What should I do when I first arrive in McGill University?

1: You should try to meet your supervisor as soon as possible if you can. If you manage to do that, he/she would let you know most of what you should do which may be dependent on the department you are from or the program you are doing. You should also ask him/her whether he can provide you with a computer, office space and internet access. Don’t forget to consult him/her about the courses you should take. This is important since the date you arrive may be very near to the deadline for taking the courses and if you can’t meet the deadline, you have to pay an extra charge for each courses and sometimes you can’t take that course at all. This is very important particularly if you want to do Master’s.

2: At McGill website, visit http://www.mcgill.ca/gps/ . This helpful website would give you useful information regarding registration periods and other events. You may find the answer of lots of your question relating awards and scholarship, thesis and non-thesis programs, convocation and graduation, etc there. For more information, search for GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES CALENDAR which is a PDF document updated each year. Through this document, you will find a full collection of information such as registration and some other critical deadline you may need. At the moment, (for the academic year 2004-2005), the file is available at : http://upload.mcgill.ca/courses/GPS0405.pdf .


3: During registration period, first of all, you should try to attend James Administration Building which is near the Milton gate of McGill (the gate which opens to the University Street). You should go to the second floor to the office below:

Admissions, Recruitment and Registrar’s Office
James Administration Building
Room 205

In the website below, you can find the office hours and the emails of the persons responsible for helping you regarding different registration affairs:

http://www.mcgill.ca/student-records/contact/

You must take your CAQ, passport, study permit and your letter of admission with you there. You probably have received also a Permanent Code application form with your package from McGill. If you have not posted that form once you have been in Iran, you should fill that form out and submit that as well. In that office, your photo will be taken and your McGill ID card will be issued on the spot.

If you haven’t received your CAQ once you were in Iran, before doing the above step, you should go to the address below:
383, rue Saint-Jacques, 4th Floor
Montreal (Quebec) H2Y 1N9Phone: (514) 873-2528

with your passport and study permit and the CAQ number you probably have. They will issue your CAQ and then you can attend the office mentioned above in McGill University with other documents mentioned.



4: After you finish your primary registration in James Administration Building, you have to register for the courses you want to take each semester. Generally, when you arrive in McGill, you already have an account in Minerva website which is created for you once your file in the admission committee has been processed. At the moment, the website address is:

http://www.mcgill.ca/minerva-students/

where you can login, then go to Students Menu and then click on Registration Menu and there you can start registering for the courses. For any question regarding Minerva, you can use the Minerva student help service available at:

http://www.mcgill.ca/minerva-students/help/


One of the important things is that you should try to contact your department graduate secretary who is responsible for helping you registering for the courses. The most tricky thing is that, in some departments, even if you don’t need to take any courses (which is usually the case for PhD programs), you have to register for a code usually named as Confirm Grad Reg. which is to confirm that you have registered as a full-time student. Sometimes the secretary forgets to remind you about that. You should ask him/her if such thing exists in your department and in case it does, ask him/her to give you the code you should enter in Minerva to register for that.

5: If you are supposed to work as a research assistant, you can defer the deadline to pay your tuition fee. To do so, you should attend

Student Accounts OfficeJames Administration Building, Room 301Tel.: 514-398-3900
http://www.mcgill.ca/student-accounts/hours/
(for office hours)

You should take your research assistantship letter (which usually your supervisor is supposed to provide you with that) to that office and ask for deferral of your payment.

6: If you arrive in Fall semester, you will be charged for health insurance service fee which composes the regular fee and the dental plan fee automatically (both are obligatory in Quebec). All you should do is that a week after registration, having your McGill ID card, attend the address below :

International Student Services
William & Mary Brown Student Services Building (known as Brown Building)3600 McTavish Street, Room 3215Tel : 514-398-6012

And pick up your Health Insurance card. Try to do it as soon as possible since after a while, not picking up your card may bring a HOLD to your Minerva file which would not let you register for the courses you want.

However, if you arrive in winter semester, you will only be charged for your regular health insurance and as above, you should go and pick up your card in the mentioned address. But regarding the Dental plan (which is optional), you should go to :

Thomson House
3650 McTavish St.
Montreal Qc H3A 1Y2
Tel.: (514) 398-3756
www.pgss.mcgill.ca

And on the Third floor, you should pay about 300 $ and will have the dental plan insurance. (Don’t forget to have enough cash with you because they don’t accept debit card or credit card).


7: A helpful document for international students is available at:

http://upload.mcgill.ca/internationalstudents/ISSHandbook2004.pdf

which is updated each and every academic year.

Finally, don’t forget to visit McGill Persians ,where you can find lots of who would welcome you to join and are ready to help.