WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Music 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:18.000 Hi there, thank you for showing up. Before we move past the fist slide I want to explain what I mean by 'friction 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.000 I am going to talk about using technology in your graduate work to remove friction 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.000 As opposed to friction there are things that should move along smoothly, easily 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:35.000 For example if you are in an office environment, and you're working people and there is a lot of tension or bad communication. I regard that as friction 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:41.000 If it taking you five to eight times longer to get things done then it should that kind of stuff is friction. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:47.000 It slows you down and makes it difficult, whereas technology, ideally should not slow you down. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:56.000 You should not be spending more time figuring out how to use a technology in order to make your graduate work and your graduate life easy. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 Instead, technology should expedite and smooth things out. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:00:64.000 I like to think of it as a very nice lubricant that makes life calm and easy 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:08.000 When we look at technology in our graduate work 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:18.000 That is often a lens that people forget. They think 'Oh it's tech, its sparkly, I must use it' and spend hours learning how to use the technology instead of actually going the readings. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:32.000 It's not the best decision making process. This is about using technology intelligently to decrease your stress and to improve your quality of your learning and hopefully your experience while here. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:36.000 Today we have this broken down into five different areas. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:41.000 First I want to set up common context in terms of what graduate studies actually are in our environment. 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Then the skills you already have. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:52.000 Some practices to develop, and then some tools that are useful for graduate students, some pragmatic tools. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:61.000 Then we have some bonuses at the end. I wish it was food, I wish it was money, but I don't have those to offer you. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:13.000 what you see up here is an image of a dovetail, and I like to think of that in terms of a working metaphor for a lot of stuff in graduate school. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:22.000 There are those things which you have already as assets, understanding skills, connections, and there are things which you don't have but you need in order to succeed. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:33.000 In terms of your career or your goals they can mesh up and ideally if you know what you have and you know what your looking for you can figure out a way you can integrate them, tech can make that happen 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:41.000 What we do in graduate school, is essentially at the masters level, developing your mastery and knowledge of specific content. 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:50.000 Notice 'mastery of' you're not generating or contributing to the field, instead your developing your own understanding and mastery of. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:56.000 This is an important distinction. You are trying to understand what is happening in your environment. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:63.000 The technology is there to support and enhance your learning process, your mastery of your field. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.000 It is not there to be the object of your studies. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:12.000 Unless your in computer science or educational technology. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:19.000 Technology is there to facilitate your learning, and when you are working with technology you want to avoid stuff that distracts you. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.000 Filtering noise, thats a difficult one in easing use. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:32.000 Finally, this is often something forgotten in graduate schools and depending on your field, but i believe in this strongly. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:42.000 if you do not have concretized experiences i.e. visceral, physical experiences where you can apply your knowledge, you will forget it, it will become irrelevant. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:53.000 You won't recall it, because it means nothing to you. It has had no impact, while it might be a great idea upstairs, in the rest of your world you will probably forget. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:64.000 There are people that live in their head, and this is wonderful but overall I have encountered maybe two graduate students out of scores and scores who live in that place. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.000 So generally speaking, concretized experience. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:16.000 In other words what we're doing as graduate students and in graduate programs is your going out and getting information. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:23.000 Your comparing it to lived experience, not just your own lived experience because that would be narcissistic and egotistic. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:32.000 What your doing is your comparing to your own as well as scholarly and non scholarly representations of lived experience in your field. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:39.000 Then your testing and your comparing what other people say to what you think and what you live. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:45.000 You develop an evidence-based opinion and give feedback, then you go and delelop more information. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:51.000 You gather more information. It's an iterative cycle. That goes over and over again. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:56.000 Technology can support you in all of these aspects. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:64.000 Again, it is there to support and integrate, it is not there as the topic. again unless your in computer science or educational technology. 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:10.000 When this becomes important is when we think about where we actually live. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:16.000 This is a visual representation of a Facebook network and people who know other people. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Some people are like me, they have very few connections and they just know a few individuals. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:29.000 Other people are the center of massive hubs and there are all of these relationships, but notice this is not linear. 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:41.000 These are a series of nodes which are scattered and spread out, this is how we operate on a day to day basis, this is how information flows. It does not flow in a strictly linear fashion. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:47.000 So essentially information is delivered in a linear fashion in the classroom. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:56.000 This is often based on the tree model. The tree model is a gross oversimplification of how information actually works. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:61.000 This is a rhizome, it is like ginger. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:09.000 It can sprout out from any of the nodes and go in any direction on the rhizome. 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:16.000 This is much more accurate in terms of how information functions, if you think back to the web, with the network. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:25.000 When we teach and when we're trained, traditionally it's step by step, outline, linear order, linear structure. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:39.000 Neither one of these is better then the other, when we're working with students and when were working with colleagues and we need to present information, often we want things in a linear order, because it helps us make sense of it 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:52.000 How information actually flows is usually based on the rhizome or the web, it sprouts out. For example rarely do you hear when things are happening in your workplace from your boss. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:63.000 Normally it's from your colleagues and from other people on campus. That what I mean by its not linear. It's not top down, its often horizontal, or coming up from people you know. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:17.000 When were working with information for graduate school its important to realize your information sources are not just those that are handed down to you and you should not just work with that kind of information 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:21.000 You can have a much more rich experience. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:27.000 The idea behind the deferent tools and the practices is to facilitate your dovetailing. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:34.000 As smoothly as possible while supporting some balance in your experience so you have time for your life. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:39.000 Rather then allowing technology to drive you and gather endless oceans of information. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:45.000 Knowing when and where and how to set borders of the amount of information that you use is important. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:50.000 Not everybody knows how to have balance in their work/ school lights. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:61.000 In terms of the skills that you already have, you've already developed basic research skills, writing skills and we all use the web all the time. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:04.000 These are things which you already posses. