UIC Connect - Forensic Science
Information
for New Students
Welcome to the M.S. Forensic Science Program at UIC. We are
pleased that you have chosen this program for your graduate studies. This
page's purpose is to provide practical information about UIC to get you settled
in, oriented, and registered. We usually have a reception for new graduate
students so you can meet faculty, continuing students, and one another.
You will receive e-mail about the date and time. Traditionally, it has been on
the Friday preceding the week classes actually start. Keep Dr. Gaensslen, the
DGS for the program, informed of your current e-mail. It often changes as
people graduate from college and move on.
You will need some academic advising as you prepare to
register for the fall semester. Dr. Gaensslen, the program DGS will be your academic
advisor, and you can e-mail or call him with any questions or issues concerning
classes and/or registration. A lot of information is provided here for you, and
you may not need to contact the DGS. After you understand what courses you
should be registering for in Fall, you can register for classes.
Sometime after you receive your official admission letter from the Office of
Admissions and Records you will receive, usually via email, information on when
you may register and instructions, if not included with your admission
letter. Registration, including changes to any existing registration,
begins a number of months before the term and continues through the first
official ten days of the term. During the registration period, all registration
activity is done by the student using Student Self-Service, which may be
accessed from UIC Web For Student.
When attempting to register, if you receive an error message directly
pertaining to the class or section you are requesting, consult with the
department offering the course as an override may need to be input into the
system to allow you to continue to register. Once the override has been
added you still have to register for the course in Student Self-Service.
If you receive an error message that you do not understand, consult the
Registration Help Line at (312) 996-8600.
All of you (except Illinois State Police employees or any
other special case students) should be taking at least 12 hours in the fall,
i.e., we expect you to be full time graduate students. You must register for
BPS 580, BPS 583 and BPS 584. That adds up to 10 hours. You should take at
least 3 hrs more. Sometimes, BPS 589 is offered as a special topics
three-credit elective course. BPS 542 (Pharmacodynamics of Substance
Abuse) may be of interest to those interested in drug chemistry and/or
toxicology when it is offered. Note that for the 4 credit lecture-lab courses,
you may have to register for two Course Reference Numbers (CRNs) to be properly
registered (even though it is a single course). On-line
registration requires that you obtain an "enterprise" username
and password. The system should walk you through this process. You won't get
closed out of any forensic science courses. They all have the "BPS"
prefix. This "enterprise" username and password is DIFFERENT FROM
what will be your "ACCC" username and password. The ACCC ones will be
set up on-line when you set your e-mail account. You will need the ACCC
username and password for a number of purposes besides e-mail.
If you are intent on being a DNA analyst some day, you need
to have credit courses (undergrad or grad doesn't matter) in molecular biology,
genetics or molecular genetics, biochemistry and preferably biostatistics to
satisfy SWGDAM guidelines. If you are lacking one or more of these courses, you
can take them as a grad student. You will find these courses in other
departments. But be careful. Most of the grad courses with titles along these
lines are heavy-duty first year PhD student classes, and are not for the
fainthearted. Example: BioS 524. You can take GCLS 501 (biochemistry) or GCLS
502 (molecular biology). These courses are for Ph.D. students on the west side
of campus who lack the background offered by the courses. They will be
time-consuming. You will be with all Ph.D. students in these courses. You could
also take undergraduate courses to satisfy one or more of these SWGDAM
requirements, but realize that these courses would not count toward your M.S.
They will, however, count toward your credit hour load -- if you have an
assistantship or waiver, you will have a minimum credit load: typically 8 hours
for a 50% assistantship in fall or spring, and 12 hours for a pure waiver in
fall or spring. If you took one or more of the SWGDAM-required biochemistry,
molecular biology, or genetics courses in undergraduate school, we recommend
you save the course syllabi. Employers may ask you for the syllabi to convince
them that you took an appropriate course in satisfaction of the SGWDAM
requirement.
If you are analytical chemistry oriented and were a
chemistry major in college, you can take MdCh 562. This is an introductory
spectroscopy course for medicinal chemistry PhD students. If you have an
interest in drug chemistry / forensic toxicology, you can take several courses
as electives related to that specialty, including BPS 542, Pharmacodynamics of
Substance Abuse, and Pcol 430 (Toxicology) when they are offered. Both are 2 cr
hrs. Watch the timetable for these courses if you are interested.
I-Card
The i-Card is the official identification card of the
University for students, staff and faculty. It is important to obtain the
i-Card and carry it with you at all times. The i-Card is needed
to enter certain labs and buildings, for access to certain student-related
events and services, and to check material out of the library. Once you
have registered for a course you may obtain your i-Card. This should
be done as soon as possible following your registration. You will need to
bring a print-out of your registration and either a driver’s license, state ID
card, or passport to the i-Card Office. Complete information, including
locations, is available from the i-Card Office.
Illinois state law requires proof of certain immunizations
for students in most situations. The policy and contact information are
available at the Office of Medical
Immunization Records. It is important that you
read this information carefully as registration for future terms is not allowed
if you are not in compliance at that time. Graduate students are not required
to have tuberculosis immunizations.
Tuition and fees are set by the Board of Trustees of the
University of Illinois. The tuition and fee schedule at UIC is fairly
elaborate so it is important to understand what your charges will be, as well
as your payment obligations. This information is available from the Office of Admissions and
Records website.
