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This page contains information collected by the 2001 and 2002 orientation committees that we thought would be immediately helpful for incoming grad students. This is not an exhaustive list, but we hope that it will be helpful anyway.

First of all, go talk to Lindsay if you haven't done so already. Lindsay's office is in Sieg 126C, and her phone number is 543-5758. She has a packet of information for you and will also give you a key and tell you where your office is. Your officemates will be good resources, too, if you have any questions about things you should be doing before school starts.

Get your UW NetID. This gives you an "@u.washington.edu" email account. The e-mail itself is not so important since you'll have a cs account ("@cs.washington.edu"). But it also allows you to access online registration, account information, and other useful stuff.

Get a UW NetID here: UW NetID. Please e-mail zasha@cs.washington.edu if you can't do this -- I'd like to know.

Register for classes. Actually, just register for CSE 519 and 520 (these are weekly seminars that everyone in the department registers for every quarter). If you plan to be a TA, you may register for 590 IT as well. You'll get more info about your real classes at orientation. By registering for 519 and 520, you'll be able to pick up your ID and UPass (this is a bus pass that all students get by default - you have to return it if you don't want it. If you're planning to take the bus, it's a great, cheap way to get around the city, which is why you'll want to get it as soon as possible.)

Registration deadline: you must register for 10 credits before September 29 (the first day of classes), or bad things will happen. You should have a sense of what to register for after orientation, or you can ask your temp advisor or a trusty grad student (BTW, we're all trusty). You can change your schedule at will until the end of the first week of classes, so you're not locked into your schedule till then.

More information about these things is here:

MyUW (online registration) You'll need your UW NetID for this. Check out this increasingly old handout (section 1.2 on page 2) for hints on registering. Remember, you can always change your course schedule until the end of the first week of classes, so be bold. Warning: STAR is obsolete, and is replaced by MyUW, but most of the info on STAR applies to MyUW.

Current time schedules for CSE classes.

Ordinarily, your registration information (including your UPass sticker) will be mailed to you a day or two after you register. You have to go to Schmitz Hall in person to pick up your ID card itself. If you prefer to pick up all your registration materials in person, you can go to Schmitz to fill out a form requesting this; this might be particularly useful if you don't have a permanent address yet.

If you are a U.S. citizen, it is highly desirable for you to achieve residency in Washington State as soon as possible. Tuition is lower for Washington State residents, saving either you or (more likely) the department lots of money. The following will help in later efforts to become a WA resident:

Get a Washington State drivers' license at the Deparment of Licensing. (If you are from out-of-state and wish to drive, you are required to acquire a WA driver's license within 30 days of arrival.)

Register to vote in Washington.

Establish a bank account in Washington.

More information is available here: Understanding State Residency

A note for international students (from another international student):

Also for international students it is important that they apply for a state id (from the DOL) (otherwise they need to be carrying their passport all over the place), and also apply for a SSN (the earlier the better).

(I can't find URLs for either of these things, but supposedly there's information about it at the International Services Office in Schmitz Hall, or you can check the FIUTS web page.)

	Department of Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA  98195-2350 (206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX [comments to zasha at cs.washington.edu]