How to Register for Orientation

Good evening, my name is Lisa Maguire and the director of new student orientation and I'm here to help everyone walk through how to register for orientation at UISI want to let you know we have a chat function open so if you have any questions while I'm going through the presentation, please go ahead and put your questions in our chat box and will respond to those. For those of you who sent questions to me when you registered for the event, I will answer these questions at the very end.

If we haven't already hit on them during the presentation.

And Hello everybody that's joining us this evening. We're really excited to have you join us again. My name is Lisa Maguire. I'm the director of new student orientation at uas. Alright, so how do you register for orientation?

So we're going to cover a couple things. We have programs for our first year. Freshman and freshman transfer. True freshman transfer students.

OK, sorry can you hear me? Sorry about that folks. My computer froze up alright, so how are we start with orientation first I want to introduce you to our main orientation page, go.usps.edu orientation on the left hand side. I've circled in red our menu options so we have specific pages for our first year orientation are transfer orientation in our graduate limitation. We also have information for parents and family members.

In a little further down you'll see that we have a lead to our online guidebook. On the right hand side I have information about how to contact our office at any point in time. If you need to reach us or if you have questions, you can give us a call during regular business hours, or you can email us at UIS orientation at uis.edu.

You want to make sure you go to your orientation page and read through it thoroughly. There is a lot of information and we have a lot of step by step. Instructions will tell you what's required. We provide overview and schedules of the programs, what the dates are involved, placement testing requirements in orientation, checklist, and then options for further exploration.

So first year freshman and freshman transfer orientation for you is a University requirement.

You won't be able to register for classes if you do not attend our program. Semester launches the second part of our orientation and we track attendance through your eye card, which you will receive when you come to campus.

And you have to wait to open registration in November to register for classes. If you skip any of those sessions.

As I mentioned, it's a two part program. Generally when we're in person, kickstart is a two day program and semester launches right before classes start in August.

This year, June Kickstart Sessions will be virtual.

They will take place in two components, an asynchronous component that you can do at your own pace that will be available the first week of June.

And then a synchronous live session component that will be on your kick start date.

The orientation fee is $175 and you could pay that by credit card check or money order. Or you can do for it to your fall tuition bill.

There are sessions designated for honors an freshman.

And we are planning for an in-person orientation in August.

There is placement testing required. First many freshmen and we have information on our page to get to that and I'll talk about that a little bit. And then there's an advising components and you will meet with an adviser virtually either through.

Skype or zoom or by phone call.

Transfer and graduate students. While orientation is not required, we strongly encourage it. We want you to be familiar with UIS and where to go for assistance. Your junior may anger. July sessions will also be on line. The schedule that's on your web pages will give you an idea of the content we're going to be covering and will eventually replace it with a list of the virtual orientation content.

You do not need to pay an orientation fee.

Are in person session. We hope to have in August and dates that you can register for our May 28th, July 15th and August 14th.

So you register from orientation from your status page. So when you log into your UI S application to go to your status page, if you're a first year student, you will see having called freshman student status page and right underneath that kick start sign up is open and you'll click on the link kickstart orientation session.

Transfer graduate students. You will see orientation. Sign up is open and then sign up for an orientation session. So when you click on your respective links.

It will take you to a landing page you will log in with the email address and password that you use for your UI S application are form is in the UI S application, data bank and so you'll use the same credentials to log in.

And once you log in, freshman, this is what you'll see. Options for orientation dates will be presented to you. You will choose from the dates that are available. Are reservation system has caps. We have 20 freshman spots in 4040. Freshman spots, 20 honor spots at various sessions in. Once they fill up that date will disappear.

You will choose the section for your student type, so if you're in the cap honors program, you will select from the four kickstart freshman dates are available if you are a freshman, not in the Honors Program. You can choose from any of the kickstart freshman dates, and there are six of 'em in June.

The August session will not be posted and available until early July.

Transfer students there are three dates to select from. Our May 28th date is intended for students who are starting classes this summer.

Uhm, but it can be also farfalle students as well. We have a July 15th dayan in August 14th, which again we're looking forward to being in person.

