New Students

Welcome to the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience! As new students, complete the following steps below to get started. If you have any questions, contact your program coordinator or program director. Please also refer to BGE’s New Student Checklist.

Read your student handbook. The student handbook contains the official guidelines and requirements of students completing their Ph.D. in the IPN.

Complete your health insurance paperwork. Georgetown covers your health insurance through Gallagher Koster. Prior to arriving, fill out the medical history form mailed to you after admission.

Georgetown University does not cover vision or dental insurance. However, you do receive a dental discount via the Basix program and can purchase dental insurance through Gallagher Koster.

Go the BGE New Student Checklist page for more information on the student ID card, email account, and immunizations.

How to choose your first rotation? This is the trickiest one since you have not arrived yet. Take advantage of the faculty and student profile pages to learn about the research at Georgetown University.

Email faculty and students who have rotated in the labs you are considering to ask about their research, availability, and experience. The more you can learn at that time, the better. Keep in touch with the IPN program director and the SAC director throughout this process.

Students will be doing their first rotation in the summer. By May, You should begin contacting laboratories that you are interested in working with. By the middle of June, you should have already chosen the lab you will work in. If you have any questions about rotations, feel free to contact the IPN director.

Once you have chosen a lab, you will need to do two things.

  1. Complete the pre-rotation form.
  2. Email the program director, SAC director, and program administrator with your summer rotation information.

Our summer semester starts on July 1st. You will enroll in NSCI 984: Experiences in Neuroscience which is a pass/fail 0 credit course to gauge and help support your basic neuroscience knowledge before the beginning of the Fall semester coursework. You will also be enrolled in a summer laboratory rotation (NSCI 985).

In addition to the summer courses, you will also participate in Neurofest. This is a meeting with a subset of faculty who discuss with the first-year class their research.