range of anything. There's never a time, especially as a new student here. Please don't worry about the questions you might have. Or should I call, shouldn't I call when you need help? Call us, we're here to serve you. We are here to provide for your safety. We're here to provide access. We do.
Lockouts we handled the temporary ID's so when you're locked out of your room or your residence hall or a particular building that you need to get into, this is where you come. This is who you call. We provide personal safety escorts and that is particularly important when you're not familiar with the campus. You may not know the best routes to get places. We're here to help you. We provide safety inspections. We'll assist residents life at anytime they ask. We do.
Events security, sporting events and.
Large events on campus. We hold the community policing values high. You'll see our people. I want them out out talking to you, meeting you, be approachable when you need us. I want you to feel comfortable that we're there for you and we do do some crime prevention and also safety outreach programs.
OK, one program that I know you're all coming from somewhere else. We do provide a rape aggression defense training, which is the acronym RAD. We occasionally do defensive driving courses, but since a fairly small part of our population has has cars on campus, it's not normally requested. We do residence hall security safety programs.
We try to assign public safety office through the residence halls that to act as a liaison and we do, do safety seminars and I would encourage you to attend holes.
Alright, security technology around the campus. We have a fairly high security posture. We want to make sure, partly after hours we've always had a very, very tight security posture where you can't get into a residence hall. You can't get into the library unless you're authorized to be there during certain time periods without using your. You have to use your access card.
Since COVID and and continuing forward, we have enhanced our access control around the campus pretty much all academic buildings that you'll be in or controlled by by your access card. So if you're supposed to be in the building, your access card will work at those buildings. If you think you should have access and you don't contact us or contact if you're working with a professor after hours, that professor will contact us and we'll change your.
Access, but we have we. We are very serious about the whole tailgating situation, especially being transfer students. You won't necessarily know who's supposed to be, where, we encourage you to take care of yourself, and by taking care of yourself, you're taking care of and providing a level security for others by not allowing people to hey hold that door and letting people come in behind you. The purpose of our access control is to keep people out people.
In that should be in and keep people out that shouldn't be there. We also have emergency blue light phones around around the campus and also for transfer students that are living it are on campus, but decentralized residence halls like Polytech City Station, Blitman Commons. We do have blue light emergency phones throughout the campus, many of them also have cameras in them, but the blue light phones are named that because they have.
Blue light on top. You press the button on the phone.
Public safety answers. UM, they'll ask questions, but as soon as you press that button, we know what phone is making a call and we immediately dispatch somebody to that area. So it's important to make the contact use those phones in a world of technology, people say, well, I'll just call on my cellphone, true, that that is a great way to get ahold of us, but we have the blue lights in place because there can be a time where you.
Literally are in a stressful situation, and the blue light is right there. You've locked yourself out of your residence hall and everything that you, your phone included. It's still a way to get ahold of us. We also have now about 500 cameras throughout campus. 500 camera views, which is important.
We do not use them to spy on people. I know people are concerned, but in the real world you're on camera all the time. We've extended our camera coverage to areas where people normally traverse. We don't have any cameras that look into hallways of residence halls. We don't do that. We we do have cameras on all the entrances to all of our residence halls and that helps us when there's people get entered.
Residence halls that shouldn't be, and then we have our external areas. Common roots of walking paths are generally covered by cameras, and I think that's important to know that we monitor them here at public safety. UM, and again obviously we monitor intrusion alarms and duress alarms, and we have those throughout the campus.
Again, there's a picture of our blue light phone. They're not used a lot, but we test them every week to make sure they're working when you need them. Our Direct Line is it's from on campus. 6611 is our emergency line when you are in an emergency. However, I always encourage people to dial 911 dial 911. When in doubt, make the call for your safety and the safety of others. When you witness something, dial 911.
If it's in an emergency and you have time, you can always call our regular line. We always pick up live when you when you dial our phone number UM.
I think we can move along.
OK RPI alert system. We use what's called the everbridge system and you've probably gotten information on it. If not, you will when you get here, it is as many, many people now, even in my town we have an alert system where I signed up to get alerts about what's going on in my community. Most colleges have some type of alert system. We have a very robust alert system that we changed last year to have greater smart technology.
Built in so you will be required to sign up for the campus alert system. RPI alert. You can also sign up for our safety app which I highly encourage. It's in every bird safety app. It gives you the ability to not only get the alerts on your phone, you'll get alerts by text and also linked to your RPI email, but our new everbridge system gives you the ability to set.
Walking timers, it gives you the ability to call in a tip immediately. It gives you the ability if you choose to. If you when you activate it that we know where you are and can find you, you do not have to do that, it's a it's a passive system. We do not. We cannot find you if you are not signed up for that service and it's typical of an app you know it's it's working when you choose to use it. So if you are in an area where you're not comfortable.
And want to click on the, you know the geographic control functions will be able to find you in case when emergency. Uhm, we send out anything from crime alerts that occur in our area are geography. We send out advisories, it could be something as simple as weather advisory or if something is going on in an area of Troy that it would be better for our students to avoid, whether that's again.
Theresa Abbott
12:03:40 PM
Hi Riya, please email your question to daniem@rpi.edu
Weather emergency or whether that's a police emergency. You may get a notification something that's important and it is a personal decision, but I encourage it because it will save your parents a lot of worries. You can allow up to. I think it's up to seven. You can allow other people's phone numbers to be registered for the alert, so if you want your parents to get RPI alerts and we do tell parents during parents orientation.
To encourage this, they can also you can sign them up to receive the same type of alerts.
It goes both ways. It's it's wouldn't parents hear something on the news. It saves them. They can just look it up on the email rather than calling public safety to find out what's going on. But we encourage you to also sign up your parents if you're comfortable doing that.
We do use a mass notification system. It's not very widely used, it's an outdoor speaker system. It's it's old technology, but if we ever had a situation where we had a massive inability to send out an RPI alert, we might use the on campus system.
Guardian this is actually we've just removed this, so we've we've replaced this with the RPI everbridge safety app, so we can just skip that completely.
Important issues, uhm coming in what? What does RPI public safety think is important. John Mr. John Lawler went over prohibited items in general. Be familiar with the prohibited items to have on campus and also when he mentioned reading the handbook. Read the handbook. It is worth your time. It's not that long. It will keep you. You know you know the rules. We know the rules we want to have a positive relationship.
With you because lack of knowledge of the rule will not be a reason that we can't. We don't take action. Some of the top priorities for us or forged false ideas for those of you coming from out of state, New York State, as you know, is 21 is the is the drinking age possessing a false ID in New York State is a crime. It's not a violation, it is an actual crime. It's forgery, so that can have serious consequences.
That we may not be able to help you out with should you be in a situation in Troy somewhere where you are carrying a false ID and the police have an operation or or or your found out so user user heads use good judgment but possessing and altering ID is a crime in New York State, alcohol and drugs. As you know there's well maybe you don't know the read the policy on alcohol and other drugs for this.
Campus, the only place alcohol is allowed is at the at the pub on the in the Union and there is no no alcohol, no tolerance, zero tolerance for alcohol or other drugs in the residence falls or on campus and we will take action. Pretty swift action if if we find alcohol or drugs.
The sexual assault prevention you know, especially coming in being unfamiliar with the area. We tell people all the time you know bad things happen. You know you have to help yourself as much as you possibly can. Make sure you report anything you're uncomfortable with immediately.
And keep your residence hall secured. If you don't know who's behind you, do not let them in.
If there's any questions, please ask them up. We would be happy to answer and we really wish you success in your time here at RPI.
Thank you so much Patricia for joining us today. Students please please make sure you follow her directions and make sure that you are reading your student handbook because I can guarantee you it is a very very important when it comes to our Dean of Students, office or student Living and Learning Office or public safety on campus, we make sure that measures are done to keep all of our students safe and our students really, really do appreciate that. So just making sure as you're coming into the.
Jade Felder
12:08:29 PM
Class Dean Meet and Greet Link: https://apply-undergrad.rpi.edu/register/?id=cd6c7bb6-8a5f-4862-81e9-71ab87310099
Community, you know exactly what is to be expected of students now before we go to our next presentation, which is Kevin Radien from our Student Health Center in Kevin, I want to make sure that I'm able to see you. I don't currently see on the video here, but I do want to make a plug right before we go into that. I just posted into the chat the class Dean meet and greet link and this is going to be happening on Thursday, so all of the students.
Who are currently not signed up for the class team meet and greet. I just wanted to do a quick plug on what exactly you need to make sure as far as the schedule is concerned that you're aware of for your class Dean. All of you are coming in as sophomores or juniors.
And you are going to be assigned to a class Dean. This is going to be the person that carries you from this fall 2021 term into.
All of the revenue, matriculation and graduation, so it is important that you know who this person is. This person is going to be helping you if there needs to be an excused absence. This person is going to be there to support you. If you have any holistic concerns. Let's say you break your arm or something and you need to get some immediate assistance and help to help you with getting your work assignments, communicating with your professors. These class teams are going to be basically your primary.
An essential person on campus. So if you have not already signed up for the meet and greet that is going to be happening on Thursday. Please make sure you click this link and sign up as we are doing the presentations now because it is imperative that I see all of your registrations for Thursday. As of now I don't have all 70 plus of you registered so please make sure you click that link and you're signing up for your class. Team presentation.
Because all three of them will be there and they will be excited to meet you all and and following that, most likely there will be some presentations, but also some one on one meetings that may be potentially taking place thereafter. So I just wanted to make that quick commercial plug as we are plowing through and I see Kevin Radien is here with us and we are going to jump right into our next presentation which is our student health services and I'm going to turn it over to Kevin.
Thank you, Jayden, and welcome everybody excited to be able to welcome you on behalf of Doctor Lawrence, our medical director, and the entire staff at the Student Health Center. As you see there on the screen, we are a multidisciplinary team of a variety of different aspects of health care, all here to help you have a successful semester. Whether it's medical care, counseling, health promotion or access to disability services.
I'll talk a little bit about those services as we go through the presentation this afternoon.
So we are located in Academy Hall. Most of our staff, the 4000 level, is where you'll find counseling services and disability services. 3000 level is where you'll find the medical staff and the health promotions death course. The varsity sports medicine folks are with the athletes up in the East Campus Athletic Village, but they're very much a part of US.
