Are you graduating this semester? Are you out of the area but are needing to purchase a cap and gown?
If a student does not live near any of the six NOVA bookstores on campus, they may place their order via an order form. Students can email the NOVA bookstore at SM650@BNCollege.com stating they do not live near a NOVA campus and thus would like to email their order. For more information about purchasing items for commencement, students should also contact the above email address.
Attention Students:
If you are not able to come to meet with your advisor, online virtual advising is available to you!
What is Virtual Advising?
Virtual Advising is online academic advising to prospective and current NOVA students through email and chat.
Virtual Advising hours this weekend:
Saturday, January 7th from 10:00am-3:00pm
Sunday, January 8th from 1:00pm-4:00pm
Virtual Advisors can be contacted through email or chat. More information and contact information can be found at the Virtual Advising Website.
Below is a NOVA Online student spotlight post from Army veteran Evette in honor of Veterans Day.
Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance national holiday, 11th of November as Veteran’s Day.
As an Army veteran, I look back at the time which I served my country with gratitude. My patriotism and willingness to serve and my sacrifice for many of years. Take time to recognize soldiers, veterans, and families of soldiers who are away from their family.
RIP to my veterans who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Veteran’s Day is not just a day off, honor veterans who had defended and continue to defend our country!
– Reach out to families of fallen soldiers and soldiers who remain in harm’s way today.
– Visit Veteran’s in Nursing Home, Wounded Warrior Hospital (Fort Belvoir, Va.), and veteran’s in the hospital.
– Most of all, recognize veterans everyday not just Veteran’s Day.
Remember, never forget our debt of gratitude to our brave men and women.
Want to write for the NOVA Online Student Blog? Share your story? Connect with your peers? Send us a writing sample to get started. Email NOVA OnlineStuLife@nvcc.edu for more information.
Are you looking for an opportunity to identify and develop your overall leadership skills?
NOVA Online Student Life has created a virtual co-curricular opportunity to develop leadership skills for students!The overall goals of this program are to:
-Foster a sense of community among students taking online courses
-Develop more self-awareness of leadership strengths and skills
-Maximize your talents as they relate to academic and professional goals.
Throughout this 4-week a-synchronous program , participants will learn more about personal strengths (via the Clifton StrengthsFinder personality assessment and access to the StrengthsQuest e-book) and discuss how to utilize strengths to maximize leadership skills and potential with their peers. Participants will be expected to participate in weekly discussion posts, readings and journal assignments) *This is a non-credit program, but a great resume builder!
Dates: June 6th – July 3rd
Time: Work at your pace with weekly deadlines for group discussions and journal reflections.
Registration: Leadership Pilot Program Registration Form. Please fill out no later than June 3rdth at 11:59pm.
Please reach out to elistulife@nvcc.edu with any questions.
Ever wonder what it is like to move to a different country? Meet our NOVA Online Student Blogger, Lydia as she shares some of the cultural differences she has experienced taking NOVA online classes while living abroad:
Stepping out of one’s comfort zone and moving to a completely different country is quite overwhelming and shocking. However, just as astounding, it can be an equally or even more intriguing, eye-opening experience.
Growing up in Pennsylvania, I had never been to South Korea despite being Korean-American. However, while balancing American traditions, my family and I maintained a Korean lifestyle by following its culture. With all of this, though, my knowledge of the “real” East Asian culture was limited. Thankfully, my Korean perspective has dramatically changed ever since I moved to the *Kimchi-loving country in 2011. As I still live in Korea to this day, there are so many cultural differences that I have yet to discover, but here are just a few that fascinated me the most.
*Kimchi is a traditional spicy pickled/fermented napa cabbage side dish that is served with almost every Korean meal.
When I first arrived in Korea, I was completely shocked when I saw a group of students wearing their school uniforms walking so casually in the city at 11pm. Considering only the American education system, I did not understand why they were not at sleeping at their homes. Starting with the basics, education in Korea is significantly different than that in the United States. Korean education mainly focuses on memorization along with very long periods of studying. Generally, a Korean high school student would stay at school for about 8 hours, and spend another 3-6 hours at afterschool private cram academies called hagwons. Most students live this intense, rigorous lifestyle in order to receive a preferable score on the college entrance exam (offered only once a year); the results of the exam determine which university students will attend.
Being beautiful or becoming beautiful is a little bit more important in Korea. Every time I sit inside a subway, browse a Korean website, or simply wander around the cities, I see at least one advertisement about plastic surgery. Most advertisements present before and after pictures of what really looks like two entirely different people. High beauty standards have made it very common for even young school students to get the double eyelid surgery. Also, skin tone and head size matter. Specifically, many Korean women prefer having light, pale skin tones and smaller sized heads. This surprised me because while I lived in the states, most of my American friends did not care too much about head size and actually wanted to be tanner.
Because I lived in suburban areas of the United States, I would always commute to places by car. Even though Koreans rely on cars, many more use the incredibly fast public transportation system. Public buses, taxis, subways, and trains are much more practical and easier to access in such a highly populated and small country (roughly the size of Kentucky). The best part of the system is that people can access it wherever they are and literally go anywhere in Korea. There are also free Wi-Fi services in many of these public areas!
