Revision as of 20:48, 9 May 2010

Welcome!

To all incoming students, welcome to the NCSU Statistics graduate program. Many of you visited the department prior to deciding to join the program. For those of you who did not, or for those who may not remember, here's a quick summary of the folks you will likely need to talk to over the next few weeks.

We have two co-directors of the graduate programs in our department. Dr. Pam Arroway (pam_arroway@ncsu.edu) and Dr. Jacqueline Hughes-Oliver (hughesol@stat.ncsu.edu)

We can answer questions about which courses you should take, how to register, when/where orientation will be held, details of your admission or support offer, etc. Please check other posts on this blog first, as many of your questions will be answered in these posts.

You may also contact Mr. Adrian Blue (blue@stat.ncsu.edu), Graduate Program Assistant. Adrian can answer any questions you have about rules, regulations, paperwork, procedures or who to contact.

We are not the only people you need to know once you arrive. We'll introduce you to lots more folks once you are on campus. I know you have lots of questions. Hopefully we'll answer many of them over the next few weeks!

Where to Live

• Here is a map of the campus. Our department is concentrated in North Campus, SAS Hall.
• The NCSU Department of Transportation is full of helpful information on parking and bus service. If you do not have a car or don’t want to drive to campus, look for an apartment along one of the bus routes. The bus service at NCSU is very reliable.
• Apartments.com has an exhaustive listing of apartments in the Raleigh area. If you select option 14, NCSU area, you will get a lot of places to live that are very close to campus. Two-bedroom apartments are anywhere from $500 to $800 per month. Leases generally run for a full year (ie. August to August).
• NCSU’s University Housing Office is a resource for on-campus housing. There are two school-owned apartment complexes. Information on these can be found on the website. These leases may be more flexible than privately owned apartment complexes.
• The University Graduate Student Association’s New Student Survival Guide has a lot of information about the Raleigh area and NCSU.
• The Statistics GSA site has information about our department and different activities we do throughout the year.
• NCSU’s Student Organization list is a good resource if you have an interest in joining something. There are a lot of international student organizations as well as religious, Greek or athletic organizations.

Orientation and Fall Courses

Fall 2010 classes start on Wednesday, August 18th.

On Monday August 16th, there is a university-wide orientation for incoming graduate students from 9am-3:30pm at McKimmon Center.

On Tuesday, August 17th, we will have an orientation day for all incoming graduate students in the department. Attendance is mandatory, even if you have a previous degree from NC State. Orientation will be held from 10am-3pm in room 1216 of SAS Hall. Lunch will be provided and pictures will be taken.

On Thursday, August 12th (probably), there will be orientation for all new international students.

And finally, if you already have a Master of Statistics degree and you are not planning to take the Master's core courses, you should take the Basic Exam (PhD Qualifier) on August 10th. (More information on the Basic Exam in #4 below.) Plan on arriving in Raleigh in time to attend these events.

We will set up *preliminary* fall course schedules for most of you. International students' schedules can not be set up until they are cleared. So these may not be done yet. However, we have plenty of time to make changes to these schedules. Many students will need individual advising to choose courses for the fall. Please read this whole message, then, if needed, you can contact me with questions.

1. All students who are on financial support (TA, RA, VIGRE Traineeship) need to be full-time students. International students who are self-supported may also need to be full-time students for visa purposes. For incoming students, this means you need to be registered for at least 9 hours of graduate level classes. Graduate level classes are 400-level and above in other departments and 500-level and above in the Statistics Department.
2. Most incoming statistics graduate students will be registered for ST 512 and ST 521, two of the Master's core courses. Note that you will need to take the sections of these courses that are restricted to Statistics students. If you do not have a Master's degree in statistics, these courses are required. The Basic Exam covers these courses as well as two spring courses: ST 522 and ST 552.
3. Some incoming students have also been registered for MA 425: Mathematical Analysis I (for PhD students) or MA 511: Advanced Calculus I (for terminal Master's students). These courses are not required as part of the Statistics Master's or PhD programs, but are pre-requisite for required courses (see also the Main Page of the Graduate Handbook). Some of you may have had similar course work already and will not need to take these courses. Please review the course catalog descriptions to determine whether or not you need these courses.
4. If you already have a Master's degree in Statistics and feel that you will not need to take ST 512 and 521 (or ST 522 and 552) before sitting for the Basic Exam, you can email Adrian Blue to sign up to take the exam this fall on Tuesday August 10th, 2010. You can find more information about the topics covered on the exam in the Graduate Handbook Appendix.
5. In order to view or change your schedule, you'll need your Unity ID (login ID for the NCSU computer network), your Unity password. You have already been assigned a student ID number as well (a 9 digit number starting with 000.) You may obtain your Unity ID from Adrian Blue. Your initial password is set using the rules found at this link. On that same page, near the upper left corner, there is a "My Pack" logo. This takes you to a login page. Passwords are changed using the following website: [1]
6. If you need to change your schedule or add courses, check the course schedule to see what's available. If you would like more information about a statistics course, you can look on our department course notes. Again, I will be happy to advise you on choosing courses.

