msbapm.business.uconn.edu

Graduate Business Learning Center | UCONN

STUDENT WELCOME PACKET

M.S. Business Analytics and Project Management (MSBAPM) Program

Graduate Business Learning Center (GBLC)

Hartford, Connecticut (USA)

Table of Contents

I. Student To-Do Checklist

II. MSBAPM Hartford Program – Graduate Business Learning Center (GBLC): Parking & Directions

II.Parking Policy

III. Plagiarism

IV. Student Safety

V.Places to Go and live in the Hartford area

VI. Stores in and around Hartford Area

VII. Public Libraries in and around Hartford

VIII. Banks and ATM centers in Hartford, CT

IX. Student Organizations at UCONN

X.Additional Important Information4

I.Student To-Do Checklist

Please refer to the important tasks listed below, which you will need to complete as you begin your first semester at UConn.

As a new student, UCONN expects you to:

□ Purchase an updated PC-based computer.

□ Attend the mandatory MSBAPM Student Orientation at the Hartford GBLC Campus during the

Week of August 18th. More information will be communicated to you in a near future email.

□ Take personal responsibility for your academic and social choices –

Please read the “Student Code” and “Academic Integrity Policy”

□ In addition, please review very carefully “Plagiarism Resources” at

□ Get familiar with the following website: (here you will find links to Student Admin, HuskyCT, Google mail)

□ Contact UCONN’s Information Technology Services to activate your “UCONN NetID”, and to access your University email account (if you haven’t done so already) -

□ View your fee bill and the related deadlines. Log into your “Student Administration System” at

Tuition is DUE on the FIRST DAY of the SEMESTER.

□ For Emergencies and weather related cancellations, register your cell phone at the “University's Alert Notification” website -

□ Sign up for a student health insurance plan that meets your individual specific needs and preferences at

If you have a pre-existing medical condition, we recommend that you be familiar with local area hospitals and medical services such as Hartford Hospital, Saint Francis Medical Center, UConn Medical Center, Manchester Memorial Hospital and Wyndham Hospital.

** If you have insurance, please let Student Health Services know about it (

□ Make sure your most current personal email address is on file with the University. Check your “University email” frequently. UCONN’s Bursar office, UCONN’s Immigration Services Office will send important and time sensitive communications to this email address. Keep your email updated in the Student Admin System (access from go.uconn.edu)

II. MSBAPM Hartford Program – Graduate Business Learning Center (GBLC): Parking & Directions

  1. Parking: Parking for UConn's Graduate Business Learning Center is available in the North Constitution Plaza Garage.
  1. Driving Directions
  2. From I-91 Southbound:
  3. From I-91 Southbound:
  4. Take the State Street Exit
  5. At 2nd light, turn right onto Market Street
  6. At 1st light, turn right onto Kinsley Street
  7. Constitution Plaza North Garage entrance will be a ½ block on the left*
  1. From I-91 Northbound:
  2. Take exit 32B (left exit) Trumbull Street
  3. At the 1st light take a left onto Market Street
  4. Turn left onto Kinsley Street
  5. Constitution Plaza North Garage entrance will be a ½ block on the left*
  1. I-84 Westbound:
  2. Take exit 54 (left exit) Downtown Hartford
  3. At 2nd light, turn right onto Market Street
  4. At 1st light, turn right onto Kinsley Street
  5. Constitution Plaza North Garage entrance will be a ½ block on the left*
  1. I-84 Eastbound:
  2. Take exit 50, Main Street and follow Morgan Street (parallel to I-84 West)
  3. Turn right onto Market Street
  4. Turn left onto Kinsley Street
  5. Constitution Plaza North Garage entrance will be a ½ block on the left*
  6. *Additional entrances to the parking garage can be found on Talcott St & Columbus Blvd.
  1. Directions into the UConn School of Business Graduate Learning Center

If you enter the garage on Kinsley Street, you will be on the 4th floor of the Garage. If you are not parked on the 4th floor of the garage, take the garage elevator or stairs to either the 4th floor or the 5th floor. Enter the 100 Constitution Plaza Main Lobby through the double glass doors marked “100 LOBBY ENTRANCE 260” at garage level P-4 (Section 4D) or P-5 (Section 5D) on the West side of the garage.

Wheel chair access entry is provided on the P-3 level. Visitors requiring assistance should use the intercom on P-3 to call Security who will meet the visitor in the lobby and contact the School of Business.

All visitors are required to sign in at the Security Desk. The Security Guard on duty will contact the School of Business office when visitors have arrived and a UConn representative will greet you.

II.Parking Policy

Parking Ticket Validation Policy

Parking for University of Connecticut Part-time and Full-time MBA, EMBA, MSBAPM and MSFRM students is available in the Constitution Plaza North Garage attached to our building on Kinsley Street.

