• Wondering how graduate school is different from college? Read this About.com article by Tara Kuther, who is now a professor of psychology at Western Connecticut State University. For more on the subject, see "Three Special Tips" on the same site and this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education. 
• Are you from outside of Louisville? Maybe even outside the US? See the Graduate Student Life Handbook for information to aid out-of-towners as they acclimate to Louisville, including lists of grocery stores and popular local events. 

"Transitioning into the American university from a very different academic background in Bangladesh was not easy. But I am glad that there are resources at UofL that make this difficult journey less panic inducing. Of those resources, the special workshop for international students, “How to succeed in US education system,”  was the most useful for me. The facilitators encouraged us by mentioning that international students are not empty vessels. All of them have brought some skills and expertise from their home country. Moreover, the students admitted to US Universities are the best students of their home country in most of the cases. 

Let me add something about myself before I discuss my transition further. My first degree was in Civil Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). In the final year of my undergraduate study I took a course ‘Socio-economic aspects of development Projects’. I felt very much interested in the broadness of the subject. It was beyond the engineering measurement and designing and focused the human prospects of development projects. After graduating, I’d found that the school of Social Science Department of Dhaka University offering a new program, Development Studies, where I further developed my interest and knowledge in the field. Development Studies program was a blend of economics, political science, sociology and other disciplines of social science. The philosophy behind this program is that the policy makers from certain disciplines sometimes neglect the importance of other disciplines. Say for example, economists always focus on cost-benefit analysis and often forget to consider the cultural aspects of society. Same is true for other core disciplines. The program was designed to prepare graduates who are able to see the subject from different perspectives and to make better policy decisions considering social, economic, and political issues.

After completing my masters I worked for a few years in an international humanitarian organization. Then I was thinking of enhancing my education and go for PhD. But I did not want to go back to engineering track, which I didn’t enjoy very much. And the core disciplines of social sciences were not suitable for me as I had a diversified background. I was looking for PhD in some interdisciplinary program and started a little bit research through internet. I found that the discipline of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Louisville such an interdisciplinary field that suited my interest and skills. Here I am working at the Hazard Research Center which focuses on disaster management and hazard mitigation. After completing first year of study, I found that the course is really interesting. When I had completed my first year excellently, I realized the reality of the theme of the workshop that “International Students are not empty vessels.”  I remember the facilitators tell us about the basics of the US education system such as the practice of making appointments and meeting with with faculty members when support is necessary, participating in classroom conversation, the importance of writing, the availability of research support in the library and so on, which were really helpful for me. Thanks to my fellow graduate students who presented this useful workshop, I was able to start utilizing my past knowledge and skills very early while also identifying and learning what is new about the academic culture/practice in this country, my discipline, and this university. I highly recommend new international students to attend this workshop, but I also suggest everyone else that you should try to utilize and build upon your past knowledge and skills, whether you bring them from a different disciplinary background, workplace, or a different academic culture."