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:13.000 What you need to be aware of is that just as you need to scale up your research skills and your presentation skills you also need to scale up your technology skills. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:21.000 If you don't, your graduate academic work will likely suffer and you do not want that to happen. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:25.000 This will happen because of issues with time. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:31.000 Search, this is where people have the greatest potential to grow, greatest potential to save time 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:36.000 This is where people are lazier then almost and other area, because its convenient. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:46.000 Google's first page results. Scholars all the way down to high school students and middle schools kids, almost always stop on the first page. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:52.000 What we need to realize when we work with google, we have a different search interface. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:62.000 Then if we're working with youtube, then if were working with Podcasts, and a lot of it has to do with the meta data and how sophisticated the search engines are and how sensitive they are. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:14.000 If you don't learn to differentiate, it's like preparing the same meal for the in-laws when they come over as for your coworkers when they come over as for some brand new people you just met. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:21.000 Your serving the same dish of macaroni and cheese with some tuna fish mixed in to all of them, its not appropriate. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:31.000 What you need to do is to understand different information types, different search engines require different search procedures. 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:43.000 Now this, if any of you invest time into this I will be amazed but you need to, the best thing you can do is to improve your search skills. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:52.000 This is knowing how to write different search queries in google. Actually going to the cheat sheets actually watching those. 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:61.000 I swear to you, I give you my word of honor, that for every minute you invest you will save five to twenty minutes over the next year. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:10.000 It's amazing how much a tutorial can save you in terms of frustration and the narrowing of searches and finding the information which is relevant to you. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:13.000 Almost nobody does this. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:22.000 RTFM is from code speak. I have adjusted it slightly to 'refer to the friendly manual 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:28.000 We don't have time to read the manuals. They have manuals, the manuals are searchable. 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:35.000 You can sit there and try to work out software. How many of you are masters of Adobe Suites? 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:40.000 How many years did it take to master your Adobe Suite? 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.000 Your still learning it. Buttons, buttons everywhere. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:58.000 Even trying to get photoshop to work was a twenty to twenty-five minute exercise and my own exasperation. Why? It's because I didn't read the instructions. I didn't go to YouTube because I'm a smart guy, I can figure it out. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:10:69.000 I felt like throwing the computer around, but I didn't. Go to YouTube and there are an array of tutorials that show you how to do things. Go to Adobe TV. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:17.000 The point is, rather then get something that your excited about and then become very frustrated with. 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:25.000 Its like having a course that's offered, you're really excited. You show up. The professor is boring. You have no idea, 'How am I going to resolve these two? 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:28.000 You resolve it be being excited about the content. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:32.000 Same thing with this, you show up, the software is exciting. 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:36.000 You don't know how to operate it. How do you engage? It's the searchable manual. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:40.000 There are video tutorials, there are PDF tutorials. 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:50.000 If you learn how to craft proper searches to find those tutorials, you will increase your productivity, and your friends and your coworkers will know that you're an asset. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:55.000 Even though you don't know how to do it, you know how to find the answer. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:60.000 It's much less about mastery and more about the mastery of finding the answers. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.000 Over here are my five and twenty minute rules. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:09.000 Of course I break these, I try not to, this is best practice. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:16.000 If I can't figure something out in my Gmail, and I want to sort, I may spend five minutes trying to figure out those tips. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:26.000 Its a small issue, its not a crisis issue, but if it's five minutes I give my self a time-out. Why? I'm frustrated. I get annoyed. I lose focus. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:36.000 I'm completely distracted. So rather then actually responding to grad student queries, I'm trying to figure out how to resort and re-filter my email. Not a productive use of my time. 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.000 spend five minutes, it doesn't work, you can come back to it later. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.000 On a larger thing, such as formatting a 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.000 document or preparing a presentation like this. If there's a 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:52.000 serious issue with software I spend up to twenty minutes. If it goes over that 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:56.000 then it's usually not good for the relationship at home 00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:60.000 or the coworkers because that kind of frustration will block 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:04.000 you and it's difficult to see, because you have been blinded by your own 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:08.000 frustration and the limits of your searches. That's where you need to take time 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.000 and step aside, this alone will save you hours and 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:16.000 and hours of time. I have developed this out of my own experience, but also 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:20.000 listening to students in my online classes who said that they 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.000 spend two hours trying to solve a problem. I'm sitting going oh my God 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:28.000 you did what? If they would have 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.000 taken just five minutes or ten minutes and then called it quits 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:36.000 move on to another problem. It is not worth anymore of your time and you need 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:40.000 to value your time and know that there are other solutions 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.000 So some practices to develop 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:48.000 if you have these already, excellent. If not, 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:52.000 these are the highest return on your time investment that I could 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:56.000 possibly suggest to you, based on my own experience. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:60.000 I'm happy to share the slideshow with you later on 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.000 it's a google presentation if you want to track some of this down 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Centrally if you name files properly it works well. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000 My example as faculty, I use google drive. A number of my 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:16.000 students are submitting assignments. It's the 'Week two foundations write-up'. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.000 Almost all of them have 'Week two foundations write-up'. So it shows up in 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.000 my drive as 'Week two foundations write-up', no last name, 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:28.000 because it's from their computer so of course why would they need to do that? 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:32.000 Does it have a class number? Usually most of them do not say 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:36.000 ED633 or CSE624, or one of those. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:40.000 What I would suggest to you is that by properly naming your files 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:44.000 and your folders so that you can find them six months from now 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:48.000 You will prevent an enormous emotional 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:52.000 angst. That kind of friction, you will avoid, because you will locate 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.000 eighty to ninety percent of the things that you want. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:60.000 Additionally, when you're trying to share things with other people they will know what 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000 you're actually sharing with them. It's just like an email with no subject line 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.000 Do you open those up or do you wait until you have dead time to open those up? 