Instructors make courses available in Blackboard on the course start date, or sometimes a few days in advance. If your course is not available in blackboard, double check your course enrolling in NOVA Connect and check back closer to your course start date! While you wait, check out the Reviewing your Online Course Syllabus Recording.

Open registration for fall classes is open. First start date classes begin on Monday, August 24. Check the schedule of classes in NOVA Connect and follow this tutorial to help you search for online classes through NOVA Online. Make sure you change the date to reflect the term you are looking to register for (fall ’15).

Tuition Deadline – Be sure to have a method of payment in place to meet the fall 2015 payment deadline when you register for your classes. At this point, after you register for your classes, tuition is due the following business day at 5pm to hold your seat.

Using Financial Aid for Textbooks – Want to use financial aid money for your required course materials? Get all the details and complete the the Bookstore Authorization E-Form, via the Financial Aid Dashboard.

NOVA Online Orientation Webinar – Join us Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday for a general NOVA Online overview. This one hour webinar focuses on getting started in your courses, navigating your Blackboard course site, and identifying tips for success and student support services. The NOVA Online Orientation is highly recommended for students who are new to online learning and already registered for classes. Dates and Registration Details.

Tuesday, August 13 from 6:00-7:00 pm OR Saturday, August 22 from 1pm – 2pm – Participate in a New Student Orientation Webinar – This one hour webinar is required for new-to-college students aged 17-24. New Student Orientation will focus on academic and career goals, reading degree plans, and registering for classes. All are welcome.

Did you know you have a personal Success Coach available to help you succeed in your courses. If you have any questions or concerns during your course, please email your name and student ID to elisuccess@nvcc.edu or call 703.764.5076.

Have a great week!

Where has this summer gone?! How is it already August! Open registration for fall classes is currently underway. First start date classes begin on Monday, August 24. Check the schedule of classes in NOVA Connect and follow this tutorial to help you search for online classes through NOVA Online. Make sure you change the date to reflect the term you are looking to register for (fall ’15).

Tuition Deadline – Be sure to have a method of payment in place to meet the fall 2015 payment deadline when you register for your classes. At this point, after you register for your classes, tuition is due the following business day at 5pm to hold your seat.

Using Financial Aid for Textbooks – Want to use financial aid money for your required course materials? Get all the details and complete the the Bookstore Authorization E-Form, via the Financial Aid Dashboard.

NOVA Online Orientation Webinar – Join us Wednesday, August 12, from 6:30 – 7:30 pm for a general overview. This one hour webinar focuses on getting started in your courses, navigating your Blackboard course site, and identifying tips for success and student support services. The NOVA Online Orientation is highly recommended for students who are new to online learning and already registered for classes.

Thursday, August 13 from 6:00-7:00 pm – Participate in a New Student Orientation Webinar – This one hour webinar is required for new-to-college students aged 17-24. New Student Orientation will focus on academic and career goals, reading degree plans, and registering for classes. All are welcome.

Enrolled in a MTT course this fall? Do you need a few units of math to place into the required math course(s) for your major? Review the Understanding your MTT course webinar hosted by NOVA Online Success Coaches. Have any questions? Contact your Success Coach at elisuccess@nvcc.edu.

Have a great week!

Open registration for fall classes is currently underway. Check the schedule of classes in NOVA Connect and follow this tutorial to help you search for online classes through NOVA Online. Make sure you change the date to reflect the term you are looking to register for (fall ’15).

Tuition Deadline – Be sure to have a method of payment in place to meet the fall 2015 payment deadline when you register for your classes. At this point, after you register for your classes, tuition is due the following business day at 5pm to hold your seat.

NOVA Online Orientation Webinar – Join us Wednesday, August 5, from 6:30 – 7:30 pm for a general overview. This one hour webinar focuses on getting started in your courses, navigating your Blackboard course site, and identifying tips for success and student support services. The NOVA Online Orientation is highly recommended for students who are new to online learning.

Are you thinking about an online course through NOVA Online, but not sure if it is right for you? Review our Furthering your education with NOVA Online recording to see if online learning is a right fit for your current educational needs. You could also take the Smarter Measure assessment to see how your personal learning styles will work with online courses.

Have you utilized Student Lingo On-Demand Workshops? Take advantage of a wide variety of recordings available to help you manage your course load, plan for the future, or tackle your math anxiety … Just to name a few! Interested in working with your Personal Success Coach to create an action plan? Contact your coach at elisuccess@nvcc.edu or 703.764.5076.

Have a great week!

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:

• How do you integrate personal wellness into your life?
• What challenges or personal obstacles are you faced with everyday along with being a college student?
• How can your surroundings influence your health in a positive or negative way?
• How will choices you make today impact your future? Keep in mind that your social and mental/emotional health is just as important as your physical health.

Now, use some the this reflection to develop personal goals:

• Create some long-term goals that you want to achieve over the next year or more.  (Example: Remove meat from my diet).
• Break these down into smaller tasks that can become more manageable targets you can hit in the short term.   (Example: Plan to remove meat from my diet one day a week for a month). 
• Develop a way that works for you to be accountable (Example: Use food tracker to record progress).

