First Meeting: Things to Cover

Course Election for Fall Term

Pre-Meeting Blitz

• Blitz your advisees to tell them during what half-hour block you have scheduled their meeting on 9/19.  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 Friday, September 16.

Things to Cover

Review Requirements

• Review of First-Year Requirements:
  • Three terms of residence
  • Writing Requirement (unless exempt, either with Writing 2-3 or Writing 5)
  • First-Year Seminar Requirement (The Humanities 1-2 sequence, if both completed, can fulfill the First-Year Seminar Requirement. It is offered fall-winter)
    (For more information see General Academic Requirements for Graduation)
• 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:
    1. know which language they want to study to complete the requirement
    2. know how many terms they will need to complete the requirement
    3. know whether they want 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 election

• Students who have been placed into Writing 2-3 will already be enrolled in a section by their advising meeting, and they will choose their other two courses around the time slot of their Writing 2-3 course.
• Beginning this year, students will elect one Writing 5 section or first-year seminar (depending on placement) at the same time as their other two fall term courses online through course election in Bannerstudent.
• Students no longer select alternate schedules.
• 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 2) plan a balance of courses, so that your advisee isn't taking only large lectures.
• Students should plan for alternate scenarios in case they do not get into their preferred Writing 5 section, first-year seminar, or fall term courses during initial course election. In that case, they will need to choose another section of Writing 5, first-year seminar, or course from among those with space available on Tuesday, September 20.
• 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 September 27. They can add a course with the permission of instructor until October 4. They can drop a third course without penalty until October 4. A fourth course dropped AFTER Oct. 5 will exhaust one of the three eligibilities for taking a fourth course without extra tuition.They can drop a fourth course without penalty until November 1.

If a class seems inappropriate they can consider other alternatives.  The choice of their schedule is ultimately their own.