Fall 2024 Finals Extravaganza

Dec 3, 2024 | Skeen Library

Once again, the OSL and Skeen Library hosted our beloved mass study session, the Extravaganza! This semester, there were 127 students who checked in for various sessions. They could get help in Pre-Calc, Calc I & II, Intro to PDEs, Physics I & II, and Gen Chem I. The Intro to PDEs session was run by our ah-mazing OSL tutors, Jack and Logan. Upon checking in, students were able to grab snacks and drinks and pizza was served at each session as well because, well, how are you supposed to study without munching on something?! As always, we sent out a survey to all the students who checked in at the extravaganza and here are some of the responses we received about the sessions and/or the instructors: "They covered a lot that will most likely be on the exam, and showed me what more I need to study," "They helped me better understand the material and what possibly might be on the final," "The professor ran through a practice test she posted, giving me an idea of where I should focus my studies over the weekend," and our absolute favorite, "Calc 2 is hell. Glad someone can teach it as good as Todd the God." 

Thank you to all the professors, TAs, and tutors who showed up to make sure all Techies aced their finals. See you again the Spring 2025 semester!

The OSL Celebrated National Tutor Week

Oct 7-11, 2024

The second week of October belonged to the OSL tutors! We invited Tech students to stop by the library and write a Thank you note and/or write something on the poster hanging outside the Student Support Coordinator's office. We're oh so fortunate to have such amazing peer educators on our team! Please see below what the setup looked like and the messages our tutors received. 

The OSL is CRLA Level 1 Certified

May 2024

We are thrilled to announce that the the Office for Student Learning has been awarded certification as a Level 1 certified tutor training program by the internationally recognized College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA)!

For more than thirty years CRLA has been a leader in learning assistance, reading, and academic support programs with almost 1,300 members and over 2,000 certified training programs worldwide.

The Office for Student Learning has worked hard to develop a tutor training program that meets CRLA’s rigorous standards and has successfully completed the International Tutor Training Program Certification (ITTPC) peer review process. Achieving certification means that the Office for Student Learning has met CRLA’s high standards for tutor selection, training, direct service, and evaluation as an integral part of their overall tutoring program. 

Best of Luck to Our Graduating Tutors

May 11, 2024

This semester, five of our tutors graduated: Adam, David, Mariana, Natasha, and Shemariah. We will miss them a lot ('we' meaning the OSL and Tech students) and we hope they do great things! 

Spring 2024 Math, Phys&Chem Extravaganza

April 30, 3-8pm at Skeen Library

This semester's extravaganza brought in 120 students hungry for Calc I, Calc II, Physics I, Physics II, and Gen Chem I sessions (and for snacks, too!).

Based on the feedback we received after the event, the students were grateful for getting "in-person help and assurance," providing "extra time to ask questions about specific topics" that they didn't understand and "to get some more personal help."

Another student pointed out that "the fact that the professors offered time outside of the classroom to review their finals was so greatly appreciated. It narrowed down the areas of study to better focus on."

That's exactly right, the extravaganza wouldn't have happened without the engagement from our wonderful faculty focused on student success: Dr. Wolford, Dr. Ballou, Dr. Pias, Dr. Mao, Dr. Sonnenfeld, and—of course—Oliver, Dr. Mao's personal assistant. See you again in the Fall 2024 semester!

2024 NMT Student Research Symposium

April 16-19 at Skeen Library

What a symposium! We had a total of 178 presenters, with 127 being Undergraduate and 51 Graduate students. 206 people came in to check out the sessions. Just like last year, there were four categories our students could participate in: GSA Poster Competition (open to grad students only), four poster sessions spread over three days, the Oral Presentation Session, and the 3-Minute Speech Competition. In addition, students and other attendees could visit the following showcases: the Sophomore Research program showcase, the Civil & Environmental Engineering showcase, and the Mechanical Engineering showcase (which is always very well-attended because of all the robots that students bring). 

In light of the "communicate to educate" SRS motto, the Writing & Communication Lab, the CLASS, and the OSL staff provided workshops to help the presenters create successful posters and speeches and to help them feel more confident in front of an audience. We hope that the knowledge they gained helps them in their future presentation endeavors. 

Below are a few photos but for the SRS 2024 Photo Gallery, please click here.

Here's some of the feedback we received after the event:

"Thank you for putting on the SRS, I had a blast. Thank you for all of the effort that you put into making it a success i.e. workshops, recruiting evaluators, tasty refreshments and everything else."

"This was one of the best SRS yet! Thank you and keep up the great work."

"Great format and opportunities."

What else can we say... We look forward to SRS 2025! For more information on the SRS, please click here.

Fall 2023 Math, Phys&Chem Extravaganza

November 28, 3-8pm at Skeen Library

Another successful extravaganza behind us! We had a total of 102 students sign in for the sessions offered. Wow! A huge THANK YOU to all the participating faculty, TAs, our amazing OSL tutors, and all the students who showed up—the extravaganza wouldn't be possible without you!

The day after the extravaganza all attendees were asked to submit a feedback form. Here are some of the comments we've received: 

"[The review sessions] were very helpful because they were a smaller setting than normal class so I felt like I could ask questions." / "They went over examples and gave me more practice." / "Helped me practice some problems I had previous doubts about." / "The problems we went over made more sense since there were less students in the extravaganza therefore a better chance to explain the material better."

After hearing so many good things all we can say is that we'll see you again for the Spring 2024 edition of the extravaganza!

National Tutor Appreciation Week

October 2-6, 2023

The OSL & Skeen Library celebrated the National Tutor Week in the first week of October. NMT Students wrote Thank You messages to show appreciation for our OSL Tutors and their hard work as peer educators. The messages are now displayed in the OSL area next to the Subject Board, so come and check them out!