Suggested Electives

For those of you looking for courses for the fall, here are some courses which don't have ST 512 as a pre-requisite. (Those who have had ST 512 material have a lot more choices for this fall.) A more complete listing of courses and information can be found at "

• ST 520: Clinical Trials
• ST 535: Quality Control
• ST/MA 546: Stochastic Processes
• ST 590A: Bioinformatics I
• ST/ECG 751: Econometrics
• ST/GN 756: Computational Molecular Evolution
• ST/BMA/MA 771: Biomathematics I

Students who intend to get a PhD in Statistics will need to take Real Analysis I and II (MA 425, 426), unless you've had the material previously and gotten an A. For students who intend to get a Master of Statistics only, Advanced Calculus I and II (MA 511, 512) are required, unless you've had the material previously. These math courses will count as electives. Many students take one of these courses in the first semester.

Some more info on the Math 511

1. Real numbers 2. Sequences and convergence 3. Differentiable functions and their properties 4. Integration (Riemann integral and improper integrals) 5. Sequences and series of functions, pointwise convergence, uniform convergence

Buying a computer before you get here

There are computing labs available for our graduate students, however, if you are planning to buy a laptop or desktop for home, here are some pointers. (If you have any questions, please contact our systems administrators, Terry & Chris.)

In general, we recommend that students purchase a Windows machine with Windows XP Professional or Media Center. That way, it will be similar to the lab configurations, and easier to administer. The brand doesn't really matter. If you are buying a laptop you want to be able to use in your office or on campus, it should have wireless networking.

Most standard Windows configurations will run all the applications that are used in the department. The only recommendation may be to increase the amount of "RAM/MEMORY" to 1GB minimum so when they are analyzing a large data set, you will have sufficient resources.

As far as statistical packages, students will often need to run SAS, which is available freely to registered students through our computing center. (The most recent version for Mac OS is 6.12, which will have considerable limiations compared to the 9.x versions available for Windows.) SAS will not run on Windows XP Home Release (that's why we recommend XP Professional). There are some other FREE statistical applications that may be introduced depending on class selection and instructor such as R and WinBUGS. These can be downloaded and installed as needed.

Your new email address

In a previous section, we gave info about your Unity ID. This ID also tells you your new NCSU address: unityID@ncsu.edu. To check this email address, you can visit the webmail site and log in using your Unity ID and password. This email address is the one used by the department to include you on grad student and other departmental email lists. The department will not email directly to another address, e.g., yahoo, aol, gmail, or others.

You may want to forward your Unity ID to another email account by following directions from the Computing Center. As with virtually any email address, you may receive SPAM or junk emails. NCSU Computing has incorporated some filtering to help you combat this problem. The filter has proved to be fairly reliable, however it is not implemented by default.

Here are instructions to setup a SPAM filter to help reduce the amount of SPAM you receive through your Unity account. (Source:[2])

1. Login to WEBMAIL
2. Click Filters (LINK at the top of the page where your EMAIL is displayed.)
3. Click [Add a New Rule] (Button towards the bottom right side of Filter Page)
4. CONDITION Section Rule Type: [Header Match] (You change) The header [X-Spam-Flag:] [contains] [YES] (You change)
5. ACTION Section [*] Move message into (You change) [*] the exiting folder [Trash]
6. ADDITIONAL Actions [*] STOP: If this rule matches, do not check any rules after it.
7. Click [Add New Rule]

The above steps will take messages that match CAMPUS “SPAM” specifications and move them directly into your TRASH folder. You will still have to empty the email trash folder. However you should be able to quickly look at the list to confirm no important emails got incorrectly flagged. Once this filter is setup, it will stay in effect even if you are using an email interface other than the NCSU webmail site.