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:12.000 I never open those up until it's later a specific subject line works. 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:16.000 Versioning, I know a fair number of people 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:20.000 that do not, especially as students, they write the same paper 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.000 and they save it on the same sheet over and over again, same document, why? 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.000 We have plenty of storage. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000 If you save different versions you can document the history and the development of your 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:36.000 paper. If any questions of plagiarism or authenticity 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:40.000 ever arise, you have the history of it. If you 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.000 have brilliant insights which you cut out by accident, you can 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:48.000 go back and find it. You have like 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:52.000 gigabytes of storage, so there's no reason to not have 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:56.000 additional copies of the document. Preserve copies of all your work 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:60.000 drafts, hard drafts, I mean just everything. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.000 This also works very well in my opinion 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:08.000 so that you can see how much time and effort you are putting 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:12.000 into your work and you can track the growth and the development 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.000 in order to appraise your own progress this is very useful. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:20.000 When we have that self doubt demon that shows up 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.000 we can look at this kind of information and we can see that we have 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:28.000 eighty drafts of the paper and we can tell it to take off, because we know that we are working hard 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:32.000 Cross platform saving 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:36.000 I have an example I'll be right back 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:40.000 Ok. So you can vouch for this being accurate. You can take 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.000 ipod or your smart phone with Evernote. I can 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:48.000 borrow this book from the library or from my colleague. I can set it up 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:52.000 so it's optimized for a page. Take a picture of it. Then it syncs across on my ipad 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:56.000 and all of my other devices. That app is 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:60.000 free. One of the benefits is that if you are doing 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.000 scholarly research or you are doing work on papers and you forget or you don't want to write down 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.000 the name of a book, you can take a picture of the cover. You can take a picture of a couple of the key 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.000 pages in there. You have your reference, you have your citation, you have your 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:16.000 material. What this also needs to do for you is 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.000 across the multiple platforms. Google drive we have for free 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.000 already, you should have an external backup drive 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:28.000 if you don't you're nuts. I've know people that have 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.000 lost masters thesis. It's gone. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:36.000 Bye bye hundreds of hours and how many tens of thousands of dollars 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:40.000 of debt are you investing into your education. Treat it like 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.000 an investment, you just don't leave stocks in bonds sitting around 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:48.000 Qual-based backup across multiple devices 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:52.000 sustainable password practices. I got tired of trying to remember 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.000 everything. I got tired of doing spreadsheets. I have one 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:60.000 kind of password for all of my personal financial information 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.000 taxes, bank access, has nothing to do with anything else. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.000 Then I have my throwaway password. Just log in check out the site. 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:12.000 What are they offering? What are the options? Just garbage. Anybody 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:16.000 could hack that in probably five seconds. Then there are the tools that I use 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:20.000 regularly, like Evernote, Gmail, 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.000 I can't think of, Spotify, those kind of things. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:28.000 What I have is a solid core plus 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:32.000 something that differentiates that is site related and then 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:36.000 a non alphabetic variable. For example if I like 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:40.000 Joss in Star Trek, this is how I remember 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.000 eighty-nine the year I graduated and then the consonants from 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:48.000 the gmail sight. I find it easy to either select 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.000 all the consonants or the first three consonants or the first three vowels, last 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:56.000 three consonants, last three vowels for the site, and then some kind of 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:60.000 way, fragment, fragment, number, and then there is a forward slash 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.000 and I like Boba Fet, obviously I'm a Star Trek fan 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.000 So again, Boba broken up with a number, Fet 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:12.000 asana, the three primary vowels, and something at the end. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:16.000 If it were other sites then it wouldn't be aaa it would be 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:20.000 Boba42Fettgml? or 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.000 Spotiffy it could be spt 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:28.000 That way you don't have to remember everything and I can look up 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:32.000 at the site and what is the sites name, and then I can remember what my full password is. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:36.000 This can save you a lot of time and frustration 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.000 in terms of tools for graduate students 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.000 there are tons of tools. There are more than you will ever have time to explore 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.000 The best thing you can do is find tools that 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:52.000 other people suggest to you or that you just happen to stumble across. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:56.000 Spend between ten to twenty minutes exploring it. If you don't get it don't waste your time 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:60.000 Move on to something else, it is not as if there's a limit 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.000 availability of awesomeness. There's an ocean of awesomeness. You just have to find it. 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:08.000 Don't worry, everything you need is already out there. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:12.000 If you don't know what a bibliographic manager is, please 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:16.000 write that down. What this does is this tracks all the pdfs 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.000 books, articles that you will use in your scholarly life. There are free 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.000 versions. There's Zotero and Mendeley and there's paid versions 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:28.000 also of Mendeley and Endnote. You can write write notes, you can organize you can 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.000 sort, you can connect this to your word processor so that it imports the citations. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:36.000 It take time to learn how to do that. If you are in 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.000 graduate level course work right now, learn how to use those tools 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.000 before you hit your thesis. This moves again back to the friction 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:48.000 as you begin your graduate school process you can develop 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.000 tools and habits that will support your success, so that by the time you are 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.000 nearing completion and you are ready to get out of here and you want to complete 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:60.000 your final project it will be fluid, because you won't be learning how to use these 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.000 tools. Back-up 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.000 almost the common level that is available now is 5gb 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:12.000 if you want more google drive, just open up another gmail account. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:16.000 I mean really, or Dropbox has up to 5gb free and I think you can up 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:20.000 to 11gb by getting all your friends to join or something. 