Welcome to the Ph.D. Orientation Webpage. Orientation is intended to help make it easier and save time of all iSchool Ph.D. students by providing information on various aspects of UT and how others have done things and by sharing the experience of those who have gone before. As such it is perhaps particularly useful for now students might not have to learn something the hard way.

This Webpage is not intended to provide all a student needs to know, but it perhaps can help the student learn how to find out important information on their own. It is, therefore, not a substitute for the orientation programs of the School of Information, Graduate School, and UT but rather a supplement to those programs hopefully filling in gaps left by the other sources.

Most Important: Be Registered

The UT computers can do bad things to you are not registered at UT.

1. Continuous registration. You must take care that you are registered each long semester from your first semester until you are awarded your degree. If you fail to register, UT computers automatically drop you from UT's roles and then you most likely will lose important things connected to the computer system like loosing scholarship,loosing access to previous courses in Blackboard, loosing library check out privileges, loosing use of balances on UT debit carts, and other unpleasant things. Then you have to spend time fixing it later. To make sure you are registered, go on line just before the semester and make sure your registration is complete.

Best is to preregister for the fall semester in April and the spring semester in November. You only have to preregister for one hour (three hours if you are a candidate) in order to stay in the computer. That hour might be independent study or any other one hour course. When the semester approaches you may drop the independent study and add the courses you really want to take.

To make sure you are registered, go on line just before the semester and make sure your registration is complete.

Exceptions: Summer does not count. So as long as you are preregistered for the fall semester you are good to go during the summer. There are provisions for applying for leaves-of-absence for the long semesters that you can use for emergencies but it is best to be continually registered until you graduate even if it is only an hour.

2. You are not registered until you pay your bill even when it is zero. You must pay your bill by the final due date or you will not be considered continuously registered. Then the bad things listed in item 1 above happen. If your tuition and fees are zero you have a "zero bill," meaning that a grant or a third party pays tuition, they will still need to confirm your registration from the Students Accounts Receivable Webpage.

3. Full time registration. Most scholarships, fellowships, and assistantships require the student to register full time (9 hours) in order to maintain the award. Be sure that if this the case for your award that after you add and drop courses each semester, your final registration is for 9 hours or more of classes.

4. Meet required submission dates. Meeting some dates are very important to you, applying for candidacy, graduation, registration, and others. Penalties can be such as additional fees, loss of course credit, denial of graduation. Pay attention to the requirements and dates of submission or suffer the consequences of ignoring them.

What you should do: Get registered and stay registered for all long semesters until you graduate, even if it is only one hour.

Second Most Important: Participate Actively

You will be spending a lot of money to attend UT either personally and through any scholarships and fellowships you might have. Much of that money goes to support UT in general and the School of Information in particular. If you do not take advantage of the facilities, events, and learning experiences available to you while you are here, you will be partially be wasting your money.

Who are you?

You have been accepted to participate as a Ph.D. student in one the top public institutions and top information schools in the country. As a UT and iSchool Ph.D. graduate student , you be defined by others at four levels. It is important to understand these levels as a Ph.D. student if you want to get the most from your degree. In the past some student's have buried their head in their work until they were ready for graduation. Only then did they find out about the many of the opportunities available at UT that they wished they had taken advantage of. By then it was too late! Hopefully the information below will help you understand these various levels. .

1- Soon to be Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy is the professional title you will hold after graduation. Since we do not knight people in the US, doctor is the only title recognized in the US other than military and religious titles. Your title will allow people throughout the world to prejudge you. Some of these prejudgments will be good and others not so good. Nevertheless, to people who have never talked with a Ph.D., the experience with you will influence their prejudgment of other Ph.D.s they will meet. Some will expect you to know something about philosophy; after all, as a Doctor of Philosophy you should know something about it.

What you should do. While at UT you should take the opportunity to learn what a Doctor of Philosophy is and how it has changed over the years. If you need a refresher, you might consider taking a freshman introductory course in philosophy (PHL 301).(The credits will not count toward your degree), but the knowledge will help you immeasurably in casual conversation. Make sure the professors who leas the your two Ph.D. seminars (DRT I and DRT 2) share their knowledge and experience of evolution of the role of the Ph.D. in the information studies academic disciplines and professional fields.

