More on IT

A few people have been having difficulty accessing their @cam email accounts, and I have now been able to talk to the University Information Services about what may have caused the problem. Apparently the Student Registry sent out emails to some people inviting them to complete the registration exercise BEFORE their registrations had actually been created. A bit too keen!

If this has been a problem for you, can you please log back in to your Self Service account (the one that you created before doing the Student Registration Exercise) and see if you can access the questionnaire from any of the links on the Home page? If you can, go to the last page of the questionnaire and, hopefully, there will now be a link. If, however, you either can no longer access the questionnaire, or there is no link, please reply to this email and we can go from there.

If you have not yet received an invitation to create a self-service account, please be patient. These are being sent out in batches. If you have not received yours by Wednesday, please let me know.

Oh – and if you can’t find any emails about a self-service account, check your junk/spam mailbox as well!

Getting started with IT in Cambridge

I know that quite a lot of you are having problems getting access to your Cambridge email accounts. So far I have not been able to find out whether this is a general problem across the University, or whether it is limited to Newnham. When I have some information I'll send an email to everybody, and post here and in the Facebook group.

Term dates (Michaelmas 2016) and rooms

I have noticed a few questions on the Facebook page about when you will be able move into your rooms at Newnham, and I thought it might be helpful to remind you about a few important dates and give you some other pieces of information.

First of all, term dates and room licence dates (not the same thing!): the official start of 'full term' is Tuesday 4 October, and teaching starts on Thursday 6 October, but new undergraduates are required to arrive the previous weekend.

Arrival dates:

• Science students - Saturday 1 October.
• Arts students (includes Architecture, Economics, Geography, HSPS - in case you were wondering!) - Sunday 2 October.
• All students will have a meeting with their Tutor on Sunday evening.
• There will be an important briefing session for all students on the morning of Monday 3 October.

Exceptions to these dates are:

• Subjects with a pre-term course or study day. If this applies to you, you will have received details in your information pack.
• Choral Scholars - you will be notified about rehearsals before the start of term and you can be in residence for these.
• Applicants for Instrumental Awards - details of auditions will be sent separately.
• EU and Overseas students: the earliest date on which you can occupy your room at Newnham will be Monday 26 September. There will be some special welcome activities for international students during that week.

Room licences:

• 30-week (3 x 10-week) room licences and 'continuous' (39-week) room licences both start on Saturday 1 October.
• If you wish to occupy your room before the start of your room licence, you must check with the Admissions Office that this is OK, and if it is for other than academic reasons, the extra nights will be added to your College bill.

Rooms:

• Unfortunately you do not get to choose your room. The students going into the second and third years of their courses chose their rooms last term, and the first-years get the ones which are left (sorry!). Happily, nearly all our rooms are lovely, and some people even seem to like the less lovely ones! 
• They are all single rooms - you won't have to share with anybody, but you will share a bathroom and a kitchen with a group of other undergraduates, so you will make friends very quickly.
• We cannot offer accommodation to parents during the first few days of term. If your parents wish to come to Cambridge with you, they will need to arrange to stay in a hotel or guesthouse. Information can be found here: http://www.visitcambridge.org/accommodation.You will be very busy when you first arrive, so they might also feel a bit lonely!
• We cannot store any boxes, cases or other belongings before you come into residence - we have very limited storage space, so please don't arrange for anything to be sent to you before you actually arrive.

Freshers 2016 - forms for the Admissions Office

If you are outside the UK, it's perfectly all right to send in your forms (e.g. College Feast, medical information etc) as scanned documents by email. However, those that need a signature, i.e. Conditions for Membership and Data Protection, should also be sent in hard copy - or you can bring them when you come to Cambridge.

If you are sending them by post within the UK, remember that large envelopes need more postage - every year we end up having to pay excess postage because some people haven't put enough stamps on, and it also delays them reaching us.

And a final plea, as the person who opens the envelopes: if you are folding the forms to fit into a smaller envelope, please fold them as a batch, and not each one separately - they only have to be unfolded and all put together again!