We are accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care. You know what does that mean? That means we bring in an outside agency. They look at all of our policies or practices are charting. You know how we deliver, care, how we're set up, and they make a determination. Should we be accredited or not? I'm very proud to say we've been accredited since 1996. In consecutive three year terms.
Our hours of service are typical business hours, Monday through Friday 8:30 to five course. Some things are, you know, a little disjointed or whatever because of the pandemic, but generally speaking you can get us in our office is 8:30 to five on a weekday. There are really great. I would say, really good access. Really great access to emergency services after our particularly medical. We have a uh Samaritan hospital right on the footprint of our campus. Basically run the.
Edge of our campus. So you've access to emergency room is very quick. You know you just heard from public safety and they talked about the 6611 emergency line or 911. If you ever fearing a loss of your life or limb and you need an ambulance, you're going to be able to get to your going to get emergency response quickly. And then you're going to be able to get to Samaritan Hospital quickly. Now, it's not that emergency type situation and you just need after hours care. It's kind of urgent.
Urgent three you can see three urgent care centers, all local to the campus. They'll have evening hours some till 9:00 o'clock and they'll have weekend hours so that if you do need some level of healthcare but not hospitalization, there's choices in the area.
We also have a 24 hour nurse line. If you see at the bottom of the screen.
If you just have a question or you're not sure, should I go to urgent care? Should I not? Should I take this medication? Is this a side effect of the medication I just started? You can kind of get a nurse advice through that vendor supported line and it could prevent you from having to go to the hospital. And maybe they'll just advise you to follow up later with us.
OK, next slide, thank you so you see on the screen here what medical services we provide. We will do some in person in telemedicine this semester. We know starting next Monday we will be open for vaccinated students to access us, but it's all at this point through a phone call. So if you have any need for a medical appointment, call us first. We may steer your tour to telemedicine, visit or to an in person, visit, and if so you'll be.
In an appointment and all the instructions at that point on how to access that care. But you can see we do really. It's a primary care office. You know, the traditional primary care services, you know the the Health Center at the campus you attended prior to RPI is probably had a very similar setup. One thing different is we do offer gynecological care on site for female students seeking sexual health care.
Counseling services can everything that you might imagine to deal with stress or time management. Grief, bereavement, anxiety, depression. We do have a psychiatrist on staff that can do medication monitoring. We're a place to just consult if you're concerned about a friend you know, I think my friend is having a mental breakdown. How can I help my friend? You know, reach out to us and we will talk through the scenario with you and help you out.
Again, there will be some Tele counseling and some in person with the majority of the counseling being in person.
Health promotion services can be reached through video and you'll see them very active on social media platforms you know. Please follow us in those areas, but you're going to have them occasionally drop into a class or residence hall. That kind of type scenario of providing education on any of the topics you see there on the screen. So it's it's a good resource if you don't feel like you need health care and health interventions or counseling interventions.
We just have a lot of questions around how do I eat healthy? How do I live a healthy lifestyle and stay on track academically?
For disability support, if you had accommodations.
For academic accommodations or any assistance in gaining equal access to academic programs or activities at your former college, you're going to want to reach out to our disability services.
Office to kind of reestablish those accommodations as as appropriate here at Rensselaer.
There's a lot of information on our website as well as an email address at the end of the presentation on how to reach out. If you haven't already to disability services.
All of our all the information we hold about you is confidential. It's you know we consider. It's your information. It's your information to control who who hears it and who it's released to. We don't key thing here is we will you come in for services, for you know, sprained ankle and you want us to consult with somebody or you want us to tell your class Dean or tell your faculty member.
That you're going to trouble getting to class or get an excuse for class. We're going to do that on a case by case individualized basis, so that released to talk to the class Dean about the sprained ankle. You know, three months later is irrelevant when it comes to if you come see us for like sexual health type questions, so the releases are disease and incident specific. No blanket release. You control the information and you tell us who we can give your information to.
That includes parents. Includes friends, roommates.
Eve Yaghi
12:18:06 PM
Just out of curiosity, what time does this orientation end?
Theresa Abbott
12:18:22 PM
Hi Eve, Orientation is scheduled until 1pm
So what do you what do you pay for those services you see on the screen here? 2 separate fees? You'll see both on your E bill. One is waivable, one is not. Think of it as it's not this black and white but think of it in those terms because there's very few exceptions. So the Health Center fee 344 per semester is the on campus services. It's not waivable that pays for all the services you just heard me talk about and all the staff that we have ready to assist you so everybody pays.
Upfront fee and then has virtually unlimited access to us. The health insurance fee, on the other hand, is the waivable one that's going to cover off campus as soon as we send you out to a dermatologist, send to the hospital to get an X ray, send you to the pharmacy. There's five local pharmacies great pharmacies in this area as well. All the major chains that you would expect the Walgreens CVS.
Walmart the price chopper come and I'm forgetting one.
Rite Aid, the one that's closest to the campus so.
Insurance you will need for any off campus services.
If we all go into a little bit more on this distinction as we go forward. So again, the 344 is all visits to Health Center, including the medical, the health education, the counseling. Anytime you're going to access, access access access. Can't say that for care and we are not going to ask you for insurance. We're not going to bill your insurance and you come in, and we're not going to ask you for a copay, so that may be different than you know when you walk off the street into a doctor's office or urgent care office, first thing they're going to say is not. How are you, how you doing?
They're going to say where's your insurance card and where's your check for $25 copay?
We don't do that. A lot of students get confused and say well I waive the insurance plan that the school has, so I can't visit the Health Center. No absolutely wrong. You can visit us. That 344 is your entry into the doors.
So, but like I said, it doesn't cover prescriptions referrals to specialists, hospitalizations, any of that. Once we send you out. So think again of it as the on campus non waivable fee.
The insurance plan against 755 that one is waivable. You have to waive with comparable insurance.
Uhm, so you know if you're coming from you know this will get people coming from outside the geographic area or coming from California with a Kaiser Permanente plan. That's very restrictive. And it it's great in their area, but outside of California it doesn't pay for services or it pays. But there's extreme out of cost. Out of pocket costs, so she so those are the kind of scenarios where you're going to want to be in the health insurance plan.
It's year round coverage.
Uh, and build in six month increments because so you'll see it on the fall bill and the Spring bill. But you see the coverage states there on the screen.
September 1st is our deadline. We want all students to make a decision here either in or out of the plan by then, and the form is on the online portal, which I'll talk about in a minute.
So the plan covers you, know all the things you see here on the on the screen. It's a very comprehensive plan. It's comparable to an employer based plan and comparable to what you know. What you probably had growing up from your parents. If they had a employer based plan, so it's very comprehensive, it's going to cover a lot of services off campus if we go to the next slide.
You'll see a little bit about the coverage we're going to encourage you to do in network.
Covered instead of out of network coverage because the you'll pay less money for in network providers, there is an out of network deductible. There's an example of how you're going to pay the 1st $1000 for any care that you receive.
And then the the CDPHP plan. The student plan will kick in.
But regardless, in network or out network there will be Co insurance and that's 20% for in network or out of network. So that basically means if the office visit charges $100, you'll pay 20 of that. The insurance pays the $80.
The piece of that you'll get a explanation of benefits and interest of time. I won't go into a lot of this.
And but you'll receive that in the mail anytime you use the health insurance and submit a claim, you'll get an explanation. Your benefits. You'll see what was covered, what was not, and how all that works.
So the decision you really need to make is should I waive the plan and it's a decision we want you to make every year. So every year you submit a waiver. It's good for the year, the fall, spring, the spring will wave in the fall.
In the spring, it will automatically be removed from your bill, but the following fall you will need to make that decision again. Do I have my circumstances changed? Have I aged out of my parents plan so now I need the Rensselaer plan? Those kind of things as your coverage changed. Has there been a? You know, sometimes a families employment will change. Our parents employer will change their plans so we want you to look at this every year and decide will you be covered in this area, not just your hometown?
Will specialists be covered? Will routine laboratory xrays. How prescriptions? How will that work off campus? How will you get access to care and how we pay for it with your insurance? Or with the Rensselaer insurance?
So again, this really just wanted to drive home the point that it's two fees, one not waivable the Health Center fee that covers on campus access off campus. You've got the your personal health insurance. Or you enroll in the student health insurance plan.
So this this is looking like this.
Slide did not transfer over well, so let's just skip right to the next one.
All of our forms, the health insurance one, the COVID related Community agreement forms the COVID related testing forms and all of the pre entrance General Medical forms all go through our student health portal. So there you see the link up at the top RPI student portal.com. There's the landing page. The bar across the top, the top arrow pointing at.
It's kind of a status bar. You're looking for green checks. You want green checks. It's saying you're compliant in these different areas, not the red X, but please give us time to process, you know, give us a week to 10 days to get through. We have mountains of forms that we're going through and you're not going to see an instant green check once you submit your forms to us. It's gonna take a little while, so consult back to the portal. Please don't call and email us 'cause that, just in general slows us down.
We will reach out if you've sent informs where our nurses review it and then decide where you're missing something. We're going to reach out and tell you to get a tetanus booster or to get your meningitis shot. You don't have one. Those kind of things, but so in the meanwhile.
It kind of goes. You feel like it's gone into a black hole because you submit it. You can't see what you've submitted. Just be patient. Things will work through their way through the system.
All transfer students need to do the online education programs there is. You may have done this for one one or both of these programs. One is the alcohol Edu, the other is sexual assault prevention for undergraduates. You may have done that at your prior institution.
These courses have specialized content for rensselear, so there is no waiver to get out of it. If you've done it already, Please be patient with us and just dive into the programs and go ahead and do them.
The confusing thing around these courses is there are two courses and two parts to each course there's a 30 day intermission between the part one and part two of each course. So you're you're not satisfied. The requirement until you do both courses and both parts. So again, it's we're asking for your patience. You you get into the system, you do part one of both. You wait those 30 days. The system will then email you and say you're now eligible.
To go in and do Part 2. That's a brief refresher and a follow-up survey, and then you're done, and then it does take us awhile to extract the data from the vendor and then upload it to your portal. To say you you are compliant fully with those.