If you have been granted an assistantship there are a number
of important steps that have to be undertaken to ensure timely processing and
receipt of your first stipend check.
- You will receive a formal
letter of offer from the unit (usually your academic program) that is
attempting to hire you.
- After you have accepted and
returned the formal letter of offer for the assistantship, the unit that
is hiring you will complete the necessary information in the university
database.
- When the hiring unit completes
the previous step, it will trigger an email to you with logon and other
information for an online system called NESSIE.
- In NESSIE, you will need to
complete the HR Application and Payroll information (demographic,
educational, and bank deposit information).
- After that is completed in
NESSIE, you will be instructed by your hiring unit to complete a Statement
of a Drug-Free Workplace and I-9 forms, which you submit to the hiring
unit. The I-9 form is viewable in Nessie and includes a list of
acceptable official identification you will need to bring in with the
completed forms.
- For international students on a
visa, the hiring unit will send appropriate information to the Office of
International Services to initiate an Employee Clearance form.
- The processing for
international students on a visa allows less flexibility in regards to the
start date, so it is important to complete the necessary steps in a timely
fashion.
Only after all these stages have been
successfully completed will the appointment become official and allows you
to begin your duties and receive the monthly stipend, which is paid on the 16th. In
addition, if the appointment comes with a tuition waiver (contact your unit to
find out exactly which parts of the tuition and fees are waived and which are
not), it is only at this stage that the waiver is available to be applied to
your account, assuming you have also correctly registered for the total hours
required to receive the waiver. If the appointment for the assistantship
is offered or processed late, or any of the steps outlined above are delayed,
there is a possibility of missing your first monthly stipend check.
Although you will receive an adjusted payment a month later (assuming the
beginning date is properly processed and assuming you worked for that period),
not having the first check can cause financial issues you did not
anticipate. Therefore, if you do not receive timely responses you should
always contact the hiring unit to ensure procedures have not been
overlooked. See the Graduate College website for additional assistantship information.
If you have received a tuition
and service-fee waiver only from Forensic Science, all the above steps
should be unnecessary. But if issues arise in getting your waiver posted, you
can contact Lisa Knepshield in the Graduate College.
Housing
For those who may be interested,
campus housing on the west side of campus (the medical school campus, where
Pharmacy is located) is available. Additional information is available by
clicking this housing link.
We are happy to put you in touch with current students who may be able to
advise you on the situation wirth off campus housing. Generally, if you live in
campus housing (probably the SSR), you won't need a vehicle. Parking in Chicago
can be a problem. If you plan to bring a vehicle, check on the parking
situation where you intend to live. Graduate students are entitled to a CTA
pass that permits you to ride on the "El" trains and the CTA buses
during the academic year. You can get around Chicago pretty easily on the CTA
system.
Support and financial aid matters
Assistantships and waivers directly
available to the forensic science program have been offered to and accepted by
specific individuals. If positions should open up, we will contact others
directly. We have disseminated information -- usually by mass e-mail -- about
assistantships we know of, and will make you aware of any other assistantship
opportunities that come up.
Concerning potential assistantships
or positions in the College of Pharmacy or elsewhere on campus:
Regularly watch www.uic.edu/announce/ for "position available" postings. These change
daily. Some will want you to start the next day. If you are able to come to
Chicago in the summer in order to get a position, that might pay off in the
long run. If you plan to accept an assistantship for Summer semester, and you
have been admitted for Fall, we may be able to "back up" your
admission to summer to enable you to accept the assistantship. The maximum
percent appointment you can have is 67% (about 26 hours / week). To be a research
assistant, you must be a student -- so, you must be admitted, and you will have
to be registered for a minimum number of credit hours in summer term. If you
are seriously thinking of accepting a summer appointment, contact the DGS as
soon as possible to try and take care of some of these matters. If you have a
summer appointment, it would typically continue into fall semester, but at no
more than "50%", i.e., 20 hours per week, as described below.
The graduate asstships generally
carry tuition waivers, but you might want to make sure. There are some that
might not (i.e., you would only get paid). In general, 50% asst'ships pay
around $ 1,500 / month, and "50%" is typical for a grad student in
the academic year- it means 20 hours/week of work. In some departments, you may
get ten checks (instead of twelve), i.e., you could get paid Sept through June
but not in July & Aug, even though the total money will be the same. Lesser
% appointments will be worth proportionally less. Tuition waivers mean that you
are excused from tuition and the service fee. This is worth a bundle if you are
not from Illinois; it is still worth quite a bit even if you are. If things
become available in the Pharmacy building, we will let you know. Generally, to
be considered for assistantship positions, just e-mail the contact person and
say you are interested and available. If you have any experience or skills that
would make you a more attractive candidate, tell the contact person what those
are. Some of these jobs are in research labs. Others are in offices. Attach to
the e-mail a short resume if appropriate. You may be able to arrange a phone
interview and not have to come to Chicago just for that.
You can accept assistantship support up to 50%. So, if you have a 25% appointment, you can look for another 25% appointment to make up the difference in funding support. A 50% appointment will pay about $1,500 per month. A 25% appointment will pay about one-half of that.