So first year students, when you click on the date it will take you to the very first page. The opening page of our orientation form and this is what it will look like. Please read through the information on there an acknowledge that you have. Read the statement and hit submit.

And it'll take you to the next part of the form, which is asking for your registration in personal information. Some of the fields are autocomplete from your UI S application, you will still want to review these in case there is a spelling error when you entered it, or for example, you use lowercase letters for your beginning of your first name and last name.

You'll also want to complete all the blanks that have the star next to it the required information.

For example, one of the questions is how would you like your first name to appear on your name tag if you go by your first name, you could put that in your. If it's short, and for example if your full name is Alexander, but you go by Alex, or if you're in Alexandra and you go by lexie and that your preferred name you would like to be called and put on your name tag, please put that in there.

Will be using name tags for semester launch. Clearly we won't need those for virtual orientation in June.

Make sure you claim your net ID. We do ask you for UUIS email address in here.

Um Ann, you were sent emails shortly after you were admitted. Uhm, so go ahead and claim your net ID. If you can't find this email, go ahead and email us at emissionys.edu and will resend you that information.

We're going to ask you for a number of guests. We do have a parent family orientation program for the first years and they will also be offered asynchronously and synchronously on the orientation date and only those parents that have registered will be sent those links.

There is a $15 guest fee per person.

And you'll fill out information on that. There are also spots to fill out information for any accommodations you might need. If there are any allergies an if you're a veteran active military military dependent will be using this information throughout orientation and definitely at semester launch.

The last section of the orientation form for first years is how will you pay orientation feed? You have several options you could pay for it by credit card. You can pay by personal or cashier's check, or you can defer it to your student account, which will be due September 28th.

Once you select your option, you could hit submit.

And you can go to your application status page in under your checklist items. If you indicated that you wanna pay on line, it'll say payment do 205 dollars.

And it says awaiting event payment and submit payments for $205.00. Once you click on that it will take you to the online credit card form and just follow the directions and then you'll also see a payment received listing under your checklist items and you could pay that anytime up through August 1st. We will be billing students who have not. We have not received payment on August 2nd.

And will be applying that to your students student accounts if we have not received payment.

You'll also start to receive emails from US to the email that you have listed on your application. So Brian or Ryan here was very excited and he's registered for orientation and so we've confirmed his orientation date and there's a couple of links for other information and how to contact us.

So check your email for this confirmation.

And if something happens and that date no longer works for you, it's OK. Call us or email us and we'll go ahead and change that session for you. Don't change the session on your own because what will happen is you'll be registered for two sessions and you'll find you'll be billed twice for the orientation feed.

Then starting June 1st, you'll want to check your email daily because will be sending information about how to log in.

The asynchronous program information about placement testing and advising.

Transfer students, your form is a little bit simpler and it'll look something like this. Again. Some things will be autofilled like your uin, your last name, and first name. Again, you want to make sure you double check those to make sure they were entered correctly when you were typing them in, and then there are required information that we ask of you to please fill out an complete on the form.

So some final words for our program today.

You'll want to make sure you check your USUS email for confirmations and updates in the email that you listed with us for.

UIS application, because that's where will be sending a lot of our confirmations. You'll also want to check our orientation web page. This notice caught us short with the situation with COVID-19. We were already six months into orientation planning and now I've had to switch gears to create a virtual environment and have it ready in eight weeks. So information we will have finished an updated by the end of May, so you'll want to check back to the orientation.

He just frequently we will have a bunch of stuff ready on the freshman and transfer pages by Monday May for May 11th. Especially information about placement testing.

Placement testing will be done virtually.

And you'll be able to make reservations for virtual appointment that will be proctored through zoom.

There is information on the technology that's required for that.

As well as how to check if you need placement testing.

Freshman, you'll also want to make sure you clear August 19th through the 22nd for your semester launch program. That again, is the second part of your orientation, and again, we plan on this being in person on ground on campus.