So keep a screenshot of the course completion data in case anything goes wrong technically, and some at some point we're saying doesn't look like you did it. You've got the screenshot to show proof that you did.
The and then just the other thing I want to emphasize is the deadlines associated with those courses. August 30th and then 30 days later September 30th. You should be done with with Part 2 so so I'm sure I've already started. If you haven't started.
Get started please soon on that then our last slide here has all of our contact information. Wealth of information on our website.
Please consult with that. There's a you could see the emails for all the different areas within the Health Center to the extent that you can target your email question to the right place, that's great, so it's counseling question. Go to counseling@rpi.edu effects health insurance that you questioned about health insu at rpi.edu that will help us triage it to the right people and pick up the phone and give us a call if you have any questions. We wish you a great semester and are really glad you're joining us. That's it.
It's an exciting time as much as it's a crazy time due to the pandemic, but the campus is coming alive again and we look forward to serving it.
Thank you so much for the presentation Kevin. I just want to reiterate to the students. August 30th and September 30th. You have to get those things done. Please make sure that you get the alcohol Edu all of the different things you have to have done. No excuses. The Health Center will be on you about it. This is just a plug that for all 70 plus of you, please make sure you get those things done. OK, so now we are going to move into our next presentation and I'd like to introduce our director.
For international services. For our students and scholars, Mary Nellis, turning over to you, Mary.
You're muted Mary. Go ahead and click your microphone at the top.
Got it, can you hear me now? Yes, the these these ones on this on this presentation or are counter intuitive I think, but here we are. I'm always being asked to unmute myself. I want to say welcome to everybody again. I want to express and follow up with Kevin sentiment that we're really excited to have everybody here this fall, even with all the challenges having our students back.
And joining us in person, it really brings a lot of life back and we we work with students and so we're all excited to see you.
What international students and scholars I triple S does for international students is we help our international students maintain their visa status throughout the time here at Rensselaer Polytechnic. We don't work for the government, we work for RPI and we work for our students. So that means that during your time with us you can come to our office. You can join us in our virtual advising hours and we will answer.
Any question that you have, we are required to report some things for our international students to into see this related to your visa status, but we don't report the questions that you ask and we encourage you to come with us with any of your visa and immigration related questions because it's better to ask US early than to wait until something is too late. When we we can't give you good advice.
As listed here, we provide a number of services.
Related to your immigration status. So we work with F1 and J1 students. We also work with visiting J1 scholars. We do a lot of liaison both with our our federal agencies to to learn about what's going on from them and bring it to our students as well as a liaison across campus. So we work really closely with our partners both in student life and in the academic departments.
To help keep our students.
Keep our students informed as well as keeping the departments updated with issues that are related to our international students and we provide direct support to our international students. Again, we provide.
Virtual advising everyday we also have a link for some general questions and we do some programs. We do everything from providing workshops on optional practical training and curricular practical training. We work with closely with CCPD to help keep our international students updated and informed and knowledgeable about how to navigate these kinds of special.
Benefits of your student visa and we also do some social programs. For example, next week we're going to be having a couple different ice cream socials for our incoming and continuing students, and so we'd like to invite you out next week. You keep an eye out for your email as soon as those are finalized, we will be sending a sign up for you.
We can move on to the next slide, so I want to let you know that as a transfer student transfer in international student. Whether you're coming from internationally or whether you're coming from inside the United States transferring from those schools, your record has been handled individually, and each of you kind of have a specific situations that you may have questions about.
So that includes your I-20 you you should have received your I-20 transfer in I-20 by now. If you have not, you can reach out to the email that's listed here in the complete your electronic check-in. We also have what's going on now now that you are with us.
Going to remind you that you need to check your email because as an international student you have some reporting that you have to do to us. OK, you received an email that said application created that's from our office and that is to help us do your electronic check-in and international student orientation. Now that you're with us, you're required to submit your documents to us so that we can. We can register your ceves record.
And as well, we have put together and I triple S orientation for all of our incoming and transfer students because it will provide you with all sorts of information about maintaining your visa status. And so you're going to be required to take that the due date for that is September 5th. So if you have not received this email with the subject application created, please reach out to our assistant director, Emily Abuse, at the email listed there.
And she will get back to you and make sure that your documents are issued properly and that you get into our system to go through that.
You can contact us so many ways and I'm going to also put in the chat. I'm going to put some.
Mary Nellis
12:34:38 PM
https://info.rpi.edu/isss/new-f1-students
Mary Nellis
12:34:54 PM
https://info.rpi.edu/international-services-students-and-scholars/isss-covid-19-info/#Services
Information from you in the chat. Here's some information for all incoming F1 students. Brand new and transfer. I'm also going to put some information in the chat now. This is general information about our services, including advising and just general question contact. You can find a lot of information on our website.
And our email is checked constantly, so don't hesitate to reach out via email. I would also. I'm sure you've heard this multiple times, but right now is a time where we are receiving a lot of emails so you have to give us a little bit of time to respond. So give us if you send an email, give us three or four days, I guarantee we will respond and we will either forward you on appropriately or we will answer that question directly. But wait a few days before you send a second email, OK?
That just helps us to help you efficiently.
And I believe that we also, I would say the quickest way to get ahold of us is actually you can. There's a link there for our general questions and as well virtual advising, so especially for kind of more complicated questions.
Hop into virtual advising. We have ours every single day and we are happy to meet with you face to face to answer some more of your complicated questions. And that's what I've got. Jade. Thank you so much. Again, we're really excited to see everybody here this fall.
Thank you so much very for doing the presentation for our students today. You guys please make sure in the chat please click on those links that Mary has provided for you all. Get in touch with her office if there is anything that we can do to support you. Any of the students as far as your status, anything related to our international scholars and services, please make sure you connect with Mary's office. We are now going to move into a very important part.
Mary Nellis
12:36:42 PM
I will stay here for a few minutes if any of our Transfer students have a general question :)
Mary Nellis
12:37:04 PM
*Int'l Transfers
Of your transition and it is the academic overview done by our senior academic advisor, David Milford. You all need to make sure you're listening. I know that we have a few questions coming into the chat. We are going to do the Q&A directly after all our presenters, so David will present and then we will have one final presentation from our associate director in the CCPD. And then we will jump into all of these great questions that are coming in. I am so happy to see that you all are answered.
Getting those chat features going so David will present and then if you have questions for him as well, go ahead and plop those into the chat, because I'm pretty sure you'll have academic questions. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to you. David, thank you for being with us.
Oh, thanks jade. It's good to be here. I hope you can all hear me.
Uhm, I'm happy to welcome you to Rensselaer. You've made a great choice in in coming over and I think that you'll you'll really enjoy.
Being part of our community so.
What we're going to talk about today is choosing your major, your courses with appropriate research and care. Speaking with your academic advisor. That's that's provided for you. Carefully considering your AP and transfer credits that are coming in, you may or may not want to take those credits. You may want to retake a course while you're here at Rensselaer, so you're going to work with your advisor on those issues, and we want you to try to be flexible.
With alternate registration plans, you're not probably not going to get the perfect schedule this semester. A lot of courses are closed by our current students. If you need a specific course, we will make every effort to get you into that course, but we ask you to be flexible and to consider different options. And of course, your advisor will work with you on that so.
Alright, so the difference between your Community College and RPI or the school may be that you're coming from your study time. RPI is pretty difficult. It's a rigorous school, so you may find that the time that you need to study and to prepare yourself is greater than what you've had before.
You need to manage your time well, so I would recommend that you get a planner or use an electronic calendar to keep track of your courses and actually block in study times two to three hour blocks of times that you can set aside to study and commit to those times.
Uhm, the number of your tests and quizzes. You'll all get a syllabus at the beginning of the year which outlines exactly what are the requirements for every class, so you'll know when your tests are when your quizzes are, when your projects are due, and you need to kind of plot that out. And you know, make sure you've got those on a calendar and you may have a week or two of pretty rigorous.
Study times in terms of having you know two tests in one week or a test and a project and another quiz in one week. So you've got to make sure that you're on top of that and that you're preparing in advance for that kind of thing.
Of course, your grades are based on your performance and dumb.
You know, that's that's very important. So what about time management? Well, it's critical you guys really need to make sure that you're managing your time well.
Limiting things like computer games and excessive social media. If you're working an outside job, which many of you might be, you may not be able to work 20 to 30 hours a week like you have been able to before. You may want to cut that down to 10 hours a week until you figure out exactly what is expected of you at RPI, so things will definitely pick up in terms of you know the busyness as the semester progresses, so.
Don't think that the first week, UM, when there really isn't a lot of homework yet and a lot of assignments do that. That's going to be what it's like as you get into October and November, it's going to be much, much more busy for you so.
OK, nobody knows that you are a transfer student and that you're new to campus except your academic advisor or someone that you tell. So the instructors will just expect you to know how things go.
Introduce yourself to your professors and let them know that you're a new student so that they can give you a heads up. Or you know you can be known by them, so that if you need to stop by their office hours you've already been acquainted with them.
Uhm, other undergraduate students don't know that you're new, so you need to introduce yourself. You need to make sure that you are helping helping them understand that you don't necessarily know all the things that they might know. So ask questions, be be ready to you know.
Make friends and and join in with other people.
Clubs and organizations are great way to get involved to get to know people come I would recommend not joining too many in the beginning. You want to just join one or two clubs and become part of those. Maybe look at an organization or club that's related to your major so that you can start to meet other people in your major and there are many many clubs out there and and you'll get information about.
Activities fair or club fair, where all clubs will be represented. You know, through your email. So look for that on campus.
How and when do you judge your academic performance? Well, you need to be conservative until after the first exam in each course, and that may not come for about six weeks into the semester. Five or six weeks in a judge. Your performance in relation to the mean of the class. Oftentimes, professors will tell you this is the average score on this exam, so see if you're above that. You're probably doing OK if you're below that, you might need.
To study a little more or a little differently.
Uhm, we have something that's called an electronic warning system.
If new miss several classes in a row if you have failed an exam or professor seems to think that you're lost in the class, they may put in an EWS which will go to your advisor. It will go to the Student Success Office. It will also go to you, of course, and it will let you know that the professor wants you to come to office hours and speak with them or.
