Dear all,
This is another long email from me with some important information. So please bear with me and read until the end.
Course petitions:
We are planning to review course petitions once per semester with the goal of getting a decision on them before the semester’s add/drop deadline. Therefore to provide sufficient time for review, the deadline to submit petitions will be 7 days prior to the start of the term. For example, for the upcoming fall semester, the deadline to submit a petition that you want to be considered for that semester would be Aug. 29th (fall term begins Sept. 5th). You are welcome to submit petitions at any time but they will only be reviewed near the start of each term. In the coming week or two, I will set up a form that you can use for submitting your petitions (as opposed to emailing them to me). I hope that this will streamline (and to some extent standardize) our process and that we are able to get decisions from the committee on a more timely basis. (I’ll send a link to the form once its ready)
QSE advising agreement:
I have set up a research advisor information form<https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=9CL6b2hFBUGtQy461HJpVym…> for you to fill out as you transition into your G2 year. In short, this form is meant to capture information about who your thesis advisor will be. Submitting the form will automatically trigger an approval process. A message requesting approval will be sent to the email(s) you have entered for your advisor(s) along with your other entries. Once we get back the approval, we will reach out to relevant parties requesting further details such as funding information which is essential for your stipends starting July 1st. In order to process everything on time, I suggest that you try to submit the form by May 1st. (If you anticipate not having a research advisor by May 1st, please reach out to me asap). I anticipate that this form (or an updated version of it) will need to be submitted annually going forward to ensure your appointment in the system is accurate.
QSE PhD program plan:
This (yet another) form<https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=9CL6b2hFBUGtQy461HJpVym…> is meant to capture relevant details about how you plan to meet the QSE PhD requirements. In particular, you will be entering the term and year for various course requirements and lab rotations. Submitting this form will also automatically trigger an approval process where a message with your entries is sent to your Academic and/or Thesis advisor for approval. You would submit this form (or an updated version of it) again near the end of your G2 year with an updated plan. The intention behind this form is to keep track of and have your advisor(s) approve of how you meet the QSE program requirements.
QSE cohort Slack channel:
It is quite helpful for me to be able to communicate with an entire cohort. Since you all have been the only cohort so far that has been easy! But soon we will have new G1s and so I thought I’d make Slack channels for each cohort. This is of course in addition to all the already existing channels so you’ll still be in all the other channels but only you all will have access to your cohort's channel. If you don’t use Slack, please let me know. I want to make sure I don’t miss anyone in any important communications.
Lastly, but equally importantly, I would like to talk to each of you individually before the end of this semester, especially to address any questions/concerns you have before you submit any of the above forms. Please take some time out and schedule a meeting with me using this link<https://calendly.com/nishantsule/30min>. I also have a confidential survey<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebVUAOXfmvlnjmyXGB_b3ZPlWJoqzrHOE…> that I would really appreciate you filling out before we meet.
You made it to the end!
Best,
Nishant
