First WGSA meeting of the 2014-2015 academic year!

Fellow Warnellians,

This year’s first, official WGSA Meeting will be held next week on Wednesday, September 3^rd at 6:00pm at Jace Nelson’s house (393 Richard Way). Before complaining about faculty members and data sets, we’ll discuss upcoming events and programs, the new website, and cool swag. Tasty, Georgia bbq and frosty beers will be provided. However, remember that WGSA offers much more than a free meal… Want to improve your resume with volunteer activities?  WGSA!  Need advice on which professors make good committee members?  WGSA! Is there an intruder in your house at this very moment?  Forget WGSA, get out of the house and call the police!

We look forward to sharing some hot pizza and cold beer with all of you at the Graduate Student Reception tonight (a.k.a. “Ring of Fire”) at Flinchum’s Phoenix in Whitehall (doors open at 5:30).

Regards,

WGSA Officers

Ring of Fire

The Warnell graduate student orientation social is tonight, August 28th, at Flinchum's Phoenix at Whitehall. The doors open at 5:30 and the social begins at 6:00. There will be pizza and beer, as well as great opportunities to meet fellow grad students and Warnell faculty. Please plan to attend, and we looking forward to meeting new folks, and caching up with returning students!

You can check out the flier for the event, which has directions and all pertinent info.

Getting the Dirt on Natural Resources - Jace Nelson

Jace Nelson discusses his research on Gulf sturgeon as a host for freshwater mussel metamorphosis. This work is fascinating! If you get an opportunity to go out to Whitehall, be sure to check out Jace's sturgeon.

WGSA Workshop Series - LaTeX

Post-workshop materials:
Presentation slides
BibTeX slides


This will be the first workshop in the WGSA Workshop Series - September 9th at 4:00pm in room 4-132.

LaTeX is a document preparation system, and a tool that I have found immensely helpful for writing documents and creating presentations. I'm still a novice using the program and have a lot to learn; however, I don't think I'll ever go back to using Word and hope to never battle Equation Editor again! What I like about LaTeX is that you can control every aspect of the document, but you also don't have to spend a lot of time doing it. Similar to R, there are commands to control format, which can save time and create professional looking documents with ease. The interface is more like programming, but it's not as intimidating as it may seem at first. One of the biggest attractors for me is the ease with which to create equations, insert figures, and keep track of them. For example, the program can number your equations automatically. So, if you move them around they will renumber for you; the same for figures and tables.

This workshop will be an overview of how to get started with LaTeX. We will create a document, add figures and tables, create equations, and add a bibliography. I will come with a list of tasks that I have found useful, and commonly use, but please bring questions and ideas to work on as a group. If you have specific things you know you want to work on, please email me ahead of time so I can make time for it during the workshop.


Before coming to the workshop, please do the following:

• Bring a charged laptop with you; computers will not be provided
• Install the LaTex program - I recommend TexStudio as a nice interface
• Try to create a simple document to ensure the installation was successful
• Have a figure or two to insert into your document (these can be anything!)

Room Scheduling

To schedule a conference room or classroom at Warnell you simply need to send an email request to rooms@warnell.uga.edu and specify the desired room, the date and time of your event, and also the room specifications (number of people expecting , desired layout, power requirements, etc.) in case your requested room is unavailable. This service can also be used to reserve space out st Flinchum's at Whitehall.