You haven't handed in two assignments that were expected and that you need to get those done.
You know there are many different things in an EWS can say, but it just gives you a sense if you might not be on track or you might be missing something, so being aware of the fact that you'll get those through email so.
Next step, so my office which is a lack or the advising and learning assistance center and can provide you with many resources we have what are called learning assistants. These are for new students, upper class students living in the first year and other residence halls. We have both freshman and sophomore elese learning assistance and they can assist you.
With academic issues or problems. So if you're living on campus in a residence hall, find out who your LA is. They will have some regular office hours in their room or in a lounge right near their room. You can stop by and talk to them. You can just drop in and ask them a question that you might have. So utilize that student as someone who's knowledgeable and knows what you're going through.
And is ready to help you out.
We also have drop in tutoring for all students. Most of these are first and second year classes which you may need to be taking some of UM, and that schedule will be posted at the end of the first week of classes. We have to get all of our tutors lined up and our slots. Most of that will be virtual this year, but you can use our Webex system and log in virtually to talk to a tutor or to ask questions too.
You know, go through a problem that you're you're not really sure how to solve, so take advantage and this is all free. This is no charge tutoring for you, so these are upper class students that have done very well in the class that you're taking gotten an A or an A minus and are also.
A good tutor or good teacher able to interact well with students.
You can also come to our office for a one on one session. There are four different staff members in our office that can meet with you. Sit down with you, talk to you about time management, test anxiety, balancing your academic and social needs. What I call academic coaching and you can meet with us to improve on your study skills to improve on your habits so that you can become a better student.
Coaching, as you know often is associated with athletics and you train and you have a coach that will help you to build your skills and to become a better athlete. Well, this is for academics. We're going to coach you to help you to become better and to become.
An even better student, so feel free to stop by our office and or shoot an email out to us to make an appointment with someone so that you can utilize our resources.
Also, we have supplemental instruction offered in the more challenging courses like Physics one and Calculus 2.
Students are, or staff that are able to assist you with these classes.
English is the second language, actually isn't part of our office anymore, but there is that availability on campus. If you're interested in that.
And then we have RREWS system which I just mentioned a minute ago.
So if you've got some problems, if you don't think you're going doing well academically, you want to talk to your professor or instructor or your Kia. Your teaching assistant. Almost every class has a teaching assistant, which is a graduate student. Again, an expert in this area in this class, and they can help you with your issues or problems.
Next, talk with talk to your advisor.
You know for any issue that you might have in terms of academics in terms of your schedule or in terms of you know, not being sure you're in the right class or whatever. Make sure you use your advisor as a resource.
You can also seek advice from your class Dean. There are Deans for every single class freshman through senior and graduate students, but there's a class team that is dedicated to junior cohort that will assist you in many, many different ways.
Again, you can come to our office. The advising and Learning Assistance Center, and you can schedule to do group tutoring online through our office as well as you can get assessment of time and stress management, study or learning skills assessments.
And we have also a learning disabilities office, so if you know that you have a learning disability, if it's something that you've worked with in the past, you've utilized resources on the campus that you've come from, you should connect with our Director of Learning Disabilities so that you can get the accommodations that you might need for your learning disability. Whether it's extra time for exams or needing a note taker in class or whatever it is our learning disability specialists can.
And then finally other things you need to consider. A study groups connect with students in your classes so that you can form a study group, even if it's one other person. It's often helpful to discuss and talk about what you are learning, what you're going through.
Bouncing, bouncing off each other, what you heard and lecture versus what they heard or quizzing each other for a quiz that might be coming up. It's great to study with other students that are in your classes, and it's also great to form friendships that way too. And then finally, our counseling center is available to any student. You can make an appointment with a counselor if you're feeling anxious or you're feeling overwhelmed or you have a history of depression or or whatever it might be. We have counselors that are available to you.
Uhm, and you can make appointments for regular regular appointments with them in the counseling center.
Finally, come and this is a really important piece that you all need to be aware of.
As a transfer student, you are required to have four full semesters of undergrads as an undergraduate student at Rensselaer, so 64 credits minimum, you have to complete at Rensselaer. Many of you are coming in with 40 or 50 credits, and that's great, but you need to have that minimum of four full semesters and 64 credits at Rensselaer.
We consider 12 credits full time, but 12 * 4 does not equal 64, right? So you need to think about.
The credits that you need to have a typical load for most students is 16 credits. That's four classes and that will get you to the 64 credits that you need. At least at Rensselaer.
Uhm, and then graduate graduate work will not fulfill those those requirements and you need to complete a plan of study for your major and meet has and science core requirements as well.
OK, thank you very much. Been great to be here for you and if you have any questions you can find me in a lack and I'd be happy to assist you.
Thank you so much David for that presentation and for joining us today. We also have some questions that are in the chat and they are great questions that are coming in. I want to remind everyone once we French presentations we are going to dive into getting all these questions answered that I see coming in. I will release them into the chat so that all of the students can see those questions and then.
Will be ending there. I have one more presentation and it is none other than our associate director of the Career Center with us today by Eric and Teresa is going to share her screen so we can make sure Eric's presentation is loaded here. Then we'll transfer it back over to the main presentation here and we will close out with our Q&A and some last minute plugs of the schedule for transfer Transition week this entire week and then we will go from there.
Alright, so I'm just going to jump right in, so I'm actually going to switch gears a little bit, so I think we're just going to kind of walk through handshake quickly. I know there's a lot of information that you all have received today. It's all great. I'm even learning things, but you know, career development is a little bit different in that you each really have this individual skillset and values and strengths and visions for your future, right? So yes, we can share with you really the resources.
That we have, but it's really individualized process, right in terms of what your exploration and planning process looks like is going to be different as a business major than in aeronautical engineering, right? So we're here to kind of guide and support you along your journey, so I oversee a team of career counselors and so we have a specific career counselor for each academic area in school to really be knowledgeable about the employers that are existing within that academic major. How?
To navigate a job search as that specific major or within that industry and helping you connect to the right people. If that's current students who have done internships and co-ops at a company you're interested in, or alumni or employers in that particular field as well. So the best thing you can really do from an early point is to develop that relationship with your career counselor. And so I will take you through how to schedule an appointment with your career counselor as mentioned.
Earlier handshake is is also a feature for searching for jobs and internships available to you and also has our large employer base as well.
Now, moving into the fall semester, we will have in person and virtual appointment options that you will be able to select which one works best for you. But all of our sort of employer recruiting will be virtual this year just for safety and travel and whatnot, and that'll be pretty common from university to university, but we'll show you how to see what employers are engaging with us as well using handshake as our sort of system so I'll be quick because I know we're tight on time.
But you might if you use handshake at your former institution.
But on the front page here it'll take you to how to view our school resources.
So if you click this here.
It'll take you to our dashboard, so here the main feature you'll probably want to use is appointments in resources. When you secure an internship or Co-op down the road, that's when you would use this experiences tab. But if you click appointments here.
You put here. Schedule a new appointment.
And then you'd pick a category so you know ideally, it's going to be what school you're involved in. If you're a double major, or if you are maybe looking more in the engineering field, but you're a school science student, you could also do that. This is kind of how we break up. What counselors see who. And then there's also an option for if you're trying to register an internship or Co-op to talk to our experiential learning team. So we'll just say.
Your school of engineering.
And then you can pick here from whatever topic that you're interested in. So if you're not even sure where to begin and you know you don't have a resume, or you're not sure what you really even want to talk about, you could just do a career exploration or a CCPD overview. But also a good place to start is to just bring in whatever resume you have that lets us really understand a little bit more about your career journey and how we help you share your career story and make that connecting to resume and cover letter and LinkedIn and and that really important part of the search.
So if you click this here, it'll show you our most recent availability right now you'll see all sort of career counselors, but moving forward you'll only see the ones who are specifically work with your majors. So say we'll just click here, Kristen, so say.
This time works well for you. It looks like maybe we have to adjust the Standard Time. We do have flexible openings you can take and you can see us as early as 7:00 AM. This latest 7:00 PM most days, but for this you would just click this.
This will have an in person option as well, so you'd pick what you're comfortable with, either Webex meeting and email console, or in person and then just give us an idea, sort of what you're looking for, and that's how you would schedule an appointment, and then we would send you either a Webex link or an instructions for what our process will look like within the office.
If you're looking for jobs, internships, co-ops, fellowships, UM, these are all opportunities that are posted to RPI, so we encourage you to be checking this regularly. We're already seeing things posted for next summer, so definitely, you know. Follow companies you're interested in making it a point to check up on handshake regularly as we approve new postings daily on here, so there's always something new to see when you look on here.
We do a career fair every fall and spring, so the fall it's put on by two student groups, Nesby chef and this year will be virtual. It's over the course of three days and you'll connect with employers virtually. And then we're also doing some similar types of events in October for that more specific industry one, so we'll have an engineering and architecture career fair in October and then sort of in all others major in October as well. And then next February will do another big one where we're seeing 100.
and to find more information about that, you can always just go to this events tab here.
Uhm, all of our events going up, so you can kind of filter through if you just want to see what's coming up this week.
You can see all the different events that we have. This is different. Employers can post events, some of them are our events and workshops that we put on, but you'll see a good amount of things here just happening even today. So from some bigger name companies, so check it out.
Engage with that, build your profile if you want to start with really learning how to leverage handshake, that's a great kind of starting point to getting to know our team. We work closely with, like many said to folks on this call between career exploration and international students. So very collaborative and just eager to support you through this process so.
Erika Cary
01:00:14 PM
Hi from the CCPD! -Center for Career and Professional Development: E:Mail: ccpd@rpi.edu . My E-Mail: carye@rpi.edu . To schedule an appointment, view jobs, attend employer events: rpi.joinhandshake.com . Discord link: https://discord.gg/dDQwjc2
All kind of just end there. UM, for the purpose of time, but I'm looking forward to connecting with you. I'll put in the chat box here just the best ways to communicate with us. A link to how to get into handshake, and we're pretty active on discord as well.
Awesome, thank you so much Erica, right on spot right on time. So we are going to jump right into the question segment for the students. I do want to plug really quickly. There's about nine students that I need to connect with after everyone has disconnected from the call and we wrap up. So if I call your name, please plan to stay on the line. OK, KED windy as win Boma, Liam McDermott.