Pay schedule for supported students

For incoming students who have assistantships (TA, RA), your offer letter (or email) contained your stipend amount. Your assistantship will officially begin August 16th. Your health insurance begins on that date as well. Paychecks will be issued every 2 weeks (bi-weekly).

Notes about paychecks:

• There are 26 pay periods in a year. If you have a 12 month appointment, divide your annual stipend by 26. This is approximately what you can expect to receive as the pre-tax amount in a typical pay period.
• Approximately 19 pay periods fall during the academic year. If you have a 9 month appointment, divide your annual stipend by 19. This is approximately what you can expect to receive as the pre-tax amount in a typical pay period.
• For incoming supported students (9 or 12 month appointments), you can expect your first paycheck on Sept 4th. For the first paycheck, you will receive roughly half of a typical pay check, since your official start date is in the middle of a pay period. Your first full paycheck will be issued on September 18th. Please plan accordingly.

Tuition and fees

Tuition and fees for full-time graduate students (9+ credit hours) are currently set at Tuition: $2204 for North Carolina Residents and $8228 for Nonresidents

Fees: $792.50 (for NC Residents or Nonresidents)

Notes:

• If you do not currently live in North Carolina, you will be charged the nonresident rate.
• Bills will be sent via email in mid-July and are due early August.
• For more details about tuition, fees, billing, etc, please visit the Cashier's office web site.

Students on assistantship will have full tuition paid by the Graduate Student Support Plan (GSSP), but are required to pay the fees. These students need to notify the Cashier's office. Please go to [3] and enter the following information:

Third Party Sponsor: GSSP

Contact Name: Chris Buchanan

Contact Phone Number: 5-4472

Contact email Address: chris_buchanan at ncsu dot edu

Amount: $2204 or $8228 depending on your North Carolina Residency

North Carolina Residency

For US Citizens and permanent residents, we strongly encourage you to apply for North Carolina Residency for tuition purposes as soon as possible. International students are only eligible if they have an H visa. Even if you are on assistantship and not paying your own tuition, it is important to the department and the graduate school that you apply for residency. The difference between NC resident tuition and non-resident tuition for a full-time graduate student is about 6000$ per semester. The Graduate Student Support Plan is paying that, even if you aren't! So we strongly encourage you to apply for North Carolina Residency for tuition purposes as soon as possible if you are eligible.

North Carolina Residency for tuition purposes involves more than just physically living in North Carolina. Unless you currently live in North Carolina, this will mean applying for residency in Fall 2010. "Residentiary acts" must be completed 12 months before residency will be granted, i.e. you should have these done by Sept. 1, 2009. So, as soon as you move to North Carolina, you may want to get started on the following. (Good things to work on if you move to Raleigh and have a few days before orientation and classes start.)

• Convert vehicle registration to NC (state law says within 30 days)--The fees for this may cost around 300$ up front. The tax bill arrives about 90 days later.
• Obtain an NC driver's license (state law says within 60 days, but for residency I recommend doing it within 30 days) or an NC Identification Card if not driving
• Register to vote in NC
• List personal property at the Wake County Courthouse for taxation; listing is automatic for motor vehicle at the time the vehicle registration is converted.

Details on how to do all these things are given at [4]

Once you have finished these acts, the 12 month waiting period begins, so don't wait!

In order to register a vehicle in NC, you will need to show proof of insurance. From some past student experiences, this may be easiest if you are not on your parents' insurance and not driving a car in your parents' names.

During Spring 2010, I'll be contacting those of you who are eligible to apply to get your paperwork in order. Keep track of dates and paperwork for these. If you can trust yourself to do this, bring your paperwork to me (Pam) and I will copy it and hold on to it for you.

Parking Pass

If you plan to drive to campus, rather than taking the bus, the parking permit will cost you $300 for the year, depending on availability. You will need to register for a permit through MyPack. You may want to get the DC permit which allows you to park in the Coliseum parking deck. [5].

For more info on parking, see [6].

Health Insurance

You may soon receive information from BlueCross BlueShield concerning your enrollment of the insurance plan. Students that are on an TA, RA, or Fellowship do not need to enroll in the insurance plan, this is done automatically for you.

Final Transcripts

All incoming students need to submit one official copy of final transcripts to the graduate school. These transcripts will include grades from any courses which were "in progress" at the time that you submitted your application. Transcripts should be sent to the graduate school directly. Please submit these transcripts before the beginning of the fall semester. Graduate School Admissions Office North Carolina State University Room 240, Research Building III 1005 Capability Drive Campus Box 7102 Raleigh, NC 27695 USA