You want to make sure you go to your orientation page and check your new student checklist. That will also be ready after May 11th. There are things that you'll need to do. For example, loading your picture up for your I card that you'll want to make sure you get done. Some of these items you'll do in August or right as you get to campus.

Again, if you're using your school email address that you used for your uas application, you want to go ahead and change it to a personal email or your UI S email address and all you need to do is email admissions@uis.edu.

Tell us your name, your uin the current email address that you've been using, and what you want to change it to and will get that changed for you.

Also encourage you to find you a S new student orientation and parent relations on Facebook will be posting updates and information there. And of course join the UI S class of 2020 Facebook page will be putting additional information about orientation in other information of interest throughout the summer.

All right questions, so some of the questions that we received my email. do I have to take an assessment test for anything? And if I do, when and where will this take place? As I mentioned, if you are required to take placement testing on the transfer and the freshman pages, there is a link where you can sign in with your net ID and password and it will tell you if you are required to take any placement testing students that have been admitted to the cap honors program do not need to worry about English or reading placement because.

In order to be in and considered for the honors program, your scores are high enough.

A man will be required. Your major made require a certain score in your AC T or S80 for math placement. An if you don't have that score, you may need to take the math placement test.

We will also have foreign language testing options available as well if you want to receive credit or are planning on taking Spanish here IIS and will place you in the appropriate level of the language.

Do you have any scholarships for first years? Well yes we have merit scholarships for first year. An transfer students an I'm going to go get the link right now an I'm going to paste it in the chat so that you can get that and look that up.

We also have institutional scholarships. These open up every year on December 15th and the application is available until February 15th, so this year's application has closed. So if you miss that time period, you'll be able to kind of note on your calendars to check your email and December 1st in the office of financial aid will send you an email that the applications over open an you can fill that information out. It's very simple. It's one application and it'll put you.

In every category of scholarship that we have that you qualify for.

You don't have to do anything but one application.

Do you think students will be back in August? Yes, we are planning to be present on campus in August. President clean has made that statement in the past couple of weeks.

How can I include a second major as a freshman when you speak with your advisor, your academic advisor? Talk to them about your interest in a second major. They will start helping you plan that out. One of the things you'll learn about in your orientation is how to create an academic plan so that you'll graduate in the four years and they'll work with you on making sure you select classes to keep you on track to for your graduation. For the second major, that also goes with a minor as well if you're interested in.

Adding a minor.

How do I apply for housing? Well, are admitted. Student checklist has links for that. So if you would like, I'm going to post this in our chat box as well.

Me and you can go to that link to United student checklist and Scroll down and you will find information on on on housing. Uh, one of the things you want to keep in mind is that housing requires a $250 deposit to be paid before the application. What they'll do is they send you a link to the application after you've paid your deposit, and that link will be sent to your UI S email address, so keep that in mind if you haven't cleaned your net ID inside your password.

Um, how will the room in situations be for this coming semester? I'm not sure what that might mean. If you go to the residence life website, they show you what the freshman residence halls look like. If you're a sophomore, you will qualify for the townhomes. Or if you're an upperclassman or graduate student, we have apartments on campus that are available to you and you can see 3D layouts of those spaces. We also have family housing available for any student here that has a family.

If you're asking about roommates, once you fill out that housing application.

You will be sent another email with a link to a portal where you can answer some questions. Annual be matched with other students who have similar characteristics. Similar students of your gender. You'll want to wait a little bit because right now there's not. There's like 60 or 70 people that have got their contracts in, and so you'll want to wait a little bit until I would say early part of June and do this and then.

Match you based on characteristics. Please make sure you're being honest with the questionnaire, 'cause it will ask you things like what type of environment do you like to study in quiet music? A little loud? What time do you go to bed? It will ask you how clean you are. Those will be things you'll definitely want to answer honestly. No one's going to judge your evaluate you on these, but you definitely want to be put with somebody who has similar interests or tastes. If there a little messy and you're very neat, that might cause some roommate conflicts.

And so you want to start of- with some similar behaviors and appreciations.

How do I register for classes freshman you will register for classes after you are done with your asynchronous um at your own pace orientation.