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.000 I wouldn't sync it with your secure information like your bank accounts, but 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:28.000 other than that, I back-up primarily 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:32.000 across google drive and then epic information like my doctoral 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.000 I put into Dropbox and I just kind of forget that it's there. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:40.000 Cross-Platform authoring and capture again, pointing to Evernote 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.000 I'm sure that there are other resources you can use. 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:48.000 Other tools that you can use. Photos, marking up PDFs. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:52.000 The point is that no matter where you are, if you have 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:56.000 an idea or information. You can create it, take a photo 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:60.000 of it and then you can tag it and put it into your folder and it's gonna go across all of your 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000 devices. This also means that should something happen to your phone your 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 ipad or your laptop. You do not lose all of that information. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.000 Always assume that your hardware is gonna break down. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:16.000 It's gonna get stolen, broken, disappear or get outdated. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.000 You must preserve the integrity of the information, because 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.000 the biggest investment you have is in your time and your effort. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.000 It's not the computer, it's the effort and the resources 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.000 you've got. There's also time management software 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.000 Asana I recommend if it's just you or you're working 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.000 with a small work of people obviously we don't have time to go over it. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.000 It's really great, but if you're working with more than say three to five people or you're 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:48.000 here on campus regularly and your faculty use google calendar, use 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.000 google calendar. Learn how to use it, their appointments 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.000 and set up is quite nice. There are lot's of tutorials available on that. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:60.000 There are lovely reminders too. 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.000 Many academic presentations 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:08.000 discuss primary places to find sources. 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.000 If they are scholarly, Google Scholar is alright. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.000 We have the databases, the library, Robert Mongi presented on this, he has a 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.000 great resource for this. I'm a little bit weird, because I like to go 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.000 other places as well. Scribd.com is essentially a giant 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000 PDF document sharing site. Once you run a couple searches 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 you will encounter a huge number of scholarly texts that appear semi random 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000 This is like browsing in the stacks. It's not just 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:40.000 ordered by your own perspective. It's also just what the search engine thinks you 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.000 might be interested in. There are lot's of PDFs. Academia.edu 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:48.000 is like facebook for academics. If you don't know about it 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.000 you might go there and start a profile up. One of the benefits is that you can 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.000 track scholars. You can track scholars and when they upload articles 00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:60.000 and papers. You can download those. That's actually where I found a lot of 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.000 content for my instructional design course. Occasionally they upload 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:08.000 their material and I get their permission to use it. 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:12.000 The search hack, I don't know if you know this already. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:16.000 When you enter it in google, what ever your search terms are do file 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.000 colon PDF. That's just one of about I think 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.000 seventy different short phrases, terms that you can use with 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:28.000 google to do searches. You can do file MP3 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:32.000 File MP4, but I do File PDF, because then 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:36.000 what it pulls up is a list of all these PDFs. If I'm 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:40.000 looking for usability this is another way to find available on the web 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000 I don't have to go to the database, because I hate the database interfaces 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:48.000 They stink. I don't like them. They frustrate me. 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.000 This is my hack and when I get those names I go to the 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.000 databases and then I search. I don't like databases 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:60.000 Academic databases. 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.000 Then again if I spend more time on how to use the tools 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:08.000 it would probably be much easier right? 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.000 Alright well, thanks for coming. My name is Ryan West I'm the Associate Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:16.000 here at Western. For this presentation. 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.000 Although it's for those of you here at Western, it's more general 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.000 in nature. Everything that I'm talking about is not specific to 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:28.000 WOU but it's applicable to WOU. We're going to talk about financial aid 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:32.000 options. Some of which don't exist here in great quantities 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:36.000 some of which do. I will highlight those pieces for you 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:40.000 as we go along. The topics that we are just going to 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.000 run through today. We are going to talk about federal financial aid certainly, 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:48.000 scholarships, some scams, assistantships, employer assistance, 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:52.000 and cost considerations. I'll tell you from my personal experience 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.000 I think grad school was a wonderful opportunity for me. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:60.000 I didn't go to college initially thinking I would get a graduate degree. 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.000 Nobody else in my family had gone to college. 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:08.000 I don't even know if I would have known what a graduate degree was. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:15.000 Now on this side of my graduate education, it was probably one of the richer times I enjoyed my undergrad, 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:22.000 but I loved once I found this is what I want to do with life this is where my passion is being able to focus on that. 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:29.000 I don't want to come off sounding too negative. I think there are really good reasons to go graduate school, 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:34.000 and I think there are some people that don't have good reasons to go to graduate school. When they do. 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:42.000 I think there is a lot of realistic concerns that need to be pre-thought out before you just sign up and jump in with both feet and find yourself 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:47.000 in a lot more debt than maybe worth while or made good sense. 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:56.000 So talking about Federal financial aid, the bad news about Federal financial aid for graduate students. Most financial aid is in the form of loans for graduate students. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:64.000 Typically, eligibility for Federal and state grants ends once you get your first bachelors degree. 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:10.000 Whether you are pursing a second post-bachorlette degree, or whether you are pursing a graduate degree or a P.H.D. 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:16.000 There is Federal financial aid available for all those programs, but is going to be in the form of student loans. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:26.000 The annual loan limit is 20,500 dollars for the Stafford loan program, which is the most loan program that most US schools participate in. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:32.000 That is all unsubsidized loan, meaning the Government does not subsidized the interest for you any longer. