The Scholars' Guide

What is this?
The Scholars' Guide is a Binghamton University Scholars Program "Scholars III" project undertaken by Daniel Winegard (Class of 2011) to aggregate the internet based information and resources of Binghamton University. Almost all content within the Guide is from the Binghamton website family.

This document was released to many offices in Binghamton University to edit and distribute as they pleased, but with the caveat to cite the author as with any other body of work.

There are two major editions of The Scholars' Guide. The Scholars' Guide edition is for students in the Binghamton University Scholars Program, and incorporates program requirements with the resources of Binghamton University. It is accessible online at the Scholars Program website.

The "Keeping Ahead" Edition is designed for the general student body, and has appeared so far on the Biochemistry website as well as the Undergraduate Anthropology organization on BlackBoard, although the latter requires a major within anthropology to access the organization. A web based format of relevant transfer student sections is found on the Transfer Student Initiatives and Services website here. The most current edition of the guide overall is found here.

The Guide provides basic information across several categories, which is most useful to undergraduate students in their first few years at Binghamton University. Due to the constant change of affairs at Binghamton University, different offices have differing documents depending on when they were sent the guide. Ideally, most of the information will be transferred into BingWiki format for more coherent updating and distribution, although this may depend on leg work of the author in learning how to translate tables and other objects into BingWiki. Help is always appreciated.

Purpose
So why this? Why now? I fully believe that the earlier a student knows about what choices they have, the more they can make out of the college experience. Scholarships are useless if you learn about them after the fact, as I have learned and relearned. Almost anyone can pick out something that they wish they knew about, or pursued further, started sooner, accomplished more.

There are incredible opportunities at Binghamton University, but in a sea of information it is too easy to lose sight of them; it is discouraging to try to make them match up against one another and make good decisions. The ground is here but the maps are not universally accessible: It may take a lot more effort than it has to in order to find out where you fit here at the university - academically, personally, and professionally. Doing work should be hard, but merely applying and investigating opportunity should not be.

Introduction
These are the major sections of the Guide.


 * 1) Know thy resources: Understanding BU’s internet resources enables you to see what options exist for you.
 * 2) Challenge yourself academically: Take some serious stuff. The honors program in your department, a difficult foreign language, another hard class. Use think juice.
 * 3) Get a job: Because you will someday, might as well be today.
 * 4) Culturally enrich yourself: The university may be your last chance to see such a diverse cross section of culture and humanity.  Make the most of it.
 * 5) Get involved: A student group, volunteering, do SOMETHING.
 * 6) Build your professionalism: An appeal for experiential education and volunteering.

Highlights

 * The Scholars' Guide has lists combined with other information.
 * On campus job listings with links to job applications and information.
 * Basic Financial Aid and Scholarship information.
 * Lists of quiet study and group study rooms and areas throughout the university.
 * PODS computers, printing, and scanning locations.
 * Student group event planning online resources.

Latest version
Here is the latest compatibility Word edition of The Scholars' Guide, "Keeping Ahead" Edition. It is free to download and edit. It takes a few seconds to get to and there are advertisements, but that's the cost of free document hosting.

Other Projects

 * The Harpur Guide, for lack of a better name. Not authorized by Harpur or Harpur Advising; it is just a rough draft of my own ideas.
 * Master Website List, for lack of better things to do.

Links

 * Pipe Dream article on The Scholars' Guide
 * Binghamton University
 * Binghamton University Scholars Program