And you'll get a later. You'll get a link to an email and set up an advising appointment. And after you meet with your advisor, you'll be given a pin code that will allow you to register for classes that you've been advised to take transfer and graduate students. You can register. Right now we are in open registration.

And you'll be right able to register if you are coming in for the summer semester, you'll be able to register for summer classes. If you've been admitted to the fall semester, you'll be able to register for fall classes, and you could do that immediately. Some programs require that you meet with the academic advisor first, so transfer students if you go to go.uis.edu/transfer orientation. I have a list by College of the advisors some.

Specific to the college, you can advise all majors and some of the larger colleges. For example liberal arts.

Has several advisors in summer broken down by Major and I have the contact information for those advisors. Graduate students in your offer of admission your tramp. Your graduate advisor was listed, and it's also under status page. Or it may give you directions to the Department because maybe they have an assigned to the grad students to the faculty just yet, so you'll want to contact the Department in that particular case and reach out to your faculty member 'cause there is a plan of study.

Or graduate education, and they'll tell you what courses that you need to take, and then you'll be able to register as well.

I got offered federal work study which I accepted. How do I go about finding a job for this? Excellent question. So once you are registered for classes?

July 1st, the Karere Connect Portal Kirk connect is our online employment portal and it opens up July 1st with any campus openings for use that new students are eligible for. So what you want to do is.

You want to work on a resume. You can email that to our crew development center and they can proofread it and you should be able to create your career, connect profile and get that all set so that July 1st you can start searching for jobs and applying for that department's do do phone and they'll probably do Skype resume interviews so that when you arrive on campus you will be ready to work. We also have a lot of positions on campus that are.

That aren't don't require federal work study. That is just a financial aid option. So if you don't have a federal work, study is a financial aid option. Do not worry, there are a lot of jobs on campus in a lot of options for you to be able to apply for work on campus.

Is there a different area where athletes day no? All of our athletes stay in housing in there among their colleagues. They do like to pair athletes with athletes, especially because of like early morning runs or practices or strength training and they're getting up at 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock in the morning, and so sometimes it's easier for two athletes to be together. But if you're an athlete and you've met someone and you think they're really cool and you want a roommate with them.

That's you could do that as well. Uhm. So our athletes live with students.

In housing.

Just like any other student.

So looking for specifics on the process for preparing to begin college, I would start out with that admitted student checklist and go through that. There are things that need to be accomplished in, some are sooner and some are a little later, and that's a great way to kind of keep track of what you need to do will also go through things. Freshman will go through quite a few things during orientation.

Other universities are stating that each student have a single room for fall. Uas, are you planning on doing that? We are currently welcoming students, but it's too early right now to say what that will look like, how they will look like. So I would keep tuned to the residence life website For more information. Scholarships for graduate students. There are some institutional scholarships for graduate students. Again, the institutional scholarship.

Application for this year is closed. It will open up December, December 1st next year, but we do have graduate assistantships and what's called gypsy. The graduate professional student internship which will provide students with stipends covering tuition and provide you with experience. Very rich experience either here on campus for graduate assistants or within many of the public.

Um, the state agencies, public agencies, and not profits that we have here in the capital.

You'll want to look on the UM graduate student page for those that's GA graduate assistants, assistantships or the gypsy graduate professionals. Student internships.

What are the changes for the new coming class? Well, I would say the biggest change is that we're going to be moving orientation for June at least line, and so will be doing some really neat things like kind of excited about this, because this gives us all opportunities to learn some new skills for the freshman. We will have on your kick start date we will have orientation groups virtually and will be doing that through zoom.

And you will be able to meet some of our current students are orientation leaders. It'll be an opportunity to get to know each other, will start off as one big group, about 40 to 50 students, and then we'll break off into smaller groups where you'll learn each others names and get to know each other.

So that will definitely need you for this year.

Um general process for housing. Again, if you go through that admitted student checklist, it'll take you through the steps to apply for housing housing deadline to sign up for orientation.