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:37.000 That ended several years ago that graduate students use to be able get subsidized loan, now they can't. 00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:48.000 So unfortunately graduate education has sort of taken several hits as far as Federal financial aid policy is concerned as the Federal Government looks for more money 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:56.000 to pour into the programs like the Federal pell Grant, that benefits needy undergraduate students, graduate students who have sorta paid the price. 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:59.000 in the options available to them. 00:27:59.000 --> 00:27:67.000 There are other loan options for graduate students. The graduate plus loan, helps people be able to borrow up to the cost of attendance. 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:18.000 Which is basically an all encompassing estimate of tuition and fees, room and board, books, misc., transportation costs a whole lot of money. 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:24.000 There are loan options available. Whether that is a good option you know is a completely different conversation. 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:31.000 To qualify for graduate plus loan you do have to have either no credit history, or an okay credit history. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:40.000 You just can't have an adverse credit history. You would not be approved for that loan if you have bad credit, bankruptcy, late payments, those sorta things. 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:45.000 The stafford loan is not credit based so it's available to anyone, as long as you meet the basic eligibility requirements. 00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:54.000 One grant that is available for graduate studies is the TEACH Grant. I use the term grant really loosely. 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:61.000 Because it is more of a loan in grants clothing. I suppose in that it's given out as a grant. 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:06.000 We will talk about the eligibility here in a minute, there is a service requirement. 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:10.000 If you don't complete the service requirement within the requisite amount of time. 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:16.000 That grant is converted into an unsubsidized loan with retro-active interest to back when you got it. 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:20.000 If you go into it knowing that risk and knowing the gamble, it's fine. 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.000 Our concern in the financial aid community is that, 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:30.000 Do people stop reading once they saw grant and 4,000 dollars and then didn't really realize that there were, 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.000 service requirements and how much more money this could mean in loan debt. 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:40.000 It is available for graduate students for up to two years of study. It says on my slide, and this is still the law. 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:46.000 Up to 4,000 dollars per year, under the budget sequester. 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:53.000 In the Federal Government budget the actual amount available for TEACH Grants has been reduced five times now. 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.000 The most recent being October 1st of this year, it continues to change. 00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:66.000 I'm leaving this in there, because stragitory 4,000 is what the grant is. You can have 8,000 dollars of TEACH Grants over the course of your graduate education. 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:14.000 Currently as of today the maximum TEACH Grant you can receive for three terms for one academic year is 3,760 dollars 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:16.000 But it is available. 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:22.000 To be eligible you need to be working in some sort of teacher preparation program. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:32.000 Because when you get out you need to teach for four years within eight years of leaving your program as a highly qualified teacher, in a high need field at a low income school. 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:38.000 Graduating from Western's programs as a highly qualified teacher not going to be a problem for most students. 00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:46.000 And finding a low income school also not very difficult anymore. The high need field is probably the piece most, 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:51.000 difficult in this that congress is the one who defined high need field. 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:60.000 And those currently are pretty limited in that they are defined as. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:06.000 Foreign language, mathematics, science, bilingual education, english language acquisitions, special ed or reading specialist. 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:13.000 In a program like Western especially for our undergrad, where we graduate a lot of early childhood elementary teachers, 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:18.000 This is not a good program for them. Elementary ed is not a high need field anywhere in this country right now. 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:25.000 If you know you want to be a special education teacher, math teacher, science teacher. Then certainly this would be a program to at least consider. 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.000 There are some other programs that might be available to graduate to students. 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:36.000 I say might be just because both of these programs are pretty limited in their funding. So the Federal Government gives school fundings for these programs. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:41.000 Schools then determine who the neediest students are to dull those funds out to. 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:44.000 The Federal Perkins program hasn't been funded for a number of years. 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:48.000 But as students repay schools, we use that money to loan back out. 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:53.000 So some schools may not allocate funds to graduate students, some schools may. 00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:58.000 At Western Oregon we are currently not allocating Perkins loans 00:31:58.000 --> 00:31:61.000 to graduate students, but we do allocate work study of graduate students. 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:06.000 It sorta depends, these will both be Federal financial aid options available to you. 00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:14.000 For all Federal financial aid, the application process is with the FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid. 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:16.000 You can apply online at FAFSA.gov 00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:20.000 Many of the funds, the smaller funds, like work study and Perkins are limited. 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:23.000 So usually you'd have to apply pretty early in the year. 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:30.000 The application becomes available every January 1. It's generally best to fill it out on January 1 and get it done. 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:35.000 Get in there and get your application in. Even if you aren't sure what your plan is, at least it is in there. 00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:38.000 You have it as a back up option for you. 00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:42.000 You want to contact the school to see if there is something else to follow up. 00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:47.000 Most of us won't give you a Financial aid package unless you've applied for admission into our program. 00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:52.000 But certainly there are other requirements for things like the graduate plus loan. 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:58.000 And depending on your school, they just may have an institutional financial aid application you have to fill out before they will award you Financial aid. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:32:67.000 Develop a plan, I mentioned this sorta at the beginning talking about how you can't go in and just take a bunch of loans and be satisfied when you go out. 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:12.000 So you need to look at what does the Financial aid office offer me. 00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:14.000 And does that make sense with what my plan is. 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:18.000 We will almost always offer you the maximum Financial aid you can get. 00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:22.000 Our job is to offer you sort of the buffet of financial aid options which is graduate 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:28.000 students. It is sort of a limited buffet but they're there, so we're gonna offer that and then it's your job to 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:32.000 pick and choose what you want and how much of it that you want. 00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:36.000 So, don't just take it. That's pretty common that we see people just accept it. 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:40.000 At Western Oregon an Oregon resident our estimate is that your cost would be about 00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.000 graduate programs take a year or two, maybe a little bit longer to complete. 00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:52.000 If you just take that loan you're right on track for $50,000 00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:56.000 plus in loan debt after two years. 00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:60.000 You need to be sort of looking at, can I afford to pay that back? 