Sydney Swedick
01:01:11 PM
I do not know what classes are the best for me to take based on my degree program and what I am transferring in. Since I will not be following the traditional path for my degree. I tried to get in contact with my advisor and ask, but he said I should get in touch with someone in Transfer Services.
Marcus Morgan, Natalie Perusi, Feyenoord Truong Stuart Wells William Wood and Yang Zing. OK, if I just called your name, please stay on at the very end because I need to speak with you all. After we've wrapped up. So let's jump right in. I'm going to start with Sidney Sidney. I did also get your email. You are a biomedical engineering student and I will be emailing you back.
Marcus Morgan
01:01:23 PM
If I am arriving early, how soon will I have access to my dorm?
Shortly, just to make sure you get connected and get everything settled OK, Marcus has asked about I'm arriving early. How soon will have access to my dorm beginning on Friday? Marcus, uh the 27 you could probably even have access to it the 26th or the 25th, but I will email Michael Sitterly or the Dean of living in learning if you need to get in any earlier than that, send me an email so that I can advocate for you and you can move in.
Ahead of time with our we have our athletes. Some of our upperclassmen that are moving in that are student leaders, so we may be able to help you out there, but just make sure you email us email the student transitions email and we will make sure we get that done for you. OK?
Theresa Abbott
01:02:07 PM
Marcus - email studenttransitions@rpi.edu
Marion is saying is Health Center.
Marian Delgado
01:02:11 PM
is the health center at RPI phone line currently working for questions? I tried calling earlier today however it seemed to be disconnected
Currently working for questions, I tried calling earlier today however seem disconnected. I would say start with Health Center at rpi.edu Marion. Start there they are on email because a lot of our testing people are at the facilities right now. A petty cab in the Health Center as people are coming back to campus. OK so just you know Health Center rpi.edu and I'm I'm almost 100% positive someone will get back to you as soon as possible OK?
Nicholas Malzone
01:02:47 PM
For the dorming, were transfer students assigned to transfer students?
Uhm, Nicholas said for the Dorming, where transfers assigned with transfer students. I do not know the specifics, but whether or not you were assigned with another transfer student, it would be helpful if you are. But we also have the transfer student network that's on Facebook. I am also going to plug you guys into the trends student transitions guidebook. This is where you're going to be able to connect with other transfer students directly. OK, I'm pretty sure you guys are, you know, wanting to make those connections.
Together as a cohort, as you're coming in, so even if you're not paired with a transfer student in your dormitory, we do have two other mechanisms to where you can connect with other transfers. OK, hopefully that answers that question.
Chinenye Urama
01:03:36 PM
can I schedule a tuberculosis screening? if I can, how and when?
Eve Yaghi
01:03:50 PM
Thank you!
Chinenye Urama
01:03:59 PM
I received my first dose of the covid vaccine recently, can I receive the second on campus?
She and Dean wants to know can I schedule tuberculosis screening if I can, how and when email the Health Center for that when she any. I don't know specifically, but I'm pretty sure all of the services that our associate director Kevin Radien covered that would be included in there. OK, we answered her question for EVE. She said thank you. OK, Channey had another question. I received my first dose of the COVID vaccine recently. Can I receive the second one on campus? The answer is.
Yes, so you need to make sure that you schedule with our Health Center Health Center at rpi.edu. Let them know that you need the second dose of your vaccine. I believe we have both Pfizer and Moderna. If I am not mistaken, we do have those two available. I'm not sure if we have the Johnson and Johnson, but yes, students can scheduled to get their vaccinations finished on our campus OK.
Marian Delgado
01:04:33 PM
is the $755 per semester for insurance through RPI?
Uhm, Marion wanted to know is the $755 per semester for insurance through RPI. Yes, that is correct. So they have two of them, so the one through RPI, that one is the one that you would continue to do in renew yearly. And if you don't want the RPI insurance, what Kevin noted is that you have to opt out of it. So all of the billing, all of the fees when you log into your SIS account, you're going to see all of the bills that are related to you.
Marian Delgado
01:05:05 PM
how will that work if you are missing certain things and you are already on campus?
OK so uhm Marian also asked how will that work if certain things are missing and you're already on campus, what you'll need to do is for your specific account you want to make sure that if you do have the RPI health insurance plan that you see the billing for it and most of the students have to wave out of it so we automatically have it associated to this problem and you have to waive out of it if you don't want to use it, you have your parents insurance or supplemental insurance on the website as well.
Noah Cussatti
01:05:56 PM
I did the Online education programs in January, but I deferred from the Spring semester to the Fall semester. Should I do the programs again?
They will show you what the insurance needs to include in order to be considered viable for RPI, so it can't just be you know any old insurance ready to say. Oh I have it. It has to meet, you know a certain criteria for our institution and they have that information available on their website. OK no, I asked. I did the online education programs in January but I deferred from the spring semester to the fall semester. Should I redo the programs if you're referring to the alcohol Edu know of the answer is yes. OK, definitely make sure you do it.
Martin Daniels
01:06:04 PM
Health insurance information page. Access to waiver by expanding topic section. https://studenthealth.rpi.edu/insurance
Michael Pastore
01:06:06 PM
Are these courses available in Percipio?
For fall 2021 OK, are these courses available in PRECIPIO? Michael asked so I spoke with Kevin briefly right after he had to go up to testing, so he had to leave us, but we will be sending out a correspondence to all of their transfer students and it will most likely be on Wednesday, he said. So we're going to make sure that all of you have the link because I see some students in the chat were not able to access it, so I immediately contacted him as we were going through the presentation so the Health Center courses.
Fatemeh Amiri
01:06:33 PM
Where can I find these health courses?
Nancy Asante
01:06:37 PM
Where can the training courses be accessed please?
Gabrielle Comeau
01:06:39 PM
Where can I find these educational programs to complete?
Will be available to you. You'll click on a link on Wednesday. It looks like we had a few other students who had that question. Nancy, some others.
Xiheng Liu
01:06:51 PM
I have a problem. I can't open Online Alcohol and Sexual Assault Education Programs, it said "Your institution does not currently have any active cohorts for AlcoholEdu for College, Sexual Assault Prevention for Undergraduates (SAPU). Your login link may be old or invalid. Please try again or report the error to your institution."
Eve Yaghi
01:06:54 PM
I don't see a spot/link for me to complete the alcohol education assignment on the health portal?
Uhm, so I'll go ahead and clear those just so that you all know you will be able to access them beginning on Wednesday. OK, today's Monday. So on Wednesday you'll be able to access those. Let's see.
Nicholas Malzone
01:06:57 PM
For the dorming, were transfer students assigned to transfer students?
Chinenye Urama
01:07:00 PM
can I schedule a tuberculosis screening? if I can, how and when? and I received my first dose of the covid vaccine recently, can I receive the second on campus?
Eve, everyone's asking about that. OK, Nicholas, we got your question about the dorms.
Kedwin Diaz
01:07:11 PM
I decided to go to RPI late, because of some circumstances, and I do not have the RPI email or a designated adviser. How can I proceed to get advice and enroll in classes?
Paritosh Kaushik
01:07:19 PM
What was the mailing address for on-campus living?
We got the question about the screenings. OK, soak Edwin. Yes, you're one of the students that I have to see on the call afterwards, so I'll approve your question, but we will definitely talk 'cause I want to make sure you guys get you get connected as you joined us a little late. What was the mailing address for on campus living is what Paritosh asked. Let me go back to that for you.
Matthew Glanz
01:07:54 PM
I am required to take a half semester course for this coming fall and currently have a junior standing, leaving me two credits short of the 64 required for graduation, how do I fill those two credits without taking a whole extra semester?
And this is for all transfer students. Any student in RPI. When you get mail, this is the email. So everybody take a screenshot of this screenshot. This so that you're able to make sure that your mail is able to come through OK, so Matthew asks, I am required to take half semester courses for this coming fall and currently dream standing, leaving Me 2 credits short of the 64 required for graduation. How do I fill those two credits without taking a whole extra semester? David, if you want to speak to that.
You can, I would say my personal I. I would say you want to look at some electives to get that done, but you definitely want to make sure that you connect with your faculty advisor about how you're going to go about getting those credits. Because as David mentioned, those 64 credits that need to come from RPI are essential, and I'll just go right back to that slide. David. Was there anything else you wanted to say about that?
Yeah, no, I would just say, UM, the student should work with their advisor. You know they can take those extra 2 credits at some point in time on in a given semester if needed and just take 18 credits rather than 16. But the best thing is just to work with their advisor, 'cause they can. They can fashion that the best with them.
Liam Greeley
01:08:50 PM
In regards to the COVID travel restrictions, is travel restricted to inside Troy only?
OK perfect, perfect thank you David. Liam wants to know in regards to the COVID travel restrictions. Is travel restricted to inside Troy only right? So our campus has a travel restriction on any outsiders coming in. As far as students going out or or traveling within the RPI community like to downtown Troy or up Hoosick St to the local places? That's fine, but we're we're more so concerned about the travel of people coming into the institution into the residence hall into the spaces where we are creating.
Sort of like a bubble to ensure that all the students and faculty and staff remain safe, so the travel restriction to our knowledge for fall 2021 is in place. Our leadership sent out a communication about fall 2021 and what I will do. I will make a note to add that to my transfer communication going out to you all following transfer transition week where you'll be doing a survey on everything that takes place this week will include that information as well, just so that you all have it, OK?
Jacob Haqq
01:09:46 PM
How do we see our housing assignment?
Jacob asked, how do we see our housing assignments? Jacob, if you log into star rez on your star risk portal, you should be able to see your housing assignment. OK, once you go in there, if you're unable to see your housing assignment in the star Rez portal and star is STARREZ. Once you're logging in there, it should be available, but if you don't see it there, you definitely want to email student living and learning at rpi.edu or no, actually it's rez life.
Theresa Abbott
01:10:32 PM
reslife@rpi.edu
James Taylor
01:10:41 PM
I have several issues that I need to get ironed out (Finacial aid and advisement for classes) should I just go to handshake and make a Webex appointment?
