Events

COGS Storefront

The following link can be used to purchase all COGS tickets and service items available to Graduate and Professional Students at MSU.  These include Wharton Center tickets and other special events throughout the year. Items will be added as they become available.

https://commerce.cashnet.com/msu_3754

Upcoming Events

COGS Updates Email List

COGS sends regular email updates of news & events during Fall and Spring to the departments and colleges for sharing out to graduate & professional students. If you would like to receive these emails directly to your inbox, please fill out this form.  https://bit.ly/COGS-EVENTS

Virtual WORKSHOP: Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients

COGS has partnered with Dr. Emily Roberts and Personal Finance for PhDs to offer this workshop for students on fellowships to learn how to manage quarterly taxes. A limited number of registrations will be available at a discounted cost through 12/15/24 (or until filled), for MSU graduate & professional students.

Please Note: This workshop is targeted to currently enrolled MSU graduate or professional students who are US citizens, permanent residents, and residents for tax purposes who are not having federal income tax withheld from their paychecks.

*DISCOUNTED COST: $10  – Available to the first 60, currently enrolled MSU Graduate or Professional Students to Register,  first-come, first-served, by December 15, 2024. You may be given other options to enroll if the discount program fills up. Full Retail Registration Cost: $34*

Discounted $10 Workshop Registration Link

More Details: Your stipend or salary is almost certainly considered taxable income by the IRS, even if your university does not withhold income tax from your paychecks. How can you prepare to pay your tax bill and stay on the IRS’s good side? Whether your objective is to save up for your eventual tax bill, avoid an underpayment penalty, or both, this workshop shows you how to accomplish it in a time-efficient manner. The Estimated Tax Worksheet in Form 1040-ES tells you definitively whether you are required to make estimated tax payments and how large your tax bill is this year, and this workshop walks you line-by-line through how to fill it out. The workshop also addresses the common scenarios that graduate/professional students face, such as switching on to or off of fellowship mid-calendar year and being married to someone who has automatic income tax withholding.  Dr. Emily Roberts is a personal finance educator specializing in early-career PhDs. Through her business, Personal Finance for PhDs, she equips graduate students, postdocs, and PhDs with “real jobs” to make the most of their money. She gives seminars at universities and for associations; interviews PhDs on her podcast; and creates courses and workshops on taxes, investing, and more. Emily holds a PhD in biomedical engineering from Duke University and lives in San Diego with her husband and two children.

Format: This is a largely asynchronous workshop. Upon registering, you will receive your login information over email. After logging in to the workshop, you can immediately access the modules (videos with transcripts) and spreadsheet. You also have the ability to receive answers to your questions by attending a live Q&A call or submitting a question in writing. The recordings and transcripts of the calls and answers to submitted questions are added to the workshop within about a week.   Currently scheduled (LIVE) events: Live Q&A call on 11/14/2024. (Others may be scheduled later).

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Visit Abrams Planetarium with COGS!

Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 at 7 PM!

COGS invites you to experience Abrams Planetarium with us on November 12th for a spring semester edition of our popular Night Under The Stars with COGS! Discover the wonders of Abrams Planetarium, located in the center of MSU’s campus, with a special FREE show just for MSU graduate and professional students and their accompanied guests. The planetarium hosts a wide range of public programming throughout the year for all ages. This is your chance to check it out!  Show lasts approximately 30 minutes and is followed by a 30 minute live presentation of the current evening sky.

Featured show: One Sky Project. One Sky Project is an international collaboration focused on increasing understanding about cultural and Indigenous astronomy, its historical and modern applications, and how our One Sky connects us all. Each short film represents the perspective of a different culture or Indigenous society from around the globe. Each film stands alone as a short story or in combination as a longer narrative‒organized around themes of “Finding Patterns” and developing tools, or as we say, “To Seek Far. 

Event is free of charge. No pre-registration needed, but in the event that (140) capacity is reached, attendance is first-come, first-served.

Find out more about Abrams Planetarium here: www.abramsplanetarium.org

COGS Planetarium Event 11.12.24

Forest Bathing: Fall Guided Walk Series

A Series of Forest Bathing Walks with Guide, Ly Duong:

A Practice in Slowing Down, Nourishing Calm, and Reconnection

Meeting Point: Beal Botanical Garden – Pergola – entrance near W. Circle Dr.

 

Forest bathing is a nature connection experience inspired by the Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku. Simply by slowing down and spending time in nature, we offer ourselves the chance to stop, feel, and reconnect with our bodies, senses, and surroundings. We become calmer, and our minds become clearer.

Offered through a series of guided invitations for 1.5 hours, forest bathing invites us not so much with our thinking brains but with our bodies and hearts to tune into our senses and to notice what’s around us and inside us with curiosity, wonder, and compassion. Doing this practice intentionally supports long-term healing, wellness, and resilient engagement for both humans and the Earth, especially in this period of dramatic change. Research has proven that forest bathing boosts immune strength, improves cognitive functioning, and reduces stress, anger, anxiety, and depression.

A series of five walks will take place on Wednesday mornings from 9:30AM to 11:00AM

Join us as we dive into a different them and also open to wherever the experience takes us:

  • Sep 18: Embrace The Harvest Full Moon
  • Oct 2: Follow the Sun
  • Oct 16: Creativity
  • Oct 30: Celebration
  • Nov 13: Meeting the Moments

On every walk, you will:

  • Experience the restorative and healing power of slowing down and spending time in the natural world.
  • Learn practices to reconnect to the natural world to help cultivate peace and calm.
  • Wander among spectacular plants and flowers and notice the magic and mystery all around you.

We will send details on what to bring/wear after you Register Here.

· Offered rain or shine with a minimum sign-up of 3 people. Enrollment is limited to 15 people.

About the Guide: Ly Duong (she/her) is the founder of Tune in the Meadows, a PhD student from CITE program at MSU, and a certified guide with The Association for Nature and Forest Therapy. Ly has been practicing, supporting, and co-creating spaces with other living beings, including humans and non-humans. In these spaces, all beings could listen to each other’s stories, then connect more deeply to themselves, their community, and the surrounding communities. She believes that the more we practice slowing down, the more we can see and feel the gifts, beauties, and connections within ourselves and with the natural world

Optional Reading: “Your Guide to Forest Bathing” by M. Amos Clifford

Learn more about: “What is forest bathing?

Contact for more info and/or Q&A: duongly@msu.edu

COGS Coffee & Connection

We hope to see you at our next Coffee & Connection!

Details: Tuesday, November 19th – from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Location: Strange Matter Coffee in the MSU Union

We look forward to connecting with you!  

Coffee & Connection FS24 COGS Schedule

COGS Craft & Connection November 15th

Join us on Friday, November 15th  for an extra special craft session together with our friends from Graduate Educator Advancement & Teaching (GREAT)! The featured project will be scrapbooking and hand made greeting cards.  We’ll have some lunch/ snacks to keep you going (while it lasts). Drop in and connect with your fellow grad/professional students over crafts!

When: Friday November 15th from 12:00 to 2:00 PM

Where: Chittenden Hall, Lounge (downstairs)