WELCOME BACK!

Orientation Recap

From August 11 - 13, Carnegie Mellon welcomed new master's and doctoral students to campus during University-Wide New Graduate Student Orientation. The Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs, in collaboration with colleagues from across campus, offered three days of programming intended to build a strong foundation for incoming student success during their CMU journey. Congratulations and best wishes to all new students--and welcome!

OPEN TO ALL GRADUATE STUDENTS!

Post-Orientation Onboarding Programming

Both new and continuing graduate students are invited to explore a range of post-orientation programming that will continue into the semester. These sessions are designed to support your success in graduate studies, whether you're just beginning your program or continuing your academic journey. Attendance is not mandatory but encouraged, especially for sessions that align with your interests or goals. We hope you’ll join us for these additional opportunities! The full details, including information on how to register, are available on the Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs website.

The September schedule includes topics such as an overview of funding opportunities, current grads and colleagues presenting workshops, and more.

FUNDING UPDATE

The Fall Application Cycle Is Opening Soon!

The Fall 2025 application cycle for Conference Funding, Professional Engagement Funding, and Scholarly Project Funding is opening soon! Applications will be accepted from September 8 - 19. This application cycle covers conferences and engagements that will occur between October 1 and December 31, 2025. All master's and doctoral students are welcome to apply for these funding types.

Information about these funding types and details on how to apply are on the Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs website. Note: If you're interested in applying, please consider attending the virtual event on September 4: Overview of Conference, Professional Engagement, & Scholarly Project Funding Opportunities & Processes for Graduate Students! Register here.

NEWS & EVENTS

NCFDD's Dissertation Success Curriculum

Carnegie Mellon partners with the NCFDD for faculty development resources, one of which is the Dissertation Success Curriculum. This 12-week curriculum will support you in building a daily writing practice alongside a supportive community of other graduate students. It is designed to help you overcome 3 of the biggest barriers to writing your dissertation: procrastination, perfectionism, and isolation. The fall cohort kicks off on September 2 and is free for you to enroll.

To enroll:

If you don’t already have an NCFDD account, sign up here.
Once you have an account, activate your community account here through the single sign-on process.
Head to the Dissertation Success Space and enroll in the Fall ‘25 Cohort. If the September 2 start date doesn’t work for you, there is also a Solo Study option where you will still receive weekly email prompts, but can start on your own timing.

Disability Resources Office Hours

When: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Where: Posner Hall, Room 278

These drop-in sessions are designed to provide guidance on the use of the Disability Resources Online Portal and answer general inquiries such as:

How do I schedule an exam?
How do I notify faculty of my accommodations?
Who should I contact with a specific question?
How do I elect and modify my accommodations?

Please note that these office hours are not intended for discussions about specific accommodations, personal concerns, or the review of medical documentation. For those matters, we recommend scheduling an individual appointment with your primary contact at Disability Resources. Visit the Disability Resources website for more information.

Mark Your Calendars

Explore these calendars to stay up to date on upcoming and ongoing events on campus!

For a full list of student organizations and events of all kinds, be sure to explore TartanConnect, CMU's official campus engagement platform.

RESOURCES

Graduate Student Handbook Suite

All programs at Carnegie Mellon are required to provide handbooks to their students. The Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs is pleased to offer the Graduate Student Handbook Suite, which encompasses the following:

Your program and/or college handbook (distributed by your department)
The University-Wide Graduate Student Handbook
The Word Student Handbook

Each of these handbooks provides important information about policies, procedures, expectations, and resources that are available to holistically support your graduate experience. Be sure to take some time to read through them and familiarize yourself with the content. They will be an important resource throughout your time at Carnegie Mellon.

Individual Development Plan (IDP) for Doctoral Students

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are meant to promote academic, professional, and personal growth by formally documenting goals and facilitating dialogue, collaboration, and accountability between advisors and advisees. You can access the doctoral IDP template here.

Need More Resources?

Visit the website for the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs to learn more about career resources, family care resources, and more.

CAMPUS PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs

Location: Cyert Hall A64

Contact: graded@andrew.cmu.edu

Pictured above: Maggie Sikora, Director for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, is on the right; Margo Littell, Program & Operations Coordinator for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, is on the left.

Briefly describe what your office does.

One of the primary goals of the Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs is to support and enhance the graduate student experience. We strive to meet this goal by convening, leading, and collaborating on myriad academic-related initiatives, procedures, and policies, many of which are highlighted throughout this newsletter and will continue to be focal points in subsequent newsletters. Additionally, we orchestrate university-level programming that advances opportunities to complement the graduate student experience.

Situated within the Provost's division, we are a centralized office that focuses on collaborating across the university to support all graduate students from every CMU school and college. You are welcome to contact us for any reason related to your CMU journey.

What are some of the services you offer to graduate students?

We publish this newsletter! The Graduate Student News is a monthly newsletter sent to all Pittsburgh-based graduate students. The newsletter includes funding updates, upcoming events, news of interest, and features on campus partners and graduate students. As noted in this issue, we also provide resources such as the Graduate Student Handbook Suite, the Individual Development Plan (IDP) for doctoral students, and more. In addition to uplifting campus news and events, this newsletter is also a way for us to communicate about programming opportunities we oversee.

The Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs also leads the planning and implementation of University-Wide New Graduate Student Orientation and coordinates the entire slate of programming offered as part of the onboarding and orientation experience for graduate students. In addition, we work to coordinate programming throughout the academic year in efforts to support your professional development as grad students, scholars, and professionals.

We also strive to highlight various campus-wide resources and initiatives available to support your holistic development and experience, and one such way we do so is via the resources tab on our website. Working closely with campus partners and graduate students alike is critical to creating and providing services and opportunities to fit your needs as graduate students!

Are you offering any upcoming events or programs of interest to graduate students?

Upcoming opportunities include Post-Orientation Programming, a series of events meant to extend the onboarding experience for new graduate students and support ongoing holistic success for current graduate students. These events will be scheduled through October. You can visit our website to find the full schedule and information on how to register.

One significant event we co-host, in collaboration with the Graduate Student Assembly, is the Scholar to Scholar: Graduate Project Showcase. This event gives students from across the university the opportunity to present a poster or talk, share their research with peers, and make interdisciplinary connections. We'll share details about this event--including how you can participate!--later this semester.

Finally, all graduate students should save the date for the 2026 Graduate & Professional Student Appreciation Week: March 30 - April 3!

Is there anything else graduate students should know about your office?

We are here for you! Please feel free to contact us anytime. If you'd like to explore more about our office focus, check out our mission, vision, and values, along with other important information, on our website. We hope to meet you soon, if we haven't done so already!

GRADUATE STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Samskrathi Sharma (she/her)

Program: PhD in Biological Sciences, Mellon College of Science

Click here to read the full Spotlight!

Poorva Wange (she/her)

Program: Master of Integrated Innovation for Products & Services, Integrated Innovation Institute

Click here to read the full Spotlight!