Course Selection for Fall Term
Pre-Meeting Blitz
- Blitz your advisees to tell them during what half-hour block you have
scheduled their meeting on 9/24. You can ask your advisees to do the
following in preparation:
- Instruct them to fill out the “Advising Questionnaire” form online
before their appointment with you.
- Encourage students to take any and all placement tests on subjects they
might have proficiency in. Better to do so and score abominably than not
and find oneself wasting time and money in a class a student didn’t need to
take. Most placement testing is scheduled for Thursday, September
20.
Things to Cover
Review Requirements
- Review of First-Year Requirements:
- Review and Explanation of Distributive Requirements
(For
more information see Distributives)
- Discussion of language requirement, options, and plans
(See
The Language Requirement )
- A student must have completed the language requirement by the end of the
seventh term.
- Ask advisee what his or her plans are for fulfilling the language
requirement. It is a good idea that the student:
- know which language they want to study to complete the requirement
- know how many terms they will need to complete the requirement
- whether the student wants to incorporate off-campus-study into their
D-Plan.
The language requirement need not be begun in a student’s first term at
Dartmouth. However, it is a good idea that the courses be taken sequentially,
and should be coordinated with potential plans for an LSA or LSA+, which is
often done in the sophomore year.
Discussion of schedule and course-selection
- Because most students will already be scheduled to take either WRIT 2/3 or
5 section, or their First-Year Seminar, a student generally has latitude to
choose only two courses in the fall term. (That said, they will have
elected choices for which section of WRIT 2/3 or 5, or which First-Year Seminar
they wish to take.)
- Be sure to choose an alternate course schedule
- Check enrollment sizes and caps for all courses in which your advisee is
interested. This is important in order to 1) have a notion of the likelihood of
your advisee getting in to his/her desired courses, and if there is a danger
that s/he won’t, it is a good idea to develop an alternate course plan, and 2)
plan a balance of courses, so that your advisee isn’t taking only large
lectures.
- Use the Faculty Advising Phonebank to call representative
faculty regarding courses about which you may have questions
Remind students that they are not locked into their initial selections for
the first two weeks. They can drop or add any class freely until
October 2. They can add a course with the permission of
instructor until October 9. They can drop a third course
without penalty until October 9. They can drop a fourth course
without penalty until November 6.
If a class seems inappropriate they can consider other alternatives.
The choice of their schedule is ultimately their own.
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