ASE Graduate Program: New Students
The purpose of this section is to help you get started at UT. You might want to go back and review the information for prospective students. Also, after you are here a short time and the dust of your arrival has settled, you should review the information for current students.
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Vacation, Sick Leave and
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If you are going to become a UT student, you need to have your UT EID upgraded to "High Assurance" status. This means that the university has seen physical proof of your identity (such as a driver's license or passport), and that you have signed a form giving your UT EID legal signature authority. You will need to upgrade your UT EID when you arrive at the university and get your UT Austin ID cards. The easiest way to upgrade your UT EID is to bring your driver's license or passport to the ID Center, located on the first floor of the Flawn Academic Center (FAC). The ID Center provides the following services for The University of Texas at Austin:
- Issues university photo ID cards to each student, faculty, or staff member, and others as directed by the administration. These ID cards have magnetic stripes and barcodes and, in some instances, reader elements.
- Upgrades electronic identities (UT EIDs) to upgraded electronic identify for eligible individuals.
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At UT, the course numbers have meaning. The first digit denotes the number of semester credit hours. The second and third digits denote the level of the course: 0 to 19 means lower-division undergraduate, 20 to 79 means upper-division undergraduate, and 80 to 99 means graduate. Letters are often added to the digits to create more numbers. As an example, 381P is a three-hour graduate course.
To be a full-time student, you must register for at least nine semester hours in the fall or spring semester and three semester hours in the summer. You are expected to be a full-time student unless you have a job outside the Department. To receive financial aid, you must be a full-time student.
Purchase a Course Schedule at the Union, the Jester Center, or a local bookstore for $1.50. It has the University Calendar, instructions on how to register, a list of the courses being offered this semester, a campus map, and much more. You can view the Course Schedule on the web at
See the instructions in the Course Schedule on how to register. UT has a telephone registration system called TEX and an online system called ROSE.
To register, you must be advised. Pick up a Graduate Advising Form (yellow) from the Graduate Coordinator, and fill it out. Select your courses in consultation with your Advisor and have your Advisor sign the form. If you are registering for at least nine hours in the fall or spring semesters or three hours in the summer, you can turn in your form to the Graduate Coordinator to have your advising bar removed. If you want to take fewer hours, you must first get the approval of the Graduate Advisor.
After you register, be sure to check your registration. There is a time limit for correcting mistakes or making changes.
If after you register you get a zero-fee bill (your tuition and required fees have already been paid), you must still confirm (TEX or WEB) that you are attending.
For international students, there are two types of TA positions: those without student contact (graders) and those with student contact (recitation leaders or lab instructors). To qualify for student contact, you must pass the Oral English Proficiency Assessment.
You must reapply each semester for your TA position.
RA's are hired by individual faculty members and paid from grants and contracts obtained by the faculty member. TA's are hired by the Department but on the recommendations of faculty members.
Support as an RA and/or TA is contingent upon satisfactory grades and satisfactory research work. These are jobs, not fellowships. To be appointed to one of these positions,
- you must be admitted without conditions, and
- you must be a full-time student during the appointment.
You must reapply each semester for TA positions.
MS students supported through the Department or through the sponsorship of the Department (fellowships) are generally required to select the thesis option.
Vacation, Sick Leave and Leave of Absence
Even if you have a half-time appointment as an RA or TA, you are considered a student. Hence, you do not have vacation and sick leave, but you do get the same holidays as the faculty and staff. If you need to be away an extended time, you must discuss the absence with your advisor before you leave and apply for a leave of absence. If you get sick, let your advisor know.
At the graduate level, the University has a policy of continuous registration (fall and spring). If you must be away from the University, you can apply for a leave of absence for up to two semesters.
You have already been sent information on where to pick up your fellowship payments. University fellowships are paid by the month at the beginning of each month, and Cockrell School of Engineering fellowships are paid one-half at the beginning of the fall semester and one-half at the beginning of the spring semester.