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!

Open registration for fall classes is currently underway. Check the schedule of classes in NOVA Connect and follow this tutorial to help you search for online classes through NOVA Online. Make sure you change the date to reflect the term you are looking to register for (fall ’15).

Be sure to have a method of payment in place to meet the fall 2015 payment deadline on Monday, July 27^th, 2015. You must have a method of payment in place to secure your seats in the courses you’ve registered for or you could be dropped.

Are you thinking about an online course through NOVA Online, but not sure if it is right for you? Review our Furthering your education with NOVA Online recording to see if online learning is a right fit for your current educational needs. You could also take the Smarter Measure assessment to see how your personal learning styles will work with online courses.

Have you utilized Student Lingo On-Demand Workshops? Take advantage of a wide variety of recordings available to help you manage your course load, plan for the future, or tackle your math anxiety … Just to name a few! Interested in working with your Personal Success Coach to create an action plan? Contact your coach at elisuccess@nvcc.edu or 703.764.5076.

Environmental Wellness – Actively working to serve your environments can improve your health and the health of the people around you. Check out the Wellness Series post on Wednesday, and use #SummerWellness to share your pictures and stories. Continue this conversation with us in our Virtual Student Union. Connect with peers on this topic and learn more about resources to maintain your environmental wellness!

What are your summer plans? Have an internship? Traveling? Taking a class? Day Trip? We want to hear about your adventures. Use #NOVA OnlineAdventure on Twitter to share pictures and stories.

Have a great week!

This week we focus on spiritual and emotional wellness.  College is stressful and students can often feel overwhelmed.  Maintaining a healthy emotional and spiritual life is important to overall health.  This can include managing your stress level, staying on top of school work and knowing when to ask for help.  Exploring spirituality can include a religious faith community, meditation, being in the outdoors, and taking time for reflection.

The following are some things you can do to focus on your emotional and spiritual wellness:

• Check out the Motivational Minute: Yoga Your Worries Away and Managing the Demands of School through Mediation blog posts.
• Take time to review the NOVACares From this website you can connect to ULifeline, an anonymous, confidential, online resource center, where college students can be comfortable searching for information they need regarding emotional health.  Learn about some signs and symptoms when a friend may need help dealing with emotional issues or a mental health problem in the Emotional Health section.   Find resources about sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress management and relaxation, as well as connectedness and healthy relationships in the Wellness section.
• Need more ideas? Check out other articles that are part of the NOVA Online Summer Wellness Series.

Continue this conversation with us in our Virtual Student Union. Connect with peers on this topic and learn more about resources to maintain your emotional and spiritual wellness!

This week’s topic for the Summer Wellness Series is Financial Wellness. Through financial wellness, you can learn to live within your financial means, plan for future financial health, learn to think short and long-term in order to manage your resources is essential for a healthy financial experience including learning to be a good consumer.

Here are some resources to help you improve or maintain  your financial wellness:

Mint.com is a free app that helps you organize and balance your budget. It organizes your transactions by categories, you can set up and track your budget, and you can see your balances and transactions at a glance.

As a NOVA student, you have access to CashCourse – Your Real-Life Money Guide. You can register for a free account and go through the financial tools. NOVA Financial Aid is giving away twenty $100 grants to students who participate in specific topics. Get started on some of topics, and stay tuned for more information about the grants in the fall.

This Financial Fitness Library provides you with guides, resources, and tutorials to help from credit scores, to saving, to planning for retirement. This 66 Ways to Save Money Guide, provides you with tips to save in transportation, insurance, housing, utilities, and others!

Do you know of or use any apps to help you track your budget? What helps you stay on track each month? Continue this conversation with us in our Virtual Student Union. Connect with peers on this topic and learn more about resources to maintain your financial wellness! Use #SummerWellness to share your pictures and stories.

Open registration for fall classes is currently underway. Check the schedule of classes in NOVA Connect and follow this tutorial to help you search for online classes through NOVA Online. Make sure you change the date to reflect the term you are looking to register for (summer ’15 or fall ’15).

Have you ever been assigned a paper or project and don’t know where to start? Are you curious what library resources are available to you without going to a campus library? Join the NOVA Online Librarians for the Beyond Google – Basic Library Skills for Online Learners webinar on Thursday, July 9 from 6:30-7:15. This 45 minute webinar will give you a brief introduction to what library resources are available to you as an online learner. There might be more than you expect! Register here.

Financial Wellness – Understanding how to live within your financial means. Planning for future financial health. Learning to think short and long-term in order to manage your resources is essential for a healthy financial experience including learning to be a good consumer. Use #SummerWellness to share your pictures and stories.

What are your summer plans? Have an internship? Traveling? Taking a class? Day Trip? We want to hear about your adventures. Use #NOVA OnlineAdventure on Twitter to share pictures and stories.