Andrpi.edu the SSL is their website, so you want to email reslife RESLIFE at rpi.edu. If you cannot see your assignment after you've logged into your store, reads OK James, you have some things you want to get ironed out with financial aid and advisements. Should I just schedule an appointment and make a Webex appointment? So James for financial aid, our director Marty Daniels is on with a Smarty.
How should he just schedule with finaid@rpi.edu? Or how should he go about doing that?
Martin Daniels
01:11:10 PM
finaid@rpi.edu
Yes Jade I would say that at this point we're close enough to the classes that you should schedule an appointment directly with us. I'll put our office email in the chat box and you can contact us there and we'll get something set up, either Webex or phone is fine.
Perfect, OK, so that's for that question and for advising it would need to go through your faculty advisor. If you don't know who that is, just send me an email that student transitions at rpi.edu and I will connect you to the department directly to make sure that someone is connecting with you about it, OK.
Eric Soares
01:11:33 PM
I never received an email to complete the alcoholedu courses. Am I supposed to wait for an email link?
And Eric was asking about the alcohol Edu courses so you guys, we will definitely have that to you on Wednesday. OK, I will be on a plane on Thursday saying Tom says coming from out of UM.
Zetong Fang
01:11:47 PM
I will be on the plane on Thursday, may I ask how I can attend the Class Dean Meet ?
OK, may I ask how I can attend the class meet greet so Zing tongue what I'm gonna say is we will be on those on the meet and greet Thursday with the class themes but for any transfer student that does not attend this meeting greet you will have to have a one on one follow up meeting with your class team so it is important that you are at the meet and greet Thursday. So it seems like you'll be flying in on Thursday so we are going to have to schedule a one on one meeting with you and your class Dean so please.
Email me, but I will already know who has not attended the session on Thursday. Based on the attendees. So I will be reaching out to those students individually. If you do not attend the meeting greet, you will have to schedule one on one meeting to meet your class team because they are an essential part to your success here at Rensselaer.
Marian Delgado
01:12:37 PM
thank you, is it okay if I email you regarding some other questions I have today?
Michael Pastore
01:12:52 PM
Is there a covid vaccine exemption?
Theresa Abbott
01:13:00 PM
You can email Jade at studenttransitions@rpi.edu
Yes, Miriam just want to know can she emailed me about some other things happening today? Absolutely any other questions shoot me an email at the student transition site and that's what I'll be the the quickest response there. OK, Michael wants to know is there a COVID vaccine exemption? Good good question. There is a religious accommodation form and a medical accommodation form. Both of those are available through emailing health services at rpi.edu.
There have been some religious accommodations approved as well as health accommodations approved, but it will need to be reviewed and you will receive an approval or a declination directly from the Health Center. So you want to get that done as soon as possible. I also want to transfer students to be aware that we do have a COVID-19 website that has a whole entire list of the FA cues.
Fnu Riya
01:13:57 PM
Hello, as I was applying through some internship options but they all ask for my current GP and as a transfer student, my current GPA at RPI is 0.0. So, how should I answer that question on applications?
That students can come look at, you know, review as it relates to the vaccination requirement for our campus. OK, so we got those done and then we have a. Is it for new? Hello, I was applying through some internship options but they all asked for my current GPA and as a transfer student my current GPA is at 0. So how should I answer the question on the application? Great question is Erica still with us?
Theresa Abbott
01:14:16 PM
email ccpd@rpi.edu
Erica, are you still with us? If not, what I have you do is email cpde@rpi.edu because that's actually a great question. So what this student is referring to is when all transfer students join up your GPA for RPI hasn't been set until you have your first semester grade, so that will be at the end of the fall 2021 term. So if you want to start applying to the internships, co-ops, etc. Especially for those who are arts designated for the summer, everyone has to do a semester away term and I'll talk a little bit more about that.
Eve Yaghi
01:14:54 PM
Do vaccinated students have to get tested for COVID?
Come in tomorrow's presentation, but yes, please make sure you email the CPD at rpi.edu to ask them any specific questions related to internships, co-ops, civic engagement, whether it's international or domestic OK, do vaccinated students have to get tested for kovid? This is EVE question. Yes, there will be a testing schedule, so I would say make sure that you're staying connected on the the COVID-19 website, because that's where everything is.
Going to be posted about testing, but as far as we know, all faculty, staff and students are scheduled to be or should be vaccinated before we return to campus. And so since you guys start classes on the 30th, all students should be vaccinated before that time.
Jack Ballard
01:15:20 PM
How do I get my student ID?
Jack had a quick question about how do I get my student ID? This is going to be in the RPI rental in the Ridgely reunion. I'm going to say RPI Union, the Rensselaer Union on the 1st floor. That is where you can pick up your rensler identification card. You can submit a picture or you can take a picture there, but that is a great great question for all of the transfers. Considering Patricia in her public safety presentation talked about the fact that you're going to need that identification card to key into different places.
Like the library Seabus the different labs, the different workshops you're going to need, that identification card and it also keeps your Rensselaer identification number on there as well. So if you get to campus on Friday, if you get to campus on Thursday, make sure you go to the Rensselaer Union and pick up your ID on the 1st floor, OK?
Eric Perez
01:16:19 PM
Are we supposed to have a campus access card before classes begin?
And are we supposed to have campus access cards before we begin classes? Yes, so you can pick those up as soon as you get to campus. You can go and pick it up at the Rensselaer Union. So because we have some students that may come in on Saturday or Sunday if you don't get to it until Monday, August 30th on the first day of classes, make that one of the first things on your To Do List. And if you run into any problems where you have to get to class but you haven't gotten your ID yet, just send me an email and let me know so that we can make sure you get access to that.
Building OK, but everyone needs to make sure they pick up their ID card as soon as they reach campus.
Eve Yaghi
01:16:55 PM
How do we have to schedule an appointment to move in to our dorm?
Uhm, Steve wants to know how do we have to schedule appointment to move into our dorm rooms? You don't have to schedule an appointment, which is a great thing. Eve all you have to do is show up on Friday the 27th ready to move in. You need to make sure that your star rest portal is updated that you filled out and signed your housing contract and from there you will receive your keys. Once you are on site. OK so that's you don't have to have a specific appointment but you just need to make sure that you scheduled for your housing.
Ron Spooner
01:17:26 PM
Is it normal that I haven't had anything posted to my blackboard yet?
James Taylor
01:17:29 PM
I am trying to send a question but I don't think its working
Uhm, is it normal to that? I haven't had anything posted to my blackboard yet. I David could probably speak a little bit to this, but I would say.
Professors are getting geared up for the semester and it may possibly just be the variation of the classes, but your blackboard should be live and ready to go by August 30th of the information, and you can definitely email your professor directly and ask when can we expect that blackboard information to become available. Was there anything else David that you want to add to that?
No, no, I think that's that's exactly right, Jade. It's just because classes haven't started yet. That professors aren't really using Blackboard at this point. So just be patient. There'll be stuff on there once classes get going.
Christopher Donohue
01:18:14 PM
for immunization documents do I have to upload them myself or could I have my doctors office fax them over to rpi
Perfect perfect thank you. Christopher wants to know for immunization documents. Do I have to upload them myself or could I have my doctors office fax them over? I'm pretty sure either will be sufficient but you should email Health Center at rpi.edu to be completely sure that they received your immunization forms OK.
John Lippert
01:18:31 PM
How do I get my access card/student ID?
Noah Cussatti
01:18:43 PM
Will the mail address be different for buildings like City Station West?
Uh, let's see John wants to know how do I get access? Oh yes. Rensselaer Union guys for your ID cards as soon as you get to campus and move in, make sure you go get your rensler identification cards. Will the mail address be different for buildings like City Station West? Nope, it will be the same. OK, so the one that I told you guys take a screenshot of earlier this one right here. Student name, name of your building and room number 199 Burdett Ave Troy NY OK.
So that's where you'll be picking that up in the Union.
Nancy Asante
01:19:18 PM
When will we know what dorm we will be in for residential students? Also, I have not received any information regarding financial aid rewards on my banner account. Are financial plans still in process?
Uhm, when we know what dorm we will be in for residential students also, I have not received any information regarding financial aid rewards on my banner account. Our financial plan still in process. OK, so I'll let Marty take the financial piece of it and then I'll come back around Nancy and answer the second part. Marty, do you want to chime in on that one?
Oh sure, I would just say that's a opportunity for the student to contact us directly. Please be sure to include your RAM.
Perfect, so you're going to email finaid@rpi.edu Nancy? OK Finaid at rpi.edu and they will pull up your specific account.
Jacob Lorenzo
01:19:44 PM
Are parents allowed to help us move in this weekend?
Uhm, Jacob wants to know our parents allowed to help us move in this weekend. To my knowledge, due to the Kovid restrictions, there is one parent that is allowed to actually interchangeably be in and out of the building with you. We usually have a parking lot where the parents can help you unload things, but as far as travel in and out of the buildings it should be the student only and if you have one parent I believe you're allowing one parent to do so, but you can't have. You know multiple people with you coming but.
Jacob Lorenzo
01:20:21 PM
Are parents allowed to help us move in this weekend?
They will have an area where the parents can wait as you're getting ready to transition your stuff into your residential space.
Joseph Bernardi
01:20:26 PM
Is family allowed to help us move into our dorms?
Xiheng Liu
01:20:43 PM
Did we do a nucleic acid test at school before August 30 when we first went to the campus? Is this to set a time in DIAL?
OK, so hopefully that answers your question. Jacob Joseph had the same question his family allowed to help us move in, so that answers both of your questions guys and then, UM, Z hang wants to know did we do a acid test before school August 30th? We first went to campus. Is this set timeline in dial I think. Are you referring to the COVID-19 testing?
Fatemeh Amiri
01:21:04 PM
Do I need to upload a Pre-entrance Immunization Form which was due July 18 for new students?
Marcus Morgan
01:21:17 PM
Is there a presentation tomorrow?
I'm not sure of any other testing. If you can write it in the chat again, I can try and give me a little bit more clarity. I can help you out with that one. Do I need to upload pre interest immunization forms which was due to July 18th for new students and that's from Fatima? Yes yes you do. OK that is a definitive everything related to health services is a definitive yes. You need to make sure it is completely Marcus. Want to know is there a presentation tomorrow? Yes I am going to plug in.
