IV. NON-FINANCIAL RESOURCES

1. Advising

Incoming students are assigned a first year advisor to help guide them through their adjustment to the department. Students are encouraged to select their own advisor who shares their substantive interests, methodological approach, and/or general orientation to sociology by the beginning of the second year.

All students are encouraged to have at least one meeting per semester with their advisor to discuss progress in coursework, qualifying papers, dissertation proposal, and the dissertation. Students may also consult with their advisor regarding other issues and concerns with teaching, professional development, research funding, and publishing. It is critical that students keep their advisor updated on their progress and on any problems that arise in the program. Effective mentoring is a two-way street, where the student keeps the advisor updated on personal progress, and the advisor checks in on the student to ensure that s/he is making satisfactory progress in the program.

In addition to consulting with their advisors, students are encouraged to develop working relationships with other members of the department. Obtaining multiple perspectives on intellectual and professional matters is critical for a student’s development as a sociologist and a scholar.

2. Computer Services

Upon entering the program, each student is assigned a departmental computer account for accessing e-mail and computers in the department. The department’s computer lab is located in the lower level of Davison Hall. The computers in the lab maintain site licenses for Microsoft Office, Stata, SPSS, SAS, NVivo, and a variety of other useful packages for data management and analysis.  These can be used for free on the lab computers. A variety of software is also available for use on your personal computer for free or at a university discounted price at the Rutgers software portal (requires a Rutgers netid login).

3. Mail and E-mail Services

Each graduate student has a departmental mailbox on the first floor of Davison Hall.  All departmental e-mails are sent to the students’ sociology e-mail addresses.  It is the students’ responsibility to set up appropriate e-mail forwarding if they use another e-mail service such as gmail.  It is critical that students check their departmental email on a regular basis (at least once a day) to ensure that they are informed of all department matters including registration, funding, department events, course information, and the like.

4. Student Organizations

  1. GUSS: The Graduate Union of Sociology Students (GUSS) is an organization composed of all sociology graduate students. GUSS conducts new student orientations, sponsors social events, handles elections of the student representatives to departmental committees, and manages the GUSS budget.
  2. The GSA: The Graduate Student Association (GSA) is an organization for graduate students from all departments. All graduate students are automatically members of the GSA. The budget is generated from student fees (paid by all graduate students). With these funds and graduate student support, the GSA sponsors a wide variety of activities.

5. Sakai—Sociology Information and Documents Depository

A depository for examples of dissertations, dissertation proposals, qualifying papers, grant proposals, job market letters, CVs, replies to reviewers, etc. Students should feel free to share their successful documents, in order to help others succeed. The site also includes a forum for "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sociology but were Afraid to Ask." Discussions focus on professional development issues, department requirements and any other questions for which students would like to see multiple perspectives.

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