Newly admitted online learning students
Welcome and congratulations on your admission to the Welding Engineering online Master's degree program within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University. We are excited about your enrollment and wish to make your participation in graduate course work as simple as possible. Information on a number of items, such as OSU account activation, enrollment, and class participation, are provided below.
Spring 2024 Semester begins
Monday, January 8, 2024
Autumn 2024 Semester begins
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Six key items are to be addressed:
- Accept admission,
- OSU account activation,
- Secure a WE faculty advisor and develop a course plan, and
- Register for a Distance Learning course
- Pay fees
- Be aware of Registrar's add/drop and refund dates.
Accept admission
By way of your OSU application account, please follow the "Accept/Decline" link to formally accept admission. This is a necessary step that allows your student account to be activated.
Please understand: acceptance of admission implies adherence to the university's Code of Student Conduct and an understanding of academic misconduct and its consequences.
Activate your OSU internet account
Upon acceptance you may activate your OSU internet account. An e-mail/internet account is provided to all OSU students. The user name and password you establish for this account will permit on-line access to such things as course scheduling, grades, course web sites, and other important web-based resources provided by the university.
To activate your student account, please go to the following web site:
- my.osu.edu
- Click "Activate Now!" and follow the activation process. Associated with your application account should be an OSU user name in the form of "lastname.###" (such as "cooper.73")
- Be sure to note your OSU username and the password you established. These items will allow you to register for classes, check grades, etc.
If you are unable to activate your account please contact Mark Cooper.
Communication
Official communication to and from the university is done by way of your OSU email account (i.e., "lastname.##@buckeyemail.osu.edu"). The university does not communicate via a student's personal/company email. At my.osu.edu you can navigate to "Change Email Delivery" to route your OSU email to another account, if you choose. Please note that you are responsible to receive any re-routed messages sent to your OSU account.
Secure an advisor and submit a plan of study
Ideally, we would like you to secure an advisor before registering, but time constraints may not always permit this. You are required to secure an advisor no later than the end of your first term in the program.
To be assigned an advisor please complete this WE Advisor Request Form. Dr. Avi Benatar, Director of the WE Online Master's program, will review your form and provide you with the name and contact information of the Welding Engineering faculty member who will serve as your advisor. Please note that all email communication will be conducted via your OSU email account.
Plan of Study WELDENG MS Non-Thesis (PDF)
Discuss with your advisor your general goals for the degree and the courses or subjects you wish to study. Please create a plan of study which will outline the proposed courses to meet the degree requirements. It is understood that this is tentative, but it is helpful. Submit this plan to your advisor for approval before the end of your first term in the program.
Registering for Courses
Before registering for classes, you should first discuss with your WE advisor which graded courses to take (thus, ideally, you should not register for academic classes until you have an advisor). Graduate level courses are rarely closed, so you will not be shut out of a class, even if admitted close to the start of a term.
- The "WELDENG Courses" page provides a listing of the on-line courses to be offered in the coming terms.
- Graduate level courses at Ohio State are taught at the 5000-level or greater and a "Career" of Graduate.
- Only relevant, graduate-level courses may be used toward your degree requirements.
After establishing which courses you will take, students use the OSU Registrar's on-line registration system (BuckeyeLink) to enroll in classes:
Steps involved in course enrollment:
-
Please enter the username (lastname.###) and password you established when you activated your OSU internet account.
-
Select My Buckeye Link
This will bring you to the home page of your OSU account. It allows you to add/drop courses, check your account balances, update contact info, and more.
See also
Graduate School Registration Instructions
Student Center Reference Guide -
Complete the Financial Responsibility Statement. You will be blocked from enrolling in any credits until this is completed. [FRS instructions]
-
Click "Add a Class" in the upper left of the "Academics" section (if you've ever bought anything on line, this process is very similar).
-
Choose the desired term.
-
Click the green "Search" button to find classes.
-
Choose "Columbus" campus
-
Choose the subject of the course (ex., "Welding Engineering")
-
Select a course number search parameter such as is exactly, is greater than or equal to, etc. For example, enter "7000".
-
Course Career = "Graduate"
-
Expand the "Additional Search Criteria" options and under "Mode of Instruction" select Distance Learning. This will cause only courses offered in online format (DL) to be displayed.
-
Click the green Search button.
- Important tip! Results displayed for courses with multiple offerings are truncated to display only the first three items. Click the View all link to display all offerings of a given course.
-
As you find the courses, click the green Select button to add the course to your schedule. You may be prompted to enter the number of units--in the case of 6999.