Being a border dweller, I found myself growing as an individual who has been absorbing and living by both the American and Korean culture. In this day and age, I think it is essential to become more open-minded and willing to learn about the endless aspects of the world and its diverse cultures.Thankfully, living in Korea for the past five years has done just that. I am more than excited to further develop my multicultural knowledge as I continue to explore my Korean-American life.
Want to write for the NOVA Online Student Blog? Share your story? Connect with your peers? Send us a writing sample to get started. Email NOVA OnlineStuLife@nvcc.edu for more information.
Attention Students!
NOVA Online is looking for writers for our NOVA Online blog!
This group will be geared toward students who enjoy to write or blog and are possibly interested in pursuing a career in media and/or journalism. Members of this group will directly contribute to the NOVA Online student blog sponsored by The Extended Learning Institute.
NOVA Online Student Life will produce an editorial calendar that focuses on various topics. Group members will submit content to be included within various designated topics/ themes.
NOVA Online Student Life Specialist will serve as the Advisor for the group and approve submissions to be used. Students will receive byline credit on the blog for their articles. members will be expected to attend virtual monthly meetings.
We hope that by participating in the NOVA Online Student Bloggers Group, you will be able to:
1) Identify different topic areas and themes that would appeal to the NOVA/NOVA Online student population geared toward (but not limited to) overall student support and success in college.
2) Build connections with faculty/staff and students to increase interactions with others outside of the classroom.
3) Develop overall virtual portfolio by further improving their writing skills within a blogging format.
If you would like to become a member, fill out our student bloggers interest form.
Questions? Contact elistulife@nvcc.edu.
How Well Do You Know NOVA Online? Participate in our virtual scavenger hunt to find out and win some great prizes! Follow the directions below to participate!
1) Beginning at 12:00pm on September 16th, participants can access the Scavenger Hunt Entry Form. You will have 24 hours (until 12pm on September 17th) to submit your answers.
2) Answers can be found on any of the digital resources that NOVA Online provides. This can include our NOVA Online website, Social Media, and maybe even this blog! 🙂 (Hints will be given during the 24hr period through our twitter account @NOVA Online).
3) Prizes will be given to the first 5 participants who submit in their form with all the correct answers. Tie breakers will be determined by which participant(s) submitted their form in the quickest time. Five additional participation winners will also be announced!
4) Winners will be announced by 5pm on Thursday, September 17th !
Questions? email elistulife@nvcc.edu
Good luck and have fun!!
Whether you are taking classes’ on-campus, online or a little bit of both, we encourage you to stay engaged during your educational experience at NOVA! This is where Student Life comes in!
What is Student Life?
The Office of Student Life at NOVA assists students in building community and your connection with the college outside of the classroom. This is done by facilitating virtual and in-person extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities that support focus areas such as:
How to we achieve this goal?
Each NOVA campus (and NOVA Online) has a Student Life office that organizes engagement opportunities for students. This staff can be reached at any time to help advise you get involved at NOVA based on your educational and personal interests .
Watch this short video to learn more about how to get involved, the NOVA way!
How can I stay updated about Student Life events at the college?
2) Get connected with our Virtual Student Union. This is an engagement hub where NOVA Online students have access to create a profile, join discussion forums and connect with other students.
3) Social Media: NOVA Online Student Life is on social media! Follow NOVA Online on Facebook and Twitter to gain some great student success tips as an online student and engage in fun activities.
Follow this NOVA Online blog each week to learn more about more specific ways to get involved in Student Life while taking online classes with NOVA Online! contact elistulife@nvcc.edu for questions or more information.
We made it! Within the past few months of our Summer Wellness Series we covered many different ways that each of us as individuals can reflect on our overall personal wellness in several areas including: Physical, Intellectual, Social, Financial , Spiritual/Emotional and Environmental.
So now what? How can you move forward with all of this knowledge you have gained? Create some personal goals!
Here are some reflection to help you do this:
Reflect on your own level of personal wellness. Hopefully you were able to do this as we walked through the series but take some time to think about:
Now, use some the this reflection to develop personal goals:
We hope that this will help you jump start you health and wellness goal-setting!
Thank you to all who have participated. Feel free to continue connecting and sharing information on our Virtual Student Union.
The last week of our summer wellness series focuses on environmental wellness. This involves taking care of your personal surroundings. Actively working to serve your environments can improve your health and the health of the people around you.
There are many things that you can do to reflect on how you are being mindful of your impact on the environment. Here are some things to consider:
Do you recycle? Why or why not? How do you recycle?
Do you attempt to converse energy? How do you conserve energy?
Do you think the government is doing enough to protect our environment?
How can we reduce our carbon footprint?
Why is preserving the wilderness important?
We will use this week to address some of these issues on a global level but also help you consider how you can play a role in your personal life to help preserve this beautiful planet we live on!
To start some reflection, below is a graphic that lists 10 reasons to drink tap water that we got from the Fairfax Water Newsletter. It shows how much is wasted in the creation of bottled water.
Would having this knowledge about the waste bottled water creates, change the way their drink water?
Visit our Virtual Student Union to share your thoughts and continue the conversation!