By Steve Nye
The campus community gave new graduate students a warm welcome Thursday with the seventh annual New Graduate Student Information Fair and evening banquet.
More than 400 new graduate students visited 20 different information booths in the WSC Garden Court.
The fair introduced students to BYU, to the community and to the Office of Graduate Studies.
?We hope to give new graduate students a good orientation to BYU and its graduate programs,? said Selby Herrin, special projects coordinator of graduate studies.
Booths ranging from the Graduate Student Association and Career Placement Services to the BYU Bookstore and Harold B. Lee Library provided students with a variety of information.
?A lot of things I didn?t know about,? said Rachel Pollock, a graduate student in anthropology. ?The information was very helpful.?
Nick Barrett, a graduate student in information systems, said he was impressed organizations had so much to offer the students.
?They are really friendly and welcoming to grad students,? Barrett said.
Rachel Wadham of the library catalog department helped introduce graduate students to various library services and encouraged students to get to know their subject librarians.
Subject librarians are experts in library research for a specific topic. These librarians assist graduate students with research for theses and dissertations.
?These subject librarians will sit one-on-one with students and help them with research,? Wadham said. ?We really want to make their life easier.?
An evening banquet was also held in the WSC Ballroom to welcome new graduate students. Gary Hooper, former associate academic vice president was the featured speaker.
?I want students to realize graduate study bears very little resemblance to undergraduate study if it is done right,? Hooper said.
Hooper addressed many anxieties graduate students face, along with opportunities available to them.
?I also want students to realize they are now going to be on the other side of the textbook,? he said. ?They are going to be the people putting things into textbooks, not just reading textbooks.?
More than a thousand students with spouses attended the banquet. Many students received scholarships and other prizes for taking part in the information fair.
