• Application and transcript checklists have been posted at: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/awards/award-resources-programs/affiliated-fellowships-tri-agency-competitions
• Nomination procedures (including details about application quotas) and materials (e.g., data and cover sheets) will be posted shortly.

• NSERC PGS applications and reference letters: Please email your graduate program deadline and, if possible, a list of students (first and last names) applying to your program to junnie.cheung@ubc.ca. On the next business day, we will upload the application materials and reference letters to your folder on Workspace.
• SSHRC doctoral awards applications: SSHRC will accept printouts of UBC Academic History from SISC. For each applicant, please append one copy of the UBC transcript key to the SISC printout.

• Foundations of Project Management 1 (a Mitacs Step workshop)
  • Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept 20 and 21, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (Note: students MUST commit to attending both full days)
  • For further information or to register, visit https://www.grad.ubc.ca/about-us/events/13344-foundations-project-management-i-team-based-approach-2-days . 
  • The direct registration link on community.grad.ubc.ca is https://community.grad.ubc.ca/gps/event/13344 . 
• Volunteer for the UBC Botanical Garden! https://community.grad.ubc.ca/forum/2812
• The mini-MBA program from the Graduate Management Consulting Association (deadline to register is Sept 19^th) https://community.grad.ubc.ca/forum/2786
• A community impact event supporting YMCA mental health programming (and organized, in part, by a UBC graduate student) https://community.grad.ubc.ca/forum/2817
• The Lind Initiative Speaker Series on the US election campaign https://community.grad.ubc.ca/forum/2815
• Programming in Python, The Unix Shell, Version Control with Git, hosted by the Ecoscope NSERC-CREATE program https://community.grad.ubc.ca/forum/2814

There seems to be some lore about being stuck with committees. At any stage, you have the agency to change your committee. You are NEVER obligated to have a particular faculty member as your supervisor or as a committee member. There might be some administrative legwork to change up your committee, particularly when you are in the midst of the thesis-writing stage, but it’s never not an option.

Consider this post a public service announcement.

You must have knowledge of a language other than English. There are lots of ways to satisfy this:

• If you are a native speaker of a language other than English, you need to show some evidence for that (like a high school or undergraduate transcript).
• 12 university credits of a language (many of you may have this from your undergraduate degree).
• If you passed a reading/translation exam at your previous university.
• A translation/reading exam at UBC. Some language departments at UBC periodically schedule reading knowledge examinations. Evaluation of a student’s language competence is based on the translation of a text (approximately 1000 words) relating to the student’s field of study. Minimally, a second class standing (B- or better) in such an exam must be obtained in order to satisfy the Foreign Language Requirement.
  • For further information on such examinations, contact the appropriate departments. I’ll add them here, as you tell them to me.
  • French-Spanish-Italian schedule: Friday, September 16, 2017 and Friday, January 13, 2017 from 3:30-5pm in Buchanan Tower 898.

Don’t let this requirement slip your mind! The language requirement must be met by the time of the submission of the thesis (MA or PhD) prospectus.

Whether you are submitting an extension (in which case this is a requirement) or just being a diligent planner, you’ll want to be thinking about a timeline to your defense date. Grad Studies has a bunch of information, but I’m going to condense a bit of it for you here.

If you are working against a ticking clock, you want to work backwards from when you want to defend.

• Another 16 weeks before you want to defend, you* need to submit the form nominating an external examiner (who this is is often, but not always, decided in collaboration with your supervisor)
• About 6-8 weeks before you want to defend, submit your dissertation so it can go out to the external examiner.
• Minimally 4 weeks before you want to defend, (1) Confirm university examiners (who is asked is often, but not always, decided in collaboration with your supervisor), (2) request a date, and (3) submit a program.
• Defend that thesis! (And have fun while doing it. That’s a new rule under my Grad Advising regime.)
• Allow yourself 4 weeks to complete the final revisions to your dissertation**, and get everything submitted before your end of program date.

If you are making a timeline for an extension, give specific month/year designations for these landmarks.

* I say “you” here, but a lot of these “yous” mean your supervisor or your committee. You (as in you-you) often need to be assertive and initiate movement on these items.

** When creating a timeline for grad studies, this is a good estimate, but be aware that the amount of revisions and the timeline associated with them are determined by your examination committee.