Onboarding

Author

Shipeng Sun

Students who are new to Hunter College and/or the program should accomplish the following tasks as soon as possible. Keep in mind that the Hunter college and geography department community are ready to provide help.

CUNY and Hunter College

Get all the necessary accounts and credentials for CUNY and Hunter College
- Employee ID: your unique identifier in the entire CUNY system.
- CUNY account/credentials for CUNYFirst, Blackboard, BrightSpace/D2L
- NetID: used to access IT services like WiFi and to log in college lab computers at Hunter College
- Hunter College Email Account
Apply for Hunter College ID card called OneCard
Register for courses (more on this in the Courses page)
Update your contact email in CUNYfirst, Blackboard, Bright space, and other CUNY and Hunter websites
Check out the Graduate Admissions Office for Next Steps for Admitted Students

Department of Geography and Environmental Science

Apply for a Geography Computer Account
Make sure your can access HN1090 computer labs/classrooms with your Hunter College ID card (OneCard). If not, visit the main office of the department, HN1006, for help.
Apply for an ESRI account associated with CUNY for ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS.com
Subscribe the mailing list of the geography department (you might have been added to the list automatically.)

GIS, Spatial Data Science, and GeoInformatics Programs

Fill in or update the contact form for Hunter GIS alumni network
Join the GIS/MGEOi mailing list with your most frequently used email.
- You might have already been enrolled with the email used in your application.
- Subscribe the mailing list with your official Hunter email. Ms. Mimoza Frankfurt is managing the mailing list and can help you on this.

Perks for MGEOi students

Apply for the key code (or key) to HN 1023, CARSI Lab.
- MGEOi students can use room HN 1024, which is 1K in the computer world!
- HN 1024 has a few high-end workstations with GIS and programming software installed.
- It also has sofa, microwave, refrigerator, printer, and etc.
- You can work/study there and hang out/discuss works with fellow students.
- Please contact Prof. Sean Ahearn, Director of CARSI Lab and Founding Director of MGEOi, for the code.
Check out a loaner computer
- A few high-end Dell computers with Windows 11 OS are available.
- These computers are mobile workstations, basically heavy but powerful laptops with 17-inch screens.
- All GIS program students can apply for the loaner computers.
- In the case of more requests than the number of loaner computers, the priority will be given to:
  - those in the MGEOi program
  - those who work on their theses and/or research projects supervised by faculty members in the department
  - those who never requested the loaner computers (the longer you use the loaner computer, the lower is your priority).
  - those who cannot configure their Mac computers to run ArcGIS Pro
- First come, first served, if other factors are equal.
- Non-MGEOi students must return borrowed computers within the specified timeframe, typically one week, if an MGEOi student requests a loaner computer and none are available.
- In general, you are expected to return the computer within one year unless the demand is low and no one with a higher priority is waiting on the computer.
- Contact the program advisor for the availability of the loaner computers. When checking out the computer, bring a hard copy of the filled loaner computer agreement from. Some items on the form could be filled in during check-out.

Transfer Credits

Some may qualify to transfer credits to the MS in GeoInformatics, GIS certificate, or Spatial Data Science program. Read the Transfer of Credit at Graduate Admissions Office for requirements and the application process.

Please prepare the syllabus of the course FROM which you transfer your credits. The program advisor will check if the course covers similar content as the corresponding one at Hunter College.