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Student Success

Graduate Student Handbook

Your personal and professional success is our number one priority. Here, we have collected resources and information to assist you in meeting and achieving your academic and professional goals.


Dr. Flagg's Meta-skills for Graduate Students How to Succeed in Graduate School: A Guide for Students and Advisors 20 Key Habits of Successful Graduate Students Wellness Resources

Mentoring Program

Our graduate student mentoring program was developed to ensure that students feel welcome in the department and have all the resources they need to be successful. Upon acceptance to WVU, every prospective student will be assigned a graduate student contact who can answer questions about the program, WVU in general, or about living in or moving to Morgantown. 

Upon their arrival in the fall, new graduate students will meet peer and faculty mentors at a mentor mixer, read statements submitted by peer and faculty mentors describing their background and mentoring style, and rank their choices for mentors. A peer and faculty mentor will then be assigned to each student based on these rankings. First-year students are expected to meet with their mentors roughly bi-weekly. While these mentoring relationships are expected to continue throughout graduate school, the expectation is that the meeting frequency will decrease with time (for example, a second-year student may meet with their mentor a few times a semester and a fifth-year student may only meet with their faculty mentor once a semester). Every year, graduate students will have the opportunity to select a new peer and/or faculty mentor.

This mentoring program is a critical component of WVU’s status as an APS Bridge Program Partnership Institution. As a Partnership Institution, WVU is committed to provide a supportive environment for graduate students, with the aim of increasing the number of Physics PhDs awarded to underrepresented minority students.

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