August 26, 2024

Hello GPAs and GPCs,

As we prepare for autumn quarter, I’m writing to let you know all incoming graduate students will receive a welcome message today that introduces them to U501, the online orientation for graduate and professional students. Produced by the UW Graduate School and updated annually, U501 is a self-guided, online resource designed for graduate and professional students at all three campuses to help prepare them for their arrival to and start at the University of Washington.

Here are a few testimonials from students who have taken the orientation:

“I really appreciate all the details and step-by-step directions regarding how to organize time, meetings and graduate life in general. Because of all the specific advice about how and when to create plans for the various aspects of graduate school, I feel more prepared and less panicked.”

“I really liked all the videos. It was nice to see real people talking to me instead of just text.”

“I really liked the Imposter Syndrome module. I wish I could’ve seen these videos during my undergraduate degree. I’ll definitely be going back through and watching them if I feel overwhelmed over the course of my degree and feel like they might make a difference on my academic performance as well as overall mental and physical wellbeing.”

You can direct your students to the entire orientation at grad.uw.edu/u501. In addition, you can include individual modules in your own orientations and materials. For example, some advisors ask their students to watch the “ What a Staff Advisor Does” video prior to one-to-one meetings to make the most of their time together. To direct students to individual modules, access U501 via Canvas using your UW NetID. Then, select individual modules using Canvas Commons, found on the bottom of the left purple navigation bar. You also can link to individual videos outside of Canvas through our Vimeo video library. To honor our agreed upon terms and conditions with the people featured, please use these only for orientation purposes and include the full video (no clips).