ITP orientation

From ITPedia

Dear new ITP,

Welcome to ITP! We hope your summer has been amazing and that you're excited to be heading to ITP.

We know (from experience) that the transition into ITP can be pretty intense -- to help you out with that intense transition, here are a few things we wish we'd been told before the program started. Hopefully, they can make the transition just a tiny bit easier for you. After all, anything you can take care of now will be one less thing you have to figure out once school starts. It's only a few weeks away, so spend as much time as you can with your friends & family -- you're going to be a bit busy for the next few months.

If, however, you don't have the resources or the time or the knowledge to deal with any or all of these things, DON'T PANIC - none of these things *have* to be done now. These are just some suggestions of things that might make your life easier. Once you get to ITP, there will be people to help you do everything you need to do.

Enjoy the next few weeks of summer, and we'll see you soon!

- old ITP

Things to DO:

• GET YOUR SHOTS. If you don't do this, I guarantee that you'll have to do it at a more annoying & less convenient time later in the year. You can do this at the Student Health Center, which is conveniently right across the street from ITP.

• GET YOUR ID CARD. If you're in NYC already, you can and should get it now - it's worth skipping the lines and the hassle. Read this and then go do it ASAP. Seriously - it means you can use the gym and the library, too...

• LABEL YOUR STUFF. Seems ridiculous, yeah, but when there are 200 people in the same fairly small space and at least half of them have the same white MacBook power adapter, things get mixed up pretty easily. It's totally annoying to have to buy a new power adapter - they're not cheap, those things. Label yours.

Things to BUY:

• BUY A LAPTOP - you will need one. It could be a netbook, a MacBook, a hackintosh, a tablet PC... it doesn't really matter. Seriously, it's not that important. There are computers to do video editing at ITP - it's nice to have a machine that can do that, but it's not all that important. What matters is that you have a laptop - you WILL need one right away. If you don't have one, do it as soon as you can. The NYU computer store has pretty decent deals, and there are sometimes people selling used laptops in the ITP Student List.

• A TOOLBOX. If you don't have one, you're going to want one. It doesn't have to be fancy, but you're going to have tools and you need to keep them somewhere. Things like this, for instance - it doesn't need to be big, just something to keep your tools & parts in.

• TOOLS. If you don't have them, don't worry - your Intro to Physical Computing instructor will give you ideas about what to get. The NYU computer store sells ITP kits with parts and tools in it as well. If you have some, though, that'll be one less thing to worry about. Needlenose pliers, a multimeter, a wire stripper, a decent soldering iron - you'll need things like that.

• A DIGITAL CAMERA. It's useful to have, but not nearly as important as a laptop. The Equipment Room at ITP has cameras that you can borrow (and you will, for sure) and your phone probably has a camera too. If you don't work at ITP all the time, though, you'll need a camera.

Things to KNOW:

• IT'S OVERWHELMING. It's probably going to be really, really overwhelming - that's normal. Everyone goes through this in some way, so don't feel bad about it. Just stay with it as best you can and you'll start to get the hang of it.

• ITP HELP PAGE = ANSWERS. Many things that you want to know can be found here, on ITP's internal main page. Class listings & schedules, policies, instructions on connecting to NYU's wireless network - that can all be found here.

• YOUR LOANS TAKE TIME. Your loans will not come through until mid-September. Keep this in mind. Yes, it's annoying. No, there's nothing you can do about it.

• BOOKS & TOOLS COST MONEY. Plan on spending anywhere from $150-$400 on books & equipment, especially for Intro to Physical Computing. Tools, materials, parts... these things all add up.

• ASK QUESTIONS OF ANYONE. Not everything is written down - ask questions. Lots of questions. Anyone is fair game for questions, so ask away. If they don't know, they'll tell you who to talk to.