Caution: Do not register for an on-campus section of a class, it will cause you to be billed at the higher out-of-state rate and add additional fees.
[You are not yet enrolled in the course.] -
When you have finished adding courses to your schedule, click the green button Proceed to Step 2 of 3. This will take you to a confirmation screen and if everything is correct, click Finish Enrolling.
A green check mark means you have been added to the course.
A red X means that you have not been added and must address the issue described. -
If you are blocked from enrolling in a course due to prerequisites, please use this Add/Drop graduate course form.
-
Click the My Class Schedule tab at the top of the page to view a summary of your enrolled credits.
Additional help with registration:
Your fees
Once registered a total fee amount for the term will be generated. If you have registered for only online learning courses, then you will be billed as an Ohio Resident (a lower per-credit rate). A flat $200 non-resident fee will also be assessed for any students who are not residents of Ohio, regardless of citizenship. Additionally, certain on-campus fees will not be assessed, while certain distance learning fees will be added. For more, please see the "Costs" section.
Important payment deadline: Fees for a given term are due on or before one week (seven calendar days) in advance of the first day of classes. *
- Please be aware that if you enroll prior to this one-week-out deadline, your fees will still be due one week before the start of class.
- If a student enrolls less than one week before the start of classes or during the first week of a term, the fee due date is five business days following enrollment.
- For more, see "Registration & Fees at a Glance"
* Tuition Option Payment Plan (TOPP)
TOPP allows students to divide the cost of tuition and fees into installment payments - four installments for autumn/spring semesters and three installments for summer term. If students enroll in TOPP and make the first payment by the fee payment deadline no late fees will be assessed for the remaining balance. Cost to enroll = $30 each term.
Important deadlines
A number of important deadlines occur during the term; payment due dates, dates to add a course, dates to drop, full and partial refund dates, etc. It is the student's responsibility to adhere to these dates every term of enrollment.
See "Important Dates" on the Registrar's site for dates specific to a given semester, but here are the general deadlines common to all semesters.
- One week before start of term--Fee payment deadline. If fees are not paid in full or addressed using the TOPP program (see above), the student will be assessed a late payment fee.
- First Friday of term
- changes to schedule may be made by student online
- 100% refund of fees if withdrawing from a course
- Second Friday of term
- Last date to make changes to enrollment (contact Mark Cooper.73 for assistance)--$100 fee for any additions made after this date.
- 75% refund of fees if withdrawing from a course
- Fourth Friday of term
- Last date to withdraw from a course and have no record of enrollment (no "W" grade)
- 50% refund of fees if withdrawing from course--last date to receive any refund if withdrawing from credits.
- Tenth Friday of term
- Last date to withdraw from a course. A grade of "W" will be part of the student's permanent record (a W grade does not effect the student's GPA).
- No refund of fees is available.
- After the tenth Friday the student must complete the class.
Course delivery format
Log in to Carmen
At Ohio State, on-line course content is provided by means of Carmen, OSU's on-line course learning management system. Upon enrollment in a course--and only after the instructor activates the course--a distance student will be able to access the Carmen site and log in using his/her OSU user name (last name.##) and password, as established upon admission to the university.
Courses may be offered synchronously--at the same time as on-campus courses--or asynchronously--independent from on-campus course offerings (typical delivery is asynchronous). The course lectures are recorded in the classroom and then archived on the course's Carmen website for access and review by distance and on-campus students. In the asynchronous mode, students view and listen to lectures from the course website using a “self-study” format and schedule established by the instructor. Some instructors use weekly recitation sessions, website “chat rooms”, or simply e-mail to interact with their distance students. The website for each course also features a "Discussion Board" that can be used to ask and answer questions. Course materials (notes, technical papers, pre-recorded lectures, prior exams, etc.) are provided to the student either by e-mail or through the website.
Proctor
Testing may be done by means of a proctor--typically an employee in the student's company or a staff member at a local library--who oversees the integrity of the testing and forwards the test materials to the course instructor. Details regarding the need for proctors will be provided by individual course instructors. Please have the contact information for the proctor ready to provide to the instructor prior to the first day of class.
Transfer GND credits
If applicable, any credits taken in GND status must be transferred from the student's GND record over to the MS degree record. By default, GND credits are not automatically moved into the degree record.
Please log in to GradForms.osu.edu and file a Transfer of Graduate Credit form. The form will have fields in which to designate which GND credits (up to 10 total) are to be moved over to the degree record.