Thursday Roundup

by Betsy Chapman

In this Issue:

  • An interesting ChatGPT FYI for your students
  • For new families: where to find the course schedule
  • Does your student need to bring a car to campus?
  • Airports and shuttles
  • Correction to Wake Parents & Families e-newsletter re: Residence Life and Housing section

Today we have a mashup of many topics. Dig in to what serves you, and pass over any topics that do not 🙂

An interesting ChatGPT FYI for your students

There continues to be a lot of talk about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and tools like ChatGPT. My team just did a staff retreat about this a week or so ago and it was incredibly enlightening to learn more about this technology. Like so many other things, it has some great benefits as well as some cautionary tales.

I am sharing a deidentified post from a faculty friend I know who was discussing ChatGPT in the classroom. You can click on the picture to enlarge, but the gist was this: a faculty member asked students to generate an essay using ChatGPT and then evaluate its reliability.

a faculty member shares their experience with using ChatGPT as a tool to help students see its limitations

Students were surprised at the fact that ChatGPT isn’t always right. And I really liked the idea of having students use ChatGPT to find its faults. Your students might want to give this idea a try on a subject they had previously written about (or even a book they know well) and see for themselves.

For new families: where to find the course schedule

Yesterday’s Daily Deac talked about how new students might approach course selection. I got another great question from a new family today: where do you actually find which courses are being offered, and on which days/times?

On the New Students website, on the page for Class Registration, it has a section with step-by-step instructions on how to register. Look for details there.

Your incoming students should be able to log in to the Registration Portal with their WFU ID and be able to browse classes, and even create what’s called a “Plan,” which allows registration to go much faster; it is akin to pre-selecting what you want, so that on registration day, you select the Plan and the system goes out and sees if those classes have openings for you (vs. searching for your classes one by one).

If your New Deacs have not played around in the Registration Portal to look at classes, or tried creating a Plan, this is something they will want to get comfortable with in the next few weeks leading up to registration.

Does your student need to bring a car to campus?

Some of you might be asking whether your student needs to bring a car to campus. Here’s what our Transportation and Parking Services office had to say about that:

  • The answer is no, as Wake Forest operates a fleet of scheduled shuttles and on-demand service to the campus community. The Wake Lines offers service to Hanes Mall, Target and Wake Downtown. 
  • Students are encouraged to download the Passio app (which will be available in early July) to their smartphone to track each shuttle’s location on the various routes and see estimated times of arrival.
  • During academic breaks (Thanksgiving, Winter Break and Spring Break) Airport Shuttles are available to and from Greensboro’s Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO-PTI) and Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport (CLT). 

Airports and shuttles

Since the above post mentioned airport shuttles, I wanted to get my annual plug in about which airports to fly your student in or out of and the issue of ground transportation.

We offer shuttle service to the Greensboro and Charlotte airports at set times of year, but not Raleigh-Durham. I don’t know if that will ever change, but that is the case for right now. There is also a private car service recommendation on that website that families can hire for service outside the timeframe when we offer shuttles.

The caution I always offer families thinking that they would rather fly in to Charlotte or Raleigh is that you might be able to get a direct flight to those larger airports (or a cheaper fare), but it can be very expensive to pay for ground transportation 80-90 miles from campus. Whereas if you connect to Greensboro, it is a lot easier/cheaper to get to campus (Uber, etc.) There are normally many, many flights in to Greensboro from Charlotte and Raleigh each day.

Keep that in mind as you are considering where to fly your Deacs in and out of, if applicable.

Correction to Wake Parents & Families e-newsletter re: Residence Life and Housing section

We sent out our monthly Wake Parents & Families e-newsletter today, and we inadvertently had a broken link in it. Here is the corrected section from Residence Life and Housing (my apologies!)

“From the Office of Residence Life and Housing: We hope you’re enjoying summer break and staying cool! This month, we have reminders for July dates and deadlines (including Summer Session II), important information for families whose students are participating in the second round of housing selection, and reminders for the return to campus in August — we can hardly wait! Read more.” 

The week’s almost over, Deac families. Let’s finish strong!

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