UConn students, faculty, and staff may receive one parking wand without charge, transferable between vehicles. It should be held over your dashboard when you enter/exit the garage. Please do not remove the backing of the parking wand as we recycle the wands. Wands and badges must be returned upon program completion in order to avoid a badge/wand fee.

Reserved Parking Spaces

UConn students, faculty, and staff are NOT allowed to park in Reserved Parking spaces in the garage. Vehicles will be ticketed and towed if they are illegally parked in reserved spaces.

Student Parking is available during the following times with a wand:

  • Monday through Friday – 4:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
  • Saturday – 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

If you arrive before the available student parking time, the Hartford MBA Program Office will validate your parking ticket only for the following purposes:

  • Confirmed Advisor Meetings (with Anna/Jose)
  • Meetings with UConn officials (confirmed with Anna/Jose)
  • Make-Up Exams (confirmed with Anna/Professor)
  • Friday daytime classes (ticket validated for Morgan Garage Parking ONLY. Constitution Plaza Parking for day classes NOT allowed)
  • If you have one class – parking allowed up to 7 hours MAX
  • If you have two day classes – parking allowed over 7 hours

Forgotten Wands

If you forget your wand, you are responsible for your parking fees. The garage rates are:

  • Mon-Fri, before 5:00 PM - $2/half hour up to a maximum of $24/day
  • Mon-Fri, after 5:00 PM - $5 flat fee
  • Saturday - $10 flat fee

Permanently Lost/Inoperable Wands

If your wand is not working or is permanently lost, take a ticket to the Garage Office on the 4th floor

  • The garage office closes at 5:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and is closed Saturdays
  • If you arrive and the garage office is closed, let the attendant know that your wand is lost/inoperable.
  • Lost wands: Go to MBA office for replacement wand ($30 cash fee)
  • Inoperable wands: Garage staff will reset wand for you
  • Lost wands: Garage staff will stamp parking ticket, then go to the Hartford MBA Program Office for a replacement wand ($30 cash fee)

Please give the attendant your validated parking ticket upon exiting the garage; do not use your parking wand upon exiting if you took a ticket upon entering the garage.

Study Lounge Parking Costs

If you desire to come into GBLC during the day and use the study lounge, you are more than welcome. However, parking is not provided or paid for and is at your own expense.

Study Lounge hours are from 7:00am – 6:00pm

Cost of Parking during the day at Constitution garage is as follows:

  • Mon-Fri, before 5:00 PM - $2/half hour up to a maximum of $24/day
  • Mon-Fri, after 5:00 PM - $5 flat fee
  • Saturday - $10 flat fee

Remember: wand in/wand out;ticket in/ticket out

III.Plagiarism

** Please NOTE: All content in this section has been taken from

Introduction

According to a 2002 survey(As cited in a report from the Scholastic Standards Committee’s Ad hoc Committee on Plagiarism at the University of Connecticut titledDeterring Plagiarism at UConn, page 4)issued by the University of Connecticut Department of English’s Freshmen Writing Program:
Nearly 30% of responding students admitted to having knowingly plagiarized at least once.
Nearly 43% of responding students admitted to unknowingly plagiarizing at least once.

What is Plagiarism?

According to theAmerican Heritage Dictionary (Retrieved 03/11/05 from to "plagiarize" means:

  • "to use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one's own,"
  • "to appropriate for use as one's own passages or ideas from (another)," or
  • "to put forth as original to oneself the ideas or words of another."

"In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward." (Retrieved 03/10/05 from

There are essentially two types of plagiarism: intentional and unintentional. Intentional plagiarism can be obvious, such as turning in someone else's work as your own or copying text verbatim without citing the source. In these cases, the writer knowingly tries to take the easy way out. There may be times, however, when you think you're using source material appropriately but you are actually plagiarizing without meaning to. While this form of academic dishonesty is unintentional, it is still unacceptable and will result in disciplinary action.

In order to write the strongest paper possible, you first need to recognize what situations would be considered plagiarism. Once you know what plagiarism is, you can avoid committing it accidentally.