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.000 Does this graduate degree open that many more 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:08.000 doors for me? Does it make it worth another $50,000 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:12.000 in student loan debt. You can start 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:16.000 to look online at studentloans.gov. That is where I go, it is a federal site 00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:20.000 it is where I go look at different repayment options. As financial aid has 00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.000 become more of a hot topic and the ability of people to be able to 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:28.000 pay back their loans. New loan repayment options have come out, so there 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:32.000 are some good options that we'll look at here in just a minute but you need to sort of 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:36.000 know about those going in so you don't hamstring yourself to where you can 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:40.000 get out of graduate school and now you're gonna have to work like a dog, because you can't even 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.000 make ends meet any longer. 00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:48.000 Some loan repayment plans and forgiveness options. There are some 00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:52.000 forgiveness option, which is when the federal government will forgive some of your loans 00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:56.000 specifically for teachers. Again there is Stafford Loan forgiveness 00:34:56.000 --> 00:34:60.000 for teachers. $5,000 for most. Any 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.000 teacher who serves for five years in a low income school and then up to $17,500 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:08.000 of forgiveness for special education. 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:12.000 Math and science teachers. The cabiout to this being this is 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:16.000 up to congress to continue to appropriate funds, so well today 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:20.000 this is appropriated for, tomorrow it could not be. 00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.000 I would say these are good things to know about, but I wouldn't 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:28.000 bank on them as you make decisions about your graduate education. 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:32.000 There are some good things, some good ways to pay back your loans wether if you are working 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:36.000 for a school district, for a non profit, for a government agency. 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:40.000 There is the public service loan forgiveness where you make ten years of payments on your student loans 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.000 and any balance after that ten year period while you are working 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:48.000 for an approved agency, it is forgiven. This is specially good 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:52.000 if you end up with high debt in a lower paying fields 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:56.000 The best examples are typically law students 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:60.000 that have extremely high student loan debt and then maybe go out to 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.000 be a public defender in a county or something like that 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:08.000 where they are not going to ever get paid well, but this can work for teachers well. It can work for somebody 00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:12.000 in a role like mine even potentially. There are some 00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:16.000 loan forgiveness options. There's also some good repayment options, pay as you earn 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.000 income based, income sensitive, income contingent repayment options where it 00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.000 looks at your particular scenario. How much debt do you have? How much 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:28.000 income do you have? It determines a repayment. In most of 00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:32.000 those plans after so many years of paying. If you still haven't 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:36.000 payed back your student loans after making all those payments the loan balance would be 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:40.000 forgiven. There are some good things out there. I would say 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.000 I'm encouraged, honestly when I look at the average loan debt for our 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.000 graduate students at $29,659 the median 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:52.000 being $27,146. What I think is 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:56.000 encouraging, specially I didn't put this up here, but comparing it to our undergraduate students their 00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:60.000 average loan debt is $28,000 something. Which tells me a couple of 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.000 things. A, I think our undergrad students are not 00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:08.000 being well positioned to go on to graduate school which is totally unfortunate, but they have a lot 00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:12.000 of debt from undergrad. The people that are coming to us in graduate 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:16.000 school either didn't borrow much when they were undergrads, they paid some back, 00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:20.000 or they are not borrowing too much as graduate students. Any of those scenarios 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.000 makes me feel good about where they are at. This is still a manageable 00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:28.000 loan debt for most professions. If you are wanting to be 00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:32.000 a Peace Corp volunteer, this is gonna be difficult. Hopefully 00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.000 that was thought of before you got into things. There are student 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:40.000 loan options, there are federal financial aid options. They're not necessarily great, but there 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.000 something at least to be investigated. Scholarships 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.000 free money based on talent, merit, skill, ability 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.000 something that you bring to your program, to your school. Some students 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:56.000 don't really think about scholarships much with graduate studies. I find people are really 00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:60.000 focused on scholarships if they are straight coming from high school to undergrad and then 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.000 we sort of fizzle out as we go through undergrad and we stop looking for scholarships 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:08.000 and then people get to graduate school and they either just assume that there aren't any or 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.000 they are busy with life. That's certainly not the case. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:16.000 Check with the institution that you are looking at to find out how do you apply for a 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:20.000 graduate student scholarships. There may not be a ton of options, but there are always some 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.000 Somebody is probably getting scholarship money to pay for school. 00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:28.000 Check both with the graduate school, so big graduate school level and then check 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:32.000 with your department to see if they know about anything. Maybe it's not even through the school 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:36.000 but maybe your department contacts their professional organizations to say 00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:40.000 gosh, this isn't through Western, but it's through the national association 00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.000 of dot dot dot has a scholarship program for you to go 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:48.000 look through that. Web based searches, as long as they are free 00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:52.000 like anything, there is lots of information on the web, some of it is 00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:56.000 good some of it is bad. There are some more reputable sites 00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:60.000 Any of these that you register for, I mean they are not scam. 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.000 They are certainly partially marketing companies, so you are gonna get a lot of junk 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:08.000 Set up a different email address if you don't want to be full of things 00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:12.000 in your email inbox about scholarships that potentially 00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:16.000 don't apply to you, but it's worth looking at in that all you're gonna be out on is a little bit of 00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:20.000 the time filling out some profiles and perhaps it's going to turn into something 00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.000 I would say in my twelve years in the financial aid office here, I 00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:28.000 see people doing much better with local, regional scholarship opportunities 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:32.000 than they do applying for the Coca-Cola scholarship that 00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:36.000 while it's generous and gives out 250 awards nationwide, they have 00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.000 Those are some pretty steep odds. If you can find things more local 00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:48.000 I think they would be the good way to go. Talk to others in your program 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:52.000 As you are investigating your program talk to the people you are sitting with. Talk to the cohort above you 00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:56.000 People have gone before you to ask how did you pay for school? 