Has your email address changed? IMPORTANT

I've sent out a few things by email recently, and noticed that some of you are still using your school email addresses. That's fine if they are still 'live', but if they are likely to stop working soon, please remember to send me an email address where we can contact you until you arrive in Cambridge.

If any other contact details change, e.g. postal address, mobile number, please let us know as well. They should be updated automatically in our records if you have notified UCAS, but it is helpful if you can tell us when this happens.

EU referendum

Principal Dame Carol Black has issued this statement in response to the EU Referendum result: http://www.newn.cam.ac.uk/newnham-news/eu-referendum-message-from-the-principal/

Deadline coming up soon!

I'm pleased to say that a good number of you have already sent in your financial information forms and photos - give yourselves a pat on the back before returning to revision!

For the rest of you, this is just a reminder that the deadline for sending these in is Monday 6 June.

Don't forget:

• write your name and subject on the back of each one of the four photos
• send the finance form, even if you haven't had a reply from Student Finance - we know this can take time, so you can send it on later
• but as soon as you do receive confirmation of your tuition fee loan, send us a copy of the 'student finance breakdown' document
• if you send the forms etc back in an A4-sized envelope, make sure you attach sufficient postage for a large letter - if you just put on a normal 1st/2nd class stamp, it will be delayed and we have to pay the excess postage, plus a surcharge

We use the photos for various things: to stick on files for your Director of Studies and Tutor (to make it easier for them to recognise you the first time you meet!), and we also give a set of photos to the JCR Freshers' Committee. They make a poster which they put up in the Porters' Lodge for everyone to refer to, with the photos in subject groups. So we're not worried about the colour of the background etc, but it should be a photo you're happy for other people to see.

Everything is very quiet in the Admissions Office just now, as schools/colleges are entering the exam period - so good luck to all of you sitting exams this term!

Accommodation

It has come to our attention that some offerholders have received personalised emails via UCAS Media, from a company calling itself Downing Students, advertising student accommodation in Cambridge. Please be aware that this is nothing to do with the University (or with Downing College) – it is a commercial enterprise.

As stated in the information which we sent at the end of March, first-year students are normally expected to live in College, so you should not need to look for external accommodation.

Reading emails

Hello offerholders!

Usually at this time of year I am busy stuffing envelopes to send you various bits of information and forms to fill in. This year we decided, as an experiment, to send everything out by email, and I'm delighted to say that it seems to have worked well - completed forms are already arriving on my desk!

The emails, with a number of attachments, were sent to you on 24 March, so if you don't think you've received one, please check your spam/junk mailbox. If you still can't find it, let me know and I'll send it again.

Deadlines are approaching ...

We are starting to prepare for our Offerholders' Open events on Saturday 27 February (arts subjects in the morning, sciences in the afternoon) and we are really looking forward to meeting you all in a more relaxed setting than the interviews! Please reply by Friday 12 February if you plan to attend. If you aren't able to make it, due to distance, previous commitments or any other reason, and you would still like to come and see the College, please contact the Admissions Office with a couple of dates that would suit you.

The Facebook page set up by the JCR Freshers' Committee now has over 100 members (including lots of current undergrads) - it's at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1659064517680739/?fref=ts or you can search for 'Newnham College Cambridge Offer Holders 2016'.


Next dates for your diaries:

Saturday 13 February - deadline for applications to Cambridge Trusts for financial assistance (overseas applicants)

Monday 15 February  - deadline for Choral Award applications to reach the College

Tuesday 1 March - deadline for Choral Award references to reach the College


I will be sending out an information pack to you all around the end of March/beginning of April.

Now is a good time to get used to highlighting these and similar dates in your diary - Cambridge undergraduates have to keep to many different deadlines throughout their student life!

Facebook group for offerholders

Congratulations on your offer!

Our JCR Freshers' President, Georgia, has started a Facebook group specially for you - it's a chance for you to 'meet' each other and some of our current undergraduates and to ask any questions you may have about living and studying at Newnham.

Here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1659064517680739/?ref=br_tf

or you can search for Newnham College Cambridge Offer Holders 2016

I hope you enjoy it!