Examples of Plagiarism:

  1. Taking material from several different sources and altering sentences to make them fit together while retaining most of the original phrasing. -- This is an example of intentional plagiarism. The writer is using the words and ideas of others and trying to pass them off as his own.
  1. Altering the source by changing key words and phrases while retaining much of the content-- This is another form of intentional plagiarism. The writer is trying to hide the fact that the main idea and most of the text belong to another author.
  1. Paraphrasing most of the paper from various sources and making it fit together. – This is plagiarism. Because there is little or no original content, the paper is nothing more than a collection of other people's ideas.
  1. Citing the source using the author's name without specific information on the location of the material. – Plagiarism: Even though the original author's name is listed, the citation is incomplete. It is easy to make this mistake if you don't keep track of your sources as you write.
  1. Using a phrase verbatim from a source without quotation marks, with a proper citation following the phrase. – Plagiarism: Although the source is cited correctly, the lack of quotation marks indicates that the writer is claiming the phrase as his own and attributing only the idea to the original author. Always proofread carefully to ensure you have not accidentally forgotten quotation marks around key words and phrases that are not your own.
  1. Using material from several different sources and altering or adding sentences to make them fit together. Paraphrasing and using quotations appropriately, and properly citing all sources-- Plagiarism: Because the paper contains little or no original work, it is still just a collection of other author's ideas. The reader is reading your paper to find out what you think about the topic, not what a bunch of other people have to say. Use references to support your own argument.
  1. Properly quoting and citing sources in some places, while paraphrasing arguments from the same sources in other places without citing them again. – Plagiarism: You must cite every idea and phrase you use from a source, every time you use it. Otherwise you are implying that the content not directly cited is your own, which is clearly plagiarism.

But what if…?

Everyone else takes stuff from the internet. Do you really think that makes it okay to steal and lie?

It is quick and easy to enter a few keywords or phrases into a search engine and find articles and papers to download on your topic. It is just as easy for your professor to enter a few phrases or sentences from your paper into a search engine and discover that what you wrote was not your own work. Is it really worth the time and the risk to try to fool anyone?

This is not to say that you should not use resources you find online. Incorporate them into your work the same way you would any other source: through summaries, paraphrases, and quotations.

What if I don't have time to write it all on my own?

Say you have two papers and a test this week, as well as a lab and several chapters of reading (not to mention practice and club meetings). Ask yourself this: Why are you here? Is it to play a sport, to develop a musical talent, to learn how to think? How you spend your time and where you focus your attention is ultimately your decision. When you choose to give priority to one commitment over another, you should expect your performance to reflect that. If you spend a few hours at a club meeting and decide to copy parts of your paper because you ran out of time to write it yourself, you run the risk of failing not only the paper if caught, but the entire course (or worse). If you decide to skip the club meeting to work on your paper, odds are you can find out what you missed from a friend later and will get a better grade on the assignment. On a side note, it often takes longer to try to disguise plagiarized material or "make it fit" than it would to just write the paper yourself.

So what if you do forego extracurricular activities to focus on your schoolwork and still don't have time to finish it all? Your best bet is to ask your professor for an extension. You might be surprised how sympathetic and understanding professors can be. They were all students once too, facing the same pressures and challenges. Keep in mind that most would rather give you more time to turn in something good than have to read something that sounds disjointed or thrown together (which often happens when you plagiarize).

What if I only copied a few words or one sentence?

It doesn't matter. Stealing is stealing whether it's a candybar or a car. The punishment you receive might differ depending on the extent of the plagiarism, but no professor will let you off the hook entirely. If you didn't write it, you must cite it.

What if I changed most of the words?

Depending on how you change the words, you could paraphrase the original text. This would be acceptable only if you cite the source. Plagiarism refers not simply to the words themselves, but to the meaning behind them. If you did not come up with the idea yourself, you must tell the reader where you found it.

What if it's common knowledge?

Common knowledge refers to facts that can be found in a number of sources, such as dates or events (e.g. Angus King was the governor of Maine from 1994-2002). This type of information is not the product of a creative endeavor, derived from research, or the result of an individual's unique thoughts. Therefore, it is not attributable to a specific source or author. If you're not sure whether something falls under the heading of "common knowledge," however, it's is always a good idea to cite the source just in case. Better safe than sorry!

But I did cite the source!

Make sure you have done so correctly. For example, if you use an exact phrase from the original text without quotation marks, you are plagiarizing even if you cite the author. If you use quotations and paraphrases appropriately, you should be fine.

Also, be careful that you do not lean too heavily on a single source. The sources you quote or paraphrase should support your own original thoughts or opinions, not comprise the bulk of your paper. The idea is that the reader should learn something new from what you've written rather than slogging through a rehashed summary of someone else's work.

The original author said it perfectly.

Then quote it. If you can't come up with a unique perspective or original way to express the idea, then put quotation marks around it and cite it. Just make sure you are using it to strengthen your own argument or point of view, rather than simply rehashing the author's opinions.

What if I didn't realize what I did was plagiarism?

It is still your responsibility. No judge will let you off the hook for speeding just because you didn't see the sign posting the speed limit. There are numerous resources available to assist you: this tutorial, the Writing Center, and your professor to name a few. Help is there - just ask.

What if I am from a country where using the work of others is a common and accepted practice?