As Doctor of Philosophy you will be considered to be a top tier professional. Others will seek your advice directly or through professional organizations. It would serve you will to be a member of one or more professional associations while you are at UT. Most have special rates that are not available to you once you graduate. Even if you are not a member, you should take advantage of special student rates at some function. The Austin Chapter of the ARMA, for example, invites students to participate in their monthly meeting for free.

What you should do. You should join and actively participate in professional associations related to your future academic discipline and professional field.

As a Doctor of Philosophy you will be expected to publish in scholarly Journals and participate in and present at professional association conferences. Many conferences have special rates for students and some have special opportunities for student and group presentations not available to other members. Conferences also provide a venue where you can meet and talk to the scholars who have developed theories and written about our discipline and field. Sometimes the conference offers reduced rates for a few hours of work and the iSchool or Graduate School has previously supported students who have presentations to make.

What you should do. You should prepare papers, presentations, and posters and join and actively participate in professional conferences related to your future academic discipline and professional field. You should use your Ph.D. statue to attend conferences at reduced rates wherever they are offered. If a reduced rate is offered for a conference Austin it would be a wasted opportunity if you did not take advantage of it.

2 - University of Texas Student

After folks discover you are a Doctor of Philosophy many will ask you what school you went to. University of Texas is recognized by many through the world as a school with great prestige: some think of it as the biggest school, in the biggest state, in the most powerful country in the world; others think of it as the university that has one of the top football teams in the country. These same folks will expect you, as a Ph.D. graduated from UT, to be able to share important academic features of UT as well as UT's contribution to the world at large.

What you should do: Learn about UT during the time you are here. To learn what the university is all about:-

• Explore the UT Website.
• Learn the UT Mission, Core Purpose, the Six Core Values and the Honor Code and why they are important. Learn the UT motto and its meaning: What Starts Here Changes the World.
• Participate in general university wide activities such as Gone to Texas, the Graduate Student Barbeque and Information Fair , the 40 Acre Fest, Explore UT, and the UT Convocations and Commencement.
• Sample more specific university wide activities such as at least one football game, one basket ball game, one UT symphony concert performance, one special speaker (like President Clinton or the Dali Lama), and one Student Government (SG), Senate (SCC), or Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) meeting.
• Take a guided tour of the campus and wander through the east, west, and south malls on your own. Explore the Student Union, visit the Alumni Center. You do not have to wait until you graduate to join the Alumni Association, See Associations.
• Take tours of the UT and related major facilities such as the Blanton Art Museum, the LBJ Library, the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife center, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.

3 - Graduate School Student

Unlike undergraduate students who are assigned to specific schools, most graduate students are assigned to the Graduate School. This institution, affectionately known as OGS, approves your Ph. D. candidacy and approves and provides your degree. It would be good for you to know something about the graduate school not only for its rules and regulations that will directly impact you as a UT graduate student, but as an academic element of UT in it's own right. The graduate school has courses that will broaden your view of academia and allow you meet and share ideas with other UT graduate students. It also oversees the Professional Development and Community Engagement (PDCE) program that can help you prepare for your future in the real world. If you have a political bent or wish to help the folks that have a direct influence on UT's future programs, you might want to participate in the Graduate Student Assembly, the student government focused on graduate students. Or you might want to participate in the Student Government or the Senate.

What you should do: Read about your Graduate School in their on-line orientation. Attend their information fair at the Graduate Student Barbecue and information fair at the beginning of the fall semester. Walk over to the Main Building, or Tower, and visit the Graduate School and the Graduate Student Lounge. Take a course or two from the GRS series. Explore the various aspects of the PDCE program.

4 - School of Information Student

[To be provided]

Other Things Good to Know

Ph.D. Student Office and Lounge

In a word, no. We do not have a Ph.D. community space to share information. We used to have a couple of 8 person offices, then one (SZB 454).  Then in the spring of 2006 that office was converted to be support information technology folks. The master's students also had a lounge but that was abolished for office space. Several students have shared concern about not having such a space and a desire to create a place for Ph.D. students to get together and share ideas. The iSchool does not have the room (we are sharing the building with the the Education folks who have priority) so we would have to find some space outside the building. Any ideas?

Orientation Links

Here are links to two online orientations that may be of interest to iSchool PH.D. Students:.
UT Graduate School: http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/orientation/
iSchool: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/orientation/

Last Updated, 2006 August 29