Joining the CAFRI Team

Welcome aboard! This section of the book is focused on the things you need to know as a new member of the CAFRI crew – covering both hard skills such as “how do I learn git” as well as more organizational things like “what classes am I supposed to take”.

This book is a very new project, and is nowhere near as comprehensive as it should be. If you find anything confusing, or have questions as a new student that aren’t covered here, please ask someone in the lab, open an issue on GitHub with your question, or contribute a new section yourself!

This chapter of the book covers the sort of “checklist” of things to take care of when you’re starting out in the lab. If you’ve got suggestions for things to add, please open an issue!

Accounts

In addition to the ESF and SU accounts you’ll be creating as a new student, there’s a few systems you should be added to in order to communicate with the rest of the lab:

  • Slack: Slack is the primary communication platform for most of the lab, in addition to in-person conversations and email. Any member of the lab can add you to the slack; send someone an email and they should be able to send you an invite to our Slack instance. You don’t need to create a “slack account” before getting sent an invite. Once you’re invited, you’ll need to wait for a Slack admin to approve the invitation, and then will be able to join any chats you want!
  • Lab Calendar: The lab has a shared Google Calendar for tracking when people are offline, when important deadlines are, and similar general-interest events. Send Mike or Lucas a Slack message or email to be invited to the calendar.
  • GitHub: The lab uses GitHub for storing all of our code, including the code you’ll use to access lab data, and much of our documentation and paper writing happens here as well. You’ll need GitHub access even if you don’t write code. Create an account on GitHub and then send Mike or Lucas a Slack message or email to be invited to our GitHub organization.
    • Note that you can get free GitHub Pro at this link by verifying either your ESF or SU email with GitHub. You don’t need to have signed up with your school email and can get the free upgrade at any time. It’s highly recommended.

Grad students may also want to join the ESF Grad Student discord server, a messaging platform that’s open to all grads at ESF, not just our lab. To get access, email either or asking to join the server.

There’s a handful of other platforms that might be useful for you to join for your academic career. None of these are required in any way, but may be useful to have, particularly if you’re planning on publishing.

  • Twitter: Twitter is an incredible resource for academics. It’s one of the only platforms where you can find just about everyone working in your specific subfield, plus the NSF program director for your grant program, plus the person who wrote your favorite modeling package, and so on. You need to be careful about how you curate your feed, as like any social media it’s very easy for Twitter to turn into an outrage box, but if you pay active attention to who you follow and how you engage it can be a great way to make connections and get people interested in your work. This book is a useful how-to guide for new users.
  • ORCiD: ORCiD is the primary service used for academics to verify their identity. You’ll use this to log into a lot of systems, including most manuscript submission portals and many conference submission ones.
  • Google Scholar: Once you’ve started publishing (or posting preprints), Google Scholar is a useful place to collect your research. This tends to be where academics will look you up first; once you have published works, you should create a Google Scholar profile.
  • ResearchGate: ResearchGate is a useful place to collect your research, and is often faster and better at telling you about new citations than Google Scholar.

Things to Handle in Your First Semester

  • If you are not already a New York resident, you need to become a New York Resident by the end of your first semester. This process can take a long time, and you should start the process as soon as possible. ESF has more information on the process at this link.
  • Add information about ESF and SU accounts.

Community Resources

Navigating graduate school and/or moving to a new city is challenging. You are doing a great job, but sometimes everyone needs support or a place that they can find community. This is especially true for people from marginalized groups. Here are some gathered resources that may help you find your feet here on campus.

Queer Spaces

Syracuse has a dedicated LGBTQ resource center, and their website is an excellent repository for all the things queer on campus. There are five student organizations and 3 affinity group associated with the resource center, and they typically throw a few grad only events every semester.

If you would rather stay on ESF’s campus, check out the ESF Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA)!

Clubs and Cultural Associations

ESF has more than 80 student organizations, including several cultural clubs. Check them out, find some friends!

Similarly there are too many clubs over at SU to count, but notably they have more than 30 cultural associations, chances are the community that you are looking for is represented there!

Mental Health Resources

Many people find that supporting their mental health is essential to their success in graduate school. ESF’s counseling center offers short term services and referrals to local practitioners if you would like to be seen on a longer term basis.

Additionally, please know that Colin and your peers in this lab care about you and want to see you succeed at ESF, reach out if you are needing support!