Basically, if there's a session that's available in the kick start programs in the kickstart sessions, if ones available, they close about 24 hours before that session, but since will be starting the asynchronous programming that first week of June, you will want to register for a kick start session pretty soon so that you get that email at the end of May or June 1st.

Will fall classes beyond line. Note we plan to be. Unless you're in an on line major, we plan to be in ground at USC campus in Springfield and taking classes.

Uh, let's see. I've already answered what orientation programs be online. Yes, definitely for June, Uhm?

And that's it. If there's any other questions, I'm going to keep our session open for a few more minutes. So if there's anything else that came up that you would like information on, go ahead and enter that into our chat.

To graduate, students typically live on campus. Or are they more likely to be off campus? Chris, as that's a really good question, Chris. You know there are students that prefer the convenience of just getting up and walking across campus. We have a very small campus and so it's really easy to walk back and forth. And we have students that really prefer that we do have apartment style living on campus one.

Two and four bedroom apartments, and so some students prefer that convenience. Others prefer living off campus. Just keep in mind there are tradeoffs to living off campus. You'll have to deal with commuting in all kinds of weather as well as living on campus. All your utilities are paid for cable, and we have go, HBO included, as that your Internet, electricity, water, all that stuff. Whereas if you live off campus.

Not only will you have rent, but you will be paying for all of those utilities as well.

Chris timeline for opening track and other buildings. Uhm I think again right now. We're still in stay at home orders and that isn't through the end of June. So I think everything depends on the governor's timeline for opening our University. I mean, we're very fortunate is the University Illinois system. We have a School of Medicine and public health programs, and some of our professionals are involved in providing the governor information.

And so.

We will be following along with those guidelines.

Is there an enrollment deposit? Great question earlier. No, there is not. We do not charge enrollment deposit. So if you've been offered admission on your status page, there is a link. There's a form under your forms that says intend to enroll and click on that link and accept your admission and that's it. There is an orientation fee and there is a housing deposit, but other than that there is not any more other out of pocket costs.

Thank you very much are summer classes on line. Yes David, we have most of our classes in the summer time have been online and so it's really no significant change for us. Our University has an excellent long run, well known online programs and education, and so you know you were taking any summer classes on line will be outstanding.

The launch the semester launch program gas Guadalupe it is meant just for freshman, though I have let transfer students participate and we workout a fee for that. It's usually about $100 to participate in this semester launch. So if you are a transfer student and would like to participate in the semester launch meeting first years and getting to know campus, you are more than welcome to participate in that. I've also had transfers who asked to participate in the full.

First year orientation because they didn't have a program or they're coming from a Community College and also I permit that as well. So just go ahead and send an email to you. IS orientation at uis.edu.

On campus housing allows attend. Got Doug 10 gallon aquarium. They have information on those requirements on line and if you have a service animal they also have guidelines for that as well. Chris Christie.

Can freshman take on line classes with you? Yes, there are some classes that you will encounter while you are here, but if you are an on ground, a student taking classes in Springfield, most of your classroom classes will be in the classroom. And as a freshman there not too many on line classes that you have an opportunity for.

Alright, any other questions out there folks?

I thank you so much for attending. We're going to be having a session for parents next week, Thursday at 6:00 o'clock will be posting this in the new families Facebook page. So if your parents are very excited, that might be something that you want to encourage them to do.

Um?

Parents will participate in Kickstart. We will have synchronous and asynchronous programming for them, but for semester launch it's just you students. For those of you living on campus, your families will probably help you move in. You can say goodbye to them and then you'll start your semester launch programming on August 19th.

All right, folks were going to wrap this up again. If you have any questions, go ahead and email us that uas orientation at USD Edu myself and Katie Salway, My graduate assistant, will be more than happy to answer your questions, and then you could also leave us a message at 217-206-8181 and I'll get back to you as soon as I can during regular business hours. Thank you everybody. I look forward to meeting you and we all get back to campus.

In August, have a wonderful rest of your school year. For those of you finishing up for our seniors, an undergraduate smart, graduating congratulations. We look forward.

See you at your next step. Go stars everybody.