00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:60.000 Find out what they would of done differently, most of us would. I would of done things 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.000 differently in how I paid for graduate school knowing what I know today than what I knew 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:08.000 back in the day when I went. Any other organization that you are a part of 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:12.000 certainly look at for scholarship opportunities. 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:16.000 State agencies Oregon Student Access Commission if you're from Oregon 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:20.000 this is a state agency that maintains a 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.000 sort of a bank of scholarship opportunities for 00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:28.000 donors that were interested in setting up scholarship funds, but they didn't want to go through 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:32.000 all the work of setting it up, maintaining it, making sure they are doing everything 00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:36.000 correctly in that regard. OSAC has more than 400 scholarships 00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:40.000 that it manages. You apply using one common application 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.000 to help filter out to see what you're eligible for. I would say the focus of 00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:48.000 these scholarships is undergraduate education, but there are certainly opportunities 00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:52.000 out there for graduate students. It's at least worth looking at 00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:56.000 you may spend, I don't think you'll spend any more than twenty minutes 00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:60.000 looking through and you may find nothing. Then you're out twenty minutes. You may find a few things 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.000 most of the scholarships are at least a thousand, a couple thousand dollars 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:08.000 specially in the graduate in the education realm, so worth looking at 00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:12.000 it specially if you didn't spend too much time on it. There are some scholarship scams 00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:16.000 out there. I would say use common sense, if it sounds too good to be true 00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:20.000 about anything paying for college, it probably is. College is expensive 00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.000 scholarships are competitive, there's no guarantees. 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:28.000 It should never cost you money. It shouldn't cost you money to apply for financial aid, it shouldn't cost you money 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:32.000 to apply for scholarships. If any of those things are coming up they should 00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:36.000 raise some red flags. If you see anything you're not sure or you want to bring it 00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:40.000 to the attention. I know our office loves when people bring us something saying 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.000 I wasn't sure wether I should really fill this out or not. A couple of years ago 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:48.000 we had some pretty widely distributed 00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:52.000 financial aid scam material that were sent to students living on our campus. They were sent 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:56.000 to the resident halls. It looked official. It told them it was time to fill out their financial 00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:60.000 aid paper work which was a true statement. It had some information about them 00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.000 and it asked them to fill out this form and send it back to this company in California 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:08.000 with their $49 processing fee. If you read through it, it never said what they 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:12.000 do. They were going to process it. It never said what that was 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:16.000 They weren't filling out the FAFSA. I called, they didn't want to talk to me 00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:20.000 They didn't have much to say. Unfortunately by the time we found out about it 00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.000 we emailed students and parent saying hey this company we think is bogus 00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:28.000 we don't know anything about them and we had multiple replies saying, well how do I get my money back? 00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:32.000 Just be a wise consumer when you're looking for 00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:36.000 financial aid options. Assistanships 00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:40.000 Graduate Teaching Graduate Research Assistanships is a fantastic 00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.000 way to go. Building on what was said 00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:48.000 earlier this is sort of that fiery to practice, like you can sit in a grad school class and 00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:52.000 be listening to a lot and doing a lot of reading, but if you don't get it into practice 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.000 then in ten minutes or ten days then it's probably gone. 00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:60.000 This is a great way to have that opportunity for professional practice within 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.000 your chosen field. Certainly ask when you're 00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:08.000 looking at schools about what options there are. 00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:12.000 There are varying degrees of workload 00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:16.000 application process depending on the school. 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:20.000 Some schools have a lot of GTA or GRA, some schools have few. 00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.000 It's definitely something to look at. Typically what the compensation 00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:28.000 typically looks like is that your tuition is paid for and you get a small 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:32.000 stipend. That's pretty typical. If you can wipe out a whole 00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:36.000 major chunk of your cost of college, like tuition and fees. 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:40.000 This is going to be a great way to go. There's certainly a trade off, you're gonna work, you're gonna work hard 00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.000 and you've got other hard work to do as a student anyway. It would be something 00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:48.000 that I would certainly would say, you want to look into. 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:51.000 Employer assistance. If you're employed full time, so when I went back to graduate school 00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:56.000 I was employed here at Western Oregon and within the University System we had the benefit 00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:60.000 of having a much lower tuition rate. If you were 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.000 employed and wanted to take classes somewhere. Something like that worked for me 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:07.000 maybe that would work for you if you are thinking, gosh it would of been faster 00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:12.000 for me to go through graduate had I quit my job and gone and gotten an assistantship. I'm not 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:16.000 sure if it would of been any cheaper and I liked my job. I liked what I was doing. It would of been very similar to what 00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:20.000 ever I would of had for an assistantship, so it worked out for me to go 00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.000 graduate school, mostly on a part time basis, occasionally on a full time 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:28.000 basis and I had the flexibility and support from my employer to do that. 00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:32.000 I'll look into that for those of you pursuing teaching. Certainly 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:37.000 school districts may still contribute towards your education, for those of you who 00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:44.000 need a master degree for licensing or you're working on becoming a highly qualified teacher in perhaps a different field or in your original 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.000 field districts may appropriate money for that. Similarly, 00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.000 outside of teaching, it would be worth looking at 00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:56.000 whether your employer supports your graduate school 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:60.000 endeavors to such a level that they would be happy to help pay for them 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.000 In loan repayment, I get this question a lot. 00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:08.000 I've never actually talked to anybody whose left Western and told me I found this great company 00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:12.000 and they'll repay my student loans, but there are companies out there that will help 00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:16.000 with loan repayment when you are working for them if they feel that 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000 was a good investment, that you bring some skills. It would be something that you could always 00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.000 ask about in a job search process or in talking about compensation options 00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:28.000 if you're being offered a position. 