If you are an RA (Research Assistant), to get on the payroll you must must start with your Supervisor . You will have to fill out the following forms:
- Employment Eligibility Verification (I-9). You will need to supply ID. There are several options. Please see http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf for options.
- Payroll Information Form. Here, you give the University income tax withholding information and payroll direct deposit information. For the latter, you need a checking account and must provide a voided check.
- Payment Request Form (international students only). This form is sent to the International Office to verify your eligibility to be paid a salary and possible exceptions from social security and/or income tax.
If you are a TA (Teaching Assistant), to get on the payroll go to the Graduate Coordinator and fill out the same forms as the RA's.
You are entitled to a free e-mail account while you are at UT. To get an address, go to the Learning Resource Center (WRW 205). You need your student identification number. Give your e-mail address to the Graduate Coordinator as soon as possible. Most announcements by the ASE Graduate Program will be sent by e-mail, so you need to get your address as soon as possible and read your mail regularly.
There are two kinds of regular mail at UT: US mail and Campus mail. Graduate student mail boxes are in WRW 222. Almost all University information and announcements are sent by Campus mail, so you should check your mail regularly. Please do not have personal mail sent to you through the Department. It will be returned to the sender.
There are threee bulletin boards for graduate students: one in your mail room and two on the second floor outside WRW 215. We will post information concerning jobs, other graduate programs, etc. You should check the bulletin boards periodically.
To be assigned a desk, see the Graduate Coordinator. To obtain keys for the desk area and the building, contact the Graduate Coordinator for key request forms. Once all the signatures hae been obtained, you can then take the key request form to the keys building.
You can park free on campus weekdays after 5:45 pm and on weekends.
Graduate students with half-time appointments (20 hours/week) can purchase a "G" parking permit which allows parking on campus in designated areas. Also, parking garage permits are available. See the Graduate Coordinator for a letter of authorization.
Anyone who will be working in a lab must participate in the Departmental Lab Safety Program. This involves taking three classes: general safety, hazardous materials, and fire safety. Each lab has a Safety Captain who can tell you how to arrange to take these classes.
The LRC has a Citrix Terminal Server which allows you to access your LRC Windows desktop remotely from various clients such as Windows 95/98/nt/2000/xp, MacOS9/8/X, Linux, and other Unix flavors. The Terminal Server provideds access to applications available in the LRC that students might not have on their home or office systems. Available applications are:
| ABAQUS | MATLAB |
NASTRAN |
| Adobe Scrobat | Mathematica | SolidWorks |
| Adobe Illustrator | MS Office | Tecplot |
| Adobe Photoshop | MS Project | Tk Solver |
| Fluent & Gambit | MS Visio | X-Win32 |
Logging into the Terminal Server is the same as logging into a PC in the LRC. Connect5ing to the Terminal Server from a Windows or Mac client, your local hard drive will automatically be mapped allowing you to copy files between the Terminal Server session and your local system. There is no cost for this service.
If you are required to take some undergraduate courses that will not count toward your degree, you may take them credit/no credit.
Courses counted toward the MS degree must be taken on a letter-grade basis.
PhD students cannot take courses for the degree on the credit/no credit basis until they have passed the Written Qualifying Exam.
ASE 380P (Math I and II) are not recommended for beginning MS students. These courses are for PhD students who are preparing for the written qualifying exam and require a lot of time.
MS students are allowed to take one business course. It must be a graduate-level course with analytical content. Also, you must get the permission of your advisor.
The following information applies to students entering in the spring of 2009 and beyond.
US Citizens/Permanent Residents: There are no longer any medical clearance requirements for students who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States. We still recommend a number of vaccines for all students, but they are not required. Please go to http://healthyhorns.utexas.edu/incomingstudents.html#D for more information.
International Students: Incoming international students are still required to provide proof of a PPD (tuberculosis) skin test performed in the U.S. (within a certain time frame of their registration), as well as providing proof of immunity to measles, mumps, and rubella. They are no longer being sent Pre-matriculation Health Record Forms as part of their admission. They are being directed to go the UHS web site http://healthyhorns.utexas.edu/internationalstudents.html to download and print a different form.
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