Tips for New Students
Welcome!
Communicating with the office and with your fellow students and knowing about all the resources available to you will make your experience at Iowa easier and more enjoyable. To that end, Graduate History Society members have compiled the following list of things you should know:
Interoffice mail
Graduate instructors and teaching assistants in history have individual mail boxes in the History Department office, 280 SH. Mail for graduate students who are not currently teaching in the department is sorted into alphabetical bins (A-D, E-H, etc.). This is where you will find announcements of departmental and GHS events, speakers, workshops of interest on campus, etc.
GHS e-mail lists
GHS maintains two lists, GHS Official and GHS Discussion. You may subscribe to either or both.
- GHS Official (as the name suggests) is used for official messages from the department, like notification of available grants and fellowships or various deadlines, and from GHS, like announcements of meetings, elections, and events. In addition to student subscribers, messages posted on GHS Official are sent to the department chair and the director of graduate studies.
- GHS Discussion is a less formal venue where subscribers may post random thoughts, carry on philosophical discussions, forward items of general interest, complain, and so forth. Only students receive these postings.
If you have not already done so, send an e-mail to owner-ghs-official@list.uiowa.edu and ask to be added to the list(s).
Office for grad students not teaching in history
All students not currently teaching in the history department–Plan B master?s candidates, research assistants, those teaching in other departments, and those who are past eligibility for aid–can get a key to the current “general” student office (156 SH in 2001-02) and use that office to work in. It?s a secure place to leave books, papers, backpacks, coats, umbrellas, cross country skis, etc. Get your key from Mary Strottman. You can also get a key to the outside doors of Schaeffer Hall for a $5 deposit, refundable when you turn the key in (in the far-distant future).
The Commons
Another place to hang out in Schaeffer Hall is room 302, on the third floor at the opposite end from the history department office. The Commons is a large room with windows overlooking the center of the Pentacrest; it contains a number of round tables with chairs and a bunch of comfy easy chairs. It also has a little sink. Open to all (unless it’s reserved), it?s a good place to read, eat lunch, even nap.
GHS computer room
GHS has its own computer room, 256 SH, available only to graduate students in the history department, with computers, Internet access, a microfilm reader (it doesn?t print, unfortunately, but still) and a typewriter.
The computer room is kept locked. You may check out a key from the department office each time you use the room, or you may get your own key from Mary Strottman for a $5 deposit, refundable when you turn the key in.
Library carrels
The Main Library makes available a limited number of private carrels with lockable cupboards for advanced graduate students; those of you entering with master?s degrees may be eligible. They distribute carrels according to a combination of who gets there first and certain priorities (people working on dissertations first, and so forth). If you?re interested, pick up an application from the book-stacks office on the fourth floor of the library early on the first day of classes. Applications are numbered so they know how early you were there. Complete the form, get the necessary signatures, return it, and then wait to see whether you?re among the chosen. If you want to use a notebook computer at your carrel, be sure to note on the application that you need to be near an electrical outlet.