Second Meeting: Things to Cover

Course Selection for Winter Term

Pre-Meeting Blitz

• Blitz your advisees to let know that you will be available for a meeting.
• Instruct them to fill out the “Advising Questionnaire” online before their appointment with you.
• Remind advisees that they (probably) have to register their choices for WRIT 5 sections or First-Year Seminars through bannerstudent online. (This will not apply to those students who were placed into WRIT 2/3 or took their First-Year Seminar in the fall term.)

Things to Cover

• Suitability of fall term courses.
• Course election for Winter term, including alternate schedules for capped courses.
• Plans for language requirements.  Most LSA (and FSP) application deadlines are Feb. 1 (for programs taking place in 2010-2011).  Your advisee should have a clear plan about how s/he is going to fulfill the language requirement.
• Encourage your advisee to think of fulfilling Distributive Requirements as a mechanism of exploration.
• Reference Letters: Discuss the fact that every student is going to have to ask members of the faculty for reference letters at some point (perhaps as early as winter term, when applying for Off-Campus Programs or summer internships).  Have they had any one-on-one conversations with their professors? Are they using office hours?

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 January 10. They can add a course with the permission of instructor until January 15. They can drop a third course without penalty until January 15. They can drop a fourth course without penalty until February 12.