ParentNET
A slice of campus life written by an MTU student

Students are finishing up group projects this week as well as taking care of the end-of-year details.

The sweet rewards of the end of the year

I’m sure many of you wait with great anticipation and excitement for the day your student pulls in the driveway with a car full of furniture and clothes, arriving home to enjoy summer vacation. If your student is staying on campus for summer classes, then that can bring great anticipation as well, because summer is a beautiful time for you to visit the Houghton area. However, even though we are in our final week of classes, until final exam week is over, there are a few things to remind your student about before they start packing up.

Leaving the residence halls
In order for your student to leave the residence halls, there are a few procedures they must follow. First, small things like taking care of any parking tickets, overdue books, and selling back textbooks (or saving them for reference) is a must. Second, your student’s room should be cleaned and checked for any damages. If any damages were sustained over the year, they should be repaired by the residence hall maintenance staff.  Maintenance fees will then be applied and charged to your student over the summer if necessary.

Students who live in the residence halls must also complete a yellow check-out form. This just confirms that your student is leaving and that all original furniture has been kept or returned to your student’s room where it was assigned. Rooms must also be inspected by your student’s RA. This will help to avoid any unnecessary maintenance fees. Lastly, make sure your student turns in their room key to the residence hall front desk before they leave.

Another small detail: How will I get my mail?
Many students worry about what will happen to their mail over the summer. The good news is that MTU will automatically forward your student’s mail to their registered home address if they live in the residence halls. However, as a warning, mail is delayed due to the mass volumes going through the home address sorting process.

If your student is moving or already has moved off campus, then I would recommend they fill out a temporary change of address. Temporary mail forwarding can be done for up to 6 months, and can be completed for free by stopping by the local post office, or for $1.00 by going online to the United States Postal Services website: http://www.usps.com. If your student is working at an internship or co-op this summer, I also highly recommend they complete the temporary change of address process. I did this during my internship last summer, and it eliminated my worries of not receiving my bills on time.

The end rewards
As I mentioned before, this is the last week of regular classes. During this week your student most likely has many final reports, projects, and presentations to work on and deliver. However, this week can also be a rewarding time. This time of the semester is when many awards and honors banquets take place. On Monday afternoon, there were a few honors society inductions, along with a School of Business and Economics honors banquet luncheon. The Humanities Department is also hosting an end of the year awards banquet and media show. On Sunday, the Student Awards Banquet will take place at 6 pm. This banquet honors nominees and recipients of prestigious individual and student organization awards. I am proud to say I will be attending this banquet along with my fellow members of Circle K. Congratulations if your student was invited to attend! I will be writing more in-depth about this banquet for next week’s ParentNet article.

Until next week,

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