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Frontiers in Design Representation Summer School

2024 Frontiers in Design Representation Summer School at the University of Maryland, College Park — June 10-14th, 2024

Logistics

This page covers various Logistics and Frequently Asked Questions for accepted Summer School attendees, and will be updated as questions are received and as further logistics become relevant.

Logistics Frequently Asked Questions

Travel

  • When should I travel in an out of the Summer School? The 2022 Summer School officially runs from 8:30 am Monday, July 25th through 5:00 pm Friday, July 29th. There is an optional pre-week social outing on the afternoon of Sunday July 24th for those who are in town already. More details are available on the Schedule page. We encourage folks to check into the provided hotel sometime on Sunday. Participants should depart College Park no earlier than 5pm on Friday, July 29th

  • What are the key modes of transportation to College Park? By Air the nearest airports are BWI and DCA, both of which have public transit options directly to College Park that take around 30-40 minutes. IAD is also in the DC metro area, though it takes longer to get to College Park via car or bus than via other airports. Those taking a train or major bus route along the Northeast Corridor can take the train to Union Station, Greenbelt, or New Carrolton, all of which have local transport to College Park that takes around 20-30 minutes. You can get more detailed directions to campus using different transportation methods at this link.

  • Where on campus is the Summer School located and how do I get there? We will be in the Edward St. John Teaching Learning & Teaching Center in Room 2309. You can see maps/floorplans of the building here. There is some construction on the north end of the building, so we recommend entering through the south-side entrance (picture, map, and walking directions from Cambria Hotel) and walking up the stairs to the 1st floor. Once on the first floor you can take the “red stairs” as shown in this picture to get to the second floor and find ESJ 2309 and the check-in table.

Technology

  • How do I connect to the campus Wifi? You have two main options. The first is through EduRoam, which works at a variety of academic institutions and you can see instructions on how to do this via the main UMD wireless page. If you have already set up EduRoam at your home institution, it should work seamlessly here. The second is via connecting to the UMD Guest wifi network via these instructions.

  • What do I need to bring with me? Mostly an open mind and willingness to explore new things, but a laptop will also be helpful for working on the challenge problems or running some of the tutorial code provided by the various speakers.

  • What Programming Languages or Software Stacks do you recommend? Many of the speakers will be doing tutorials in Python and Jupyter notebooks, so if you want to follow along and do some of the coding exercises, we recommend installing something like the Anaconda Distribution of Python so that you can use many of the existing data science or numerical computing packages in Python, including running Jupyter Notebooks. Alternatively, many/most of the notebooks will run in browser-based editors such as Google Colab. For the challenge problems, you can use any programming language or software stack that you like, though many of our example starter codes or dataset loading routines are in Python.

COVID-19

  • What are UMD’s Vaccination/Testing/Masking Requirements? Current official University guidance is on the 4Maryland website. In brief, for UMD students we currently are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19, indoor masking is optional but encouraged especially in classroom/large group settings, and campus members do not need to be regularly tested at this time though we all responsible for self-monitoring for symptoms
  • How might the Summer School be affected by COVID-19? We are planning on having the Summer School in-person at this time. This said, the health and well-being of our students and community is a top priority. We continue to monitor updated guidelines from UMD for group events and will keep applicants and participants informed if any changes occur, via this website. You can review UMD’s guidance and policies here.

Reimbursement

  • I was eligible for a travel stipend; what do I need to do for reimbursement? For those eligible for Travel Reimbursement, please complete and upload the following files using a personalized upload link that we will send to each eligible participant separately:
    1. Download and fill out this Travel Expense Form and upload it to the link we will send you. You will leave most of these fields empty except for the “AIR/RAIL/BUS” and “TAXI OR LIMO” if you took something like a metro or taxi or rideshare during part of the trip. In the top part of the form, fill out (1) the SSN, (2) your name information, (3) Home Address (we will send the reimbursement check there) and (4) the Purpose of Travel (you can put: “Attend the NSF FinDeR Summer School 2022”)
    2. If you are claiming airfare/rail/bus transportation, please upload a digital copy (PDF) of the receipt showing the total amount paid. (Note that this should be the receipt showing the actual cost, not just a “confirmation” or itinerary email). To help us disambiguate various receipts, it would be helpful if you could label the filename something that makes it clear what it is (e.g., airfare_receipt.pdf or train_receipt.pdf, etc.). Please also upload a scan or picture of the boarding passes if possible.
    3. If you have any local transportation costs related to getting to the hotel that you wish to put toward the $400 travel stipend, you can also upload them as PDFs. This can include scans of metro receipts, taxi receipts, Uber/Lyft, etc. You can upload those labeled something like “local_transportation.pdf” or “metro.pdf” or “taxi.pdf” or similar.
    4. If you have any digitally scanned receipts from local transportation such as the WMATA (Metro) used to go to local events as part of the Summer School, you can upload them here. Above the $400 travel budget, we will reimburse up to $10 worth of public transit costs related to traveling to any social events during the week (e.g., Thursday trip to and around DC). You can upload those labeled something like “event_transportation.pdf” If needed you can upload multiple PDFs if you have multiple receipts.
    5. For the “Itinerary” section, note the times that you left your original point of departure and arrived at College Park, and vice versa for your trip home. For the “FROM” and “TO” fields, you can provide a city (e.g., College Park) or an airport code (DCA).
    6. It is OK if the Travel Expense Statement exceeds $400 on the form when you total up all rows, but recall that we will only reimburse up to the maximum of $400 in the travel stipend.
    7. For Domestic Students: Please complete a W-9 form and upload it to your box link.
    8. For International Student: Please complete a W-8 Ben form and a wire transfer form (we’ll email affected international students this directly) and upload them to your box link.
    9. Make sure to add your signature and date at the bottom of the form before uploading. You can reupload documents if you need to make an adjustment/correction or forgot something.