The schedule for orientation for the entire week. Let me go ahead and put that in the chat now.
Jade Felder
01:21:27 PM
https://info.rpi.edu/student-transitions/transfer-services/#TransferOrientation
And this is what we call the transition we schedule. So please make sure that you're reviewing this link, because tomorrow we will be going through the art and transfer services presentation that's on Tuesday, and that's going to be at 11:00 AM. And then on Thursday we are going to have the class Dean meet and greet. OK, so you need to make sure you're there as well. Any student that is designated to complete the art summer term, we do have the Arch Discovery Day session today a live stream.
At 4:00 PM beginning on YouTube, if you register at the link, you will receive the link for the YouTube. It's not necessarily a requirement for you all, because we're going to talk more in depth about it tomorrow at your session for transfer students, because there's a little bit more information you all need to be aware of coming in from transfer services, so we're going to do a specific session for you walls so that you're aware of what you need to be aware for semester way preparation, OK?
Eric Soares
01:22:37 PM
I am planning to pay my tuition bill soon, but the amount doesn't include my aid on cash net. Will my payment amount update?
So our next question Eric wants to know. I'm planning to pay my tuition bill soon, but amount doesn't include my aid on cashnet. Will my payment amount update?
To my knowledge, yes, once all of your not rewards awards post to your account, your scholarships, everything that Rensselaer is providing you in terms of financial aid, right? And Marty, you're on, so you can clarify as well. It will be subtracted from the total amount of your student bill and then whatever the remaining balance is is what the student should cover. Marty, did you want to say anything else about that? Am I correct in that?
Uhm, yeah, jade, you're correct, but I will add that we know, for example, there were some students that are awarded kind of late after the first billing was produced, and so you can reasonably just add up the aid that you're expecting to utilize from your letter and subtract that from the total bill and pay the difference. Do not subtract that work study because that does not pay directly against the bill now, but you can subtract your grants. You can subtract the loan you're planning to take and make the payment.
And by and large, the billing and all the financial aid numbers will catch up by the next billing cycle. So pay what you can now so you have less of other surprise that carries forward.
Perfect thank you so much for that. Marty Marion wants to know the link for the ID card for new students has not been working for me. Who should I contact? 6505 ext so you want is that the wrestler union it whatever the regular urine extension is Teresa, if you're in the back can you look it up really quick and post it in the chat for the students? If you're if the ID card link?
Isn't working for you specifically. You may need to do a different browser perhaps, or if that doesn't work, make sure you give them a call. They are answering the phone and they will get you over to someone in the card office that can help you navigate it so you can just call their extension a fun thing about RPI is that the 518276 is for the entire institution. It's just the last four digits that are different. So you would call 518276. And I I think it's 6.
Theresa Abbott
01:24:38 PM
Yes, RPI Student Union (518) 276-6505
5:05 but will put it in the chat just so that you guys have it, OK?
Marian Delgado
01:24:42 PM
The link for an ID card for new students has not been working for me who should I contact,
OK, so we got that for Marion and then.
Uh, she wants to know is it possible to move in on the 26th after the COVID testing there is moving in happening, but I believe that is our freshman moving only. So as I was telling I believe it was Marcus earlier. If you need to have a special accommodation considered we definitely need to speak separately so that I can know exactly what we're advocating for and speak with our student living and learning team about how we can get your get you moved in on that day. But upperclassmen start moving in on Friday.
Chinenye Urama
01:25:20 PM
is it possible to move-in on the 26th after the covid testing?
OK, our freshmen are going to be moving in Wednesday and Thursday.
Kedwin Diaz
01:25:28 PM
can we waiver the housing if we are living near campus?
Uh, But Kevin wants to know can we? Can we waive the housing if we are living near campus so there is a housing waiver, housing waiver process kid win that you can submit a waiver for. I do know that they have different stipulations for what a housing waiver is granted for, and I do do not know that living in a certain mile radius is considered one of those reasons, so it would need to be a medical concern of financial concern. There is a committee that reviews.
Dorothy Zeisler
01:26:13 PM
Do I have to move in only after my scheduled COVID test?
Each of the waivers and renders a decision, so if it is just the preference that you wanted to live off campus, that would not be viable. You actually need to have a medical or a financial reason to be reviewed for a housing waiver because it is a requirement that transfer students live on campus. OK, Dorothy wants to know do I have to move in only after my scheduled COVID test? So when you arrive you will go straight to, you know, testing and moving those things will be happening simultaneously.
Together OK, so that's what you all need to understand about that process, so you will get your COVID testing done. Results will come in and we will know where you need to be directed either to your dormitory or you're living in learning space. Or if you are tested positive, there is a on an isolation space residential space where students are housed, so you will be tested first after testing is completed, then you'll be able to move in.
Daric Niclas
01:27:09 PM
How should I get my ID if I'm not living on campus? Do I need to drive over before classes start?
Derek wants to know. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Derek, if I'm not put the phonetic spelling so I can make sure I'm doing that for anyone. If I'm mispronouncing your name, I definitely wanna make sure I get that right. How should I get my ID if I'm not living on campus, do I need to drive over before classes start? Yes, definitive. Yes. Go to the Union first floor ID office. Get your identification card OK.
Eve Yaghi
01:27:21 PM
What is the starrez website/link?
Is the Star Risk website link? You can go to aasldrpi.edu and you can plug it in there and it should come up for you. So you're gonna look under residential comments on aasldrpi.edu. It should be available through that link. Alright, Liam wants to know is it required to move into the dorms on the 27th? My on campus COVID testing was scheduled for the 28th. I thought it would be required to complete the testing before.
Liam Greeley
01:28:06 PM
Is it required to move into dorms on the 27th? My on-campus COVID test was scheduled for the 28th and I thought it was required complete the test before moving into a dorm.
Yeah, if you come on the 28th you will not be denied moving. You can move in on the 28th, but for the upperclassmen that starts on the 27th Liam. So anytime after that you're good to go but you just need to be in there before the 30th because that's when your classes start and you guys are going to be up bright and early.
Marian Delgado
01:28:16 PM
i have tried two different browsers,
Marian Delgado
01:28:20 PM
thank you!
Daric Niclas
01:28:23 PM
You got it right :)
OK, so Mary Ann are you? You're talking about the ID link. OK so you're gonna need to call the extension so that they can provide you with the link for that information. OK, I just wanted to make sure. Oh perfect there I got it right. OK, one more question. Nicholas wants to know what type of COVID testing is available at RPI saliva or just the nose test. So we are doing the nose swab. I forgot what the technical terminology for it is called but it is self directed so when you go into testing you will.
Nicholas Malzone
01:29:02 PM
What type of covid testing is available at RPI? Saliva or just the nose test?
They will administer it for you, but you will be doing your your nose swab and they will direct you about how to put it in the tube etc. So it's not invasive at all, and when you do your testing you'll find that out is it's. It's very very painless and I if I say so myself, it's a very very straightforward process. They get you in and out and everything is done so you should be good to go from there.
OK, so seeing that I don't see any more questions in the chat, is there anything else that I can answer for you all before I close my final things that you need to be aware of for transfer Transition week?
Anything else OK, so transition week schedule. We have the arts discovery opening session that's happening today at 4:00 PM. We're going to do the charge and transfer student presentation tomorrow at 11:30 AM. I want you to come with all your questions about the arch. I will be able to answer them for you. We then have our class team meet and greet on August 26th. That's going to be exciting 'cause your classes are already ready to meet you. I spoke with them this morning and we are gearing up and getting ready for Thursday.
Martin Daniels
01:29:53 PM
Departing now. Email "finaid@rpi.edu" with your financial aid questions. Welcome to Rensselaer!
Residential moving starts 27th again. If there is any student that needs additional support in that area, please email me as soon transitions at rpi.edu so I can get that looked into OK. Your classes begin on August 30th.
And then after that we're going to start our transfer fall programming, which we typically do a game or hockey or something that's happening where we can all get together. So within the parameters I know athletics is not allowing viewership right now, so we will come up with what the transfer fall programming looks like for you all. And I just want to make sure you guys are able to connect together. Now the student transitions app.
This is what you all need to download up on your phone. This is where you can connect with other transfer students. At our school. The the RPI transfer network is there and we also have students who are who have started a transfer student club. So that is including our veterans that includes non traditional students. All transfer students from Community College from four year colleges. I really want to make sure that you all get connected so you want to make sure that you.
Build the app a beef. Feel free to ping me. Ask me any questions. I'm on the app as well. It also has a wealth of knowledge of campus resources, notable alumni, financial aid questions. There's a lot of stuff in there that you all can get tapped into that will be extremely helpful for your transition. I am going to continue to be your main point of contact. I hope that I have done my due diligence of answering the questions that you need, so please make sure you download the Rinzler.
App it is the guidebook app so in Apple or Android you're going to look for guidebook. Download it and then put in their student transitions at Rensselaer and then we will come up OK. I had a few more questions that came into the chat so I'm just going to do this really quickly. Ensure you have access to your RCS and email that is your SIS account, your RPI, email everything because that is going to be the official form of communication.
From the institution. Complete advising and registration. If I called your name earlier and asked you to stay on with me, please make sure that you stay on because I have a few updates for you. All. I will read those names once more kid win Diaz, win Boma, Liam McDermott, Marcus Morgan. Natalie Perusi fought new Truong Stuart Wells, William Wood and Yang Zing. OK if those names were your name.
And I just called. Make sure you stay on the line with me. We have all the transition week schedule happening, contact respective offices, email, student transitions with any concerns at all whatsoever. OK, I have a few last questions that students have for me in the chat.
Uh, no. No wants to know my COVID test is scheduled for the 28th. Does that mean I am not able to move in on the on the 27th? You can once you get here on the 27th if that is when you were assigned to move in then move in. Then if you were assigned to move in on the 28th you should go with whatever student living and learning provided you in their communication about your movement specifically. Now, if you're scheduled for the 28th, you can move in on the 28th. So you're going to be tested once you get to your.
Noah Cussatti
01:33:40 PM
My covid testing is scheduled for the 28th, does that mean I am not able to move in on the 27th?
Chinenye Urama
01:33:42 PM
thank you!