00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:32.000 Cost considerations. There are tons of good graduate schools 00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:36.000 great graduate programs. If you're thinking of going to an 00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:40.000 out of state public school I 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.000 would encourage you also to be looking at, what's that worth and what are the private options 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:48.000 because you're probably paying about the same as you would for a a private school at that point. 00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:52.000 Are there ways that you could get that down? If you're looking on going on out of state public school 00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:56.000 How long will it take for you to gain residency in that state? Are you willing to move to 00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:60.000 that state and maybe live for a year, relocate and then maybe pay a whole lot 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000 less in tuition, it might be worthwhile, but if you're not, you're not. It'd be something 00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:08.000 to look at. I would say online too. People seem to be 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.000 drawn to online programs. If that's a way that you learn then 00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:16.000 great look at it. Online often costs more. Not always 00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:20.000 but often it does cost more. You need to look at is that worth that trade off? 00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.000 I will tell you, I've taken online courses and the 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:28.000 misnoumer that I think a lot of people use is online equals easy. 00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:32.000 And it doesn't, online is not an easier way of taking graduate 00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:36.000 school. Depending on your learning style in fact, if you're someone like me whose more 00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:40.000 relational and I want to sit down and talk to my professor or colleagues, I find it 00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.000 more difficult for that. Other people probably love that style, there's convenience 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:48.000 certainly in there. It is not easier. 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000 I'm looking at cost considerations for what is 00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:56.000 what are opportunities that you'll have with this degree. Graduate school 00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:60.000 I say it all the time in different presentations. It's not a good hobby 00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.000 so if you're just interested in it because you're trying to add more initials after your name or 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:08.000 whatever, credentials. It's not worth it, you're going for the wrong reasons 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:12.000 Look at what does this really give you? What are your main motivators for going to college? 00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:16.000 or for graduate school. If you don't know why you're going yet, than it's not the right time 00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.000 keep investigating come back to it, do go, but not until it's 00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.000 the right time. What other cost can you 00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:28.000 reduce. We talked about the GTA or GRA Gate rate tuition and fees 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.000 maybe you can be a residence assistant or a residence hall director 00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:36.000 live on campus and help undergrads typically through their 00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:40.000 navigating the college lifestyle. That often eliminates the whole cost of 00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.000 food, room and rent. 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.000 Textbooks and shopping around certainly I think students have gotten way better than 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:52.000 in my year when the only option was the bookstore, that's where you bought everything. 00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:56.000 Other things, often when I'm talking to students 00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:60.000 who are telling me they can't afford to come to school it's not any of the costs within our 00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.000 budget that they are struggling with. It's their car payment and their credit card debt 00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:08.000 and all the things that I really can't help with with federal financial aid. 00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:12.000 Are there things you could do? Would you be willing to sell your car? 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:16.000 To pursue your graduate study education, is that a fair trade off 00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:20.000 or not? A couple of notes 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.000 review. Federal financial aid it's available, it's worth looking at. 00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:28.000 It might not be the right option for everybody. Certainly look for scholarships 00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:32.000 assistantship options, employer 00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:36.000 options, what ever will help you pay for college. Think a little outside the box, don't just 00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:40.000 sign up for whatever the financial aid office gives you and consider looking at 00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.000 costs, comparing options. Even if you fall in love with the graduate school 00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:48.000 it would be good to research competitive schools to see 00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:52.000 if maybe there's somebody else whose gonna make you a better financial aid offer 00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:56.000 but provide an equal experience. 00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:60.000 I said it at the beginning, I'll say it at the end. I don't want to sound like the pessimistic 00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.000 sayer thought. Graduate school is a great experience. It's a great thing to do. 00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:08.000 I encourage you to go into it wisely not just 00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:12.000 sign up for it. Make sure that you do what you need to do. 00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:16.000 Certainly our webpage there's a scholarship page that talks a little bit about 00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:20.000 graduate opportunities here at Western Oregon and then our graduate program page 00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.000 can give you a thorough understanding about the programs that we have available here 00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:28.000 If you have any questions in regards to our policies our 00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:32.000 procedures our practices with the graduate office, we 00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:36.000 actually started a new program that went live this week 00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.000 that is on our website called the online orientation 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.000 It's module based so tat once you click on there you will go 00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:48.000 through the process of being able to see what 00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:52.000 generally the handbook would cover. We have an academic 00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:56.000 portion that will go through what your requirements are for getting 00:49:56.000 --> 00:49:60.000 your graduate degree. We have exit requirement 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.000 sections that go over how to properly defend and 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:08.000 do your thesis, your professional project, your portfolio 00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.000 We frequently ask questions, questions that come in through email 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:16.000 phone calls that we're trying to provide those answers before you 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:20.000 have the question. Some of our 00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.000 online learning, that's kind of broad, but it's more how to 00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.000 get on to the online services at this point. 00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:32.000 Since social this is a small campus, but we wanted to provide students 00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:36.000 with some understanding of events, things that they could possibly attend. 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:40.000 Student services it mentions our 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.000 health and wellness center, our counseling center 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:48.000 other services that you may need while on campus 00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:52.000 and then Support and Technology. What we would like with 00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:56.000 this is that if you have questions or there is something that isn't covered 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:60.000 or is a little too dry, give us feedback. 00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.000 We want to have that feedback. This is all brand new to us we 00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:08.000 used another school system to kind of adapt into our 00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:12.000 system, but I highly recommend going through this online 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:16.000 orientation and letting us know if you have any questions. (Music fading in)