Rival. Does that make sense? So it says my testing is on the 28th, then you should move in on the 28th. If you're testing is on the 20 on the 28th, but you were planning to move in on the 27th, you can still do so. You just need to make sure that your testing is done before you move into your residential hall. OK, hopefully that helps you out, Noah. And then Cheney wanted to just quick thank you. You're welcome. Dorothy wants to know are all these meetings mandatory if if even if some of us?
Are exempt from the Arch Dorothy. That's a great question. No student transfer or not is exempt from the arch requirement. The arts requirement has two portions. There is a summer portion and there is a semester away portion you may be exempt from the summer portion, but you're not exempt from the semester away portion, so you do need to make sure you attend tomorrow's session so that you understand what is required of you specifically. I'm assuming you may be a junior where you don't necessarily have to do the summer term.
Dorothy Zeisler
01:34:46 PM
Are all of these meeting mandatory? Even if some of us are exempt from the arch?
But your semester away option is it's not an option, it's required. So we are going to talk through the intricacies and the details of that just so that you all are able to plan accordingly. OK, so you do have that requirement. All transfer students are required to complete a semester away term OK, and we are going to talk about what that looks like tomorrow in the morning. Alright so make sure you guys are signed up and ready to rock and roll for that.
Uhm, Jake wants to know our Arts Discovery day in the arch transfer student presentations. Mandatory attendance, same token Jack Discovery Day is not mandatory for you. The transfer presentation is OK, not the Discovery Day. The one that's happening at 4:00. If you would like to tune into today's session, you are more than welcome to do so. I will be facilitating it along with other institute colleagues and we will be doing a very similar thing, but we will be doing it for about 1300 students.
Jack Ballard
01:35:28 PM
Are ARCH discovery day and the ARCH and transfer student presentation mandatory attendance?
And so you're more than welcome to attend that if you'd like to, but it's not a requirement. The requirement for you as an incoming transfer student is tomorrow morning's presentation. OK, so hopefully that answers that for you Jack. UM, Z hang wants to know I did not receive the email of my accommodation room and the email of the COVID testing time. OK, so you will need to email reslife at rpi.edu Z hang OK you need to email them now.
Xiheng Liu
01:35:52 PM
I did not receive the email of my accommodation room and the email of the covid test time. Is this normal?
Reslife RESLIFE at rpi.edu.
Noah Cussatti
01:35:55 PM
thank you!
Gabrielle Comeau
01:35:57 PM
Thank you!
OK, uhm no problem. Noah Gabriel you no problem. See you all soon Jack. What if you are a freshman Jack? If you're a freshman, there is an entire NRB experience that is being planned for you, and it is not in the state Transitions Office specifically because we have upperclassmen, but I can make sure you are connected where you need to be with our first year experience office so that you get a chance to experience everything in its fullness from the first year student perspective.
So Jack, email me at this new transition email so that I can connect you directly. OK, just shoot me a quick email.
Jack Watson
01:36:31 PM
what if you are a freshmen
Kedwin Diaz
01:36:46 PM
How do we register for tomorrow's secssion?
Nancy Asante
01:36:49 PM
Thank you so much!
Cian Howell
01:36:51 PM
Thank you!
OK, uh, mkad one wants to know how do we register for tomorrow session? If you click that orientation link that I provided in the chat kid win, it will show you the schedule and in the schedule you can click the registration link. Alright, so I'll see you soon. No problem Nancy. I'll see you tomorrow and she on you as well. I'll see you all tomorrow so I have no more questions in the chat, but I am open if folks want to stay on and asking additional questions if you were one of those.
Transfer names that I called out. Please make sure you stay on at this time. All other students are free to go enjoy the rest of your day and I will see you tomorrow morning at 11:00 AM for the student. The transfer services and the arts presentation where we will dive into the information you guys need to know. OK, I hope this morning was helpful. All of our presenters were excited to meet you all and we look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. OK, so I'll give everyone a chance. Who would like to sign out?
Go ahead and find out now and I'll see you in the morning.
And for those nine students, just remain with me really quickly, because I need you to type into the chat some information, OK?
Alright, and one last time those names Ark Edwin Diaz, win boma, Liam McDermott, Marcus Morgan, Natalie Perusi fought new Truong Stuart Wells, William Wood and Yang Zing.
OK, looks like we've had. We've had the dwindle down perfect. OK, so for you students. UM registration, I want to know what's happening with your registration. If you can type in the chat and tell me what's actually happening, I don't have a registration of 12 credit hours or more on file for you as of today. So because transfer courses start or all of your courts to start on Monday.
Please let me know if there is a concern I need to know specifically from each of you. If there is something needing to be done kid when I know for sure we gotta get you connected because you came in a little later, that's completely fine. I will make sure you get connected today, but As for everyone else, if you could type in the chat really quickly, are there any concerns with your registration process? Because I don't currently have a registration of 12 credit hours or more on file for you as of today.
I'll wait for you guys to come into the chat.
OK, so Liam so you need a time ticket, so let me make sure that I get you a time ticket for today.
So that you can go in and register registration. I think it started August 9th and you should have gotten a time ticket during that time, so if that's the case for any other student Liam, can you just put your rent in there for me? Please, no one else can see the chat, and unless I approve it so don't worry. So put your rent in the chat. For me Liam, and then I will make sure you get a time ticket today.
Perfect OK, so I'll have that for you today, Liam and then Stuart. I haven't seen my registration time ticket. Just got OK Stuart put your rent in the chat for me as well and I'll make sure you have yours as well, OK?
OK, so that's for Stuart and for Liam Stewart I need your rent.
Uh, Marion, let me see, let me make sure you weren't on my list. I can check for you.
Uh, no Marion you're all set OK, you're all good to go registered and everything, but if you have any questions just make sure you shoot me an email. OK, but you're not on on this list.
Uhm, Stuart, can you put your RIN in the chat for me please?
Let's see alright kid, when I know we're getting you all set up all right so you didn't get your financial aid package gotcha, OK?
One makes let everything gotcha. OK so you're just in the beginning part headwind, so once you put register for your classes, do you have a time ticket? Kevin, can you let me know that in the chat do you have a time ticket? If not, I need to include you in this list with Liam and Stewart so that you can register. You can't register without a time ticket.
Jade, I think so. Kevin just deposited yesterday, so uhm needs like the email address from the help in all. Yep, all of that, Yep.
All the welcome email. OK, I'm gonna send you a welcome email today.
Headwind just so that you have that and then from there you'll be able to get everything done, so Liam Stewart Keigwin UM, did we get Stewart? Oh Stuart, you put your rent in there, hold on, let me get that.
'cause I need to make sure you all are registered for classes.
OK, we got those three. OK, great Michael.
You need one more class. OK, but Michael did you talk to your ECON department?
You email the professor or they're not your tenant class. How do I find if there's something wrong with my account? Well, your account should be good to go. Are you talking about your SIS account or you're talking about Blackboard? Your account should be working fine, OK?
Kedwin Diaz
01:42:24 PM
Thanks Theresa!
OK Marcus, you need one. OK so I'll get those. I'll get those time tickets to you as well. Market, split your rent in the chat for me please.
Set my blackboard. This was just oh I see Michael. OK, So what we're going to do? Michael, for you I'm going to alert our Webex team to follow up with you just to make sure that whatever the case is for this ECON class that it is sorted out because I want to make sure you have 12 credit hours full time status or more for your classes beginning on Monday.
So Liam Stewart CAD went and Marcus, we're going to make sure you all are set CAD when you need a welcome email and the other three you guys need your time ticket.
Michael, you're at 13 credits. OK, this just one more to complete for this semester. Got it OK, we'll still plug you win though. Just so that someone from ECON follows up to make sure that your final schedule is, you know, as it as it should be, but you have other credits so you should be all set. Then you should be all set and Marcus you can't get into degree works. You know classes you need, yeah?
So once I get you your time ticket, it should be good to go. Alright, once we get your time ticket.
Kedwin Diaz
01:44:02 PM
Thank you for everything!
No problem, Kevin. I'll send that to you soon. OK, you're good to go.
And it looks like we got everyone.
Chinenye Urama
01:44:23 PM
I am a sophomore student with an appointment for my COVID-19 test on Thursday 26AUG, can I move in after my COVID test
Uhm, that was able to stay on. Alright guys, if there's anything else or channey. I'm a sophomore student with an appointment for COVID-19 testing on Thursday. Can I move in after COVID test? That is what we will try to get approved, but you gotta send me an email channi send me an email so that we can forward it to read life so that we can confirm that you're able to move in OK.
Marcus Morgan
01:44:37 PM
Thank you!
Ah alright, Marcus will see you soon. OK, I'll make sure you get that time ticket as well.
Marcus Morgan
01:44:42 PM
I can not get into my degree works to see what classes I need to sign up for within my track. I have met with my advisor once before and he told me to use my degree works to see what classes I need to sign up for, but there is no link in my SIS portal.
Michael Pastore
01:44:47 PM
I have 13 credit hours and ready, this is just one more to complete for the semester.
Michael Pastore
01:44:50 PM
I am logged in and ready to go with my SIS
Perfect, so we'll just make sure that the ECON Department follows up with you so that we can figure out what's happening with that last class.
Looks like you got it. Looks like we got everybody alright so I have nine students that are left on with me. Is there anything else that I can answer for you guys? Wait sorry I have not gotten anything cleared cleared up for me and I was told to stay after. Oh yes Natalie. Can you tell me miss crazy? Can you tell me what's the concern for your registration? You were on my list. Did you receive a time ticket for registration?
OK, so you need it. You need a time ticket. Natalie, what's your rent? Can you provide me with that?
290 OK 290 perfect so I'll get you a time ticket Natalie. You guys just be on standby after I wrap this call. That's going to be my number one priority to get your time tickets done so you can do that registration today. Was there anyone else anyone else from the list?
Uhm, I haven't heard from a few people, but if there's anyone else that needs to chime in here before we officially closed out TSO 2021.
Anything else, guys, anything else?
Alright, well if there is anything please make sure you email me at student transitions at rpi.edu. It's been a pleasure meeting you all via ichat today. Hopefully I'll meet you all in person once we get everything all squared away for the fall term so we will be in touch and we hope you all have a great day and we'll talk to you soon if you need anything else, just let us know via email.