Twas the Day Before the Start of Classes...

Well, today I am having our office assistants help prep over 900 letters to be sent out to our students' parents/guardians, giving them information about our office's advising timeline for the semester and inviting parents to be involved in a project for the fall semester I've dreamed up.  What am I doing?! Why did I think this was a good idea? Am I really ready to stand between our new students and their parents--begging their parents to let us help their students grow up by asking students to take new responsibility for themselves as they enter the University and plan for their academic future? Ironically enough, at the same time I send parents a letter informing them about the semester's advising schedule and the goal mentioned above, I'm asking parents to be in touch with their students about advising and their students' responsibility toward advising and planning academic futures.

Why?

The idea behind this semester's blog is simple--inform parents and guardians about what we're doing in Letters and Sciences (LTSC) when it comes to advising and see if we can get even better results than we currently do (which are already very good) in terms of having students see us in a timely fashion, keep students on a good track toward graduation and, most importantly, keep them Maryland! Above everything--assist our students in declaring a major at Maryland.

It's important to note is what we do in Letters and Sciences. Our office advises students who are "undecided" or "undeclared" in their majors at Maryland. For "undecided" students, it's a simple premise. These students have no idea what they wish to major in at Maryland, and they need time to explore with our general education courses and explore many resources on campus which will help those students make informed decisions about a major. It takes a bit of time; but, most importantly, it takes commitment on the part of a student to really gather information and not expect anyone else to make the decision for them. It's a huge responsibility for these students. Most likely, they've never made a decision this big on their own before. We often call these students "Millennial students," and making decisions on their own can be a quite tough endeavor.

Here is a short article about Millennial students, if you've never heard of the generation characterized this way before. It would be interesting to know if you agree with the assessments and see these characteristics in this generation. In this article, the audience is higher ed teachers and professionals, but it's a good insight as to how higher education professionals may view these (your) students. Any comments can be made below!

This is a scholarly journal piece from  Michele Monaco and Malissa Martin in the "Athletic Training Education Journal" from 2007:  http://www.nataej.org/2.2/EJMonaco.pdf

I'll cover more on Millennials later in the semester.

The other type of student in LTSC are what we call "undeclared" students. At Maryland, most of our majors are open to any student who wishes to sign up and join a department. However, there are some who require prerequisite courses and a certain GPA to enter the major. We call these majors "Limited Enrollment Programs," or "LEPs" for short. These majors are Architecture, Business, an assorted group of Sciences, Communication, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Engineering, Government and Politics, Journalism, Landscape Architecture and Psychology. Each program has different requirements for student entry.  If students are not directly accepted to them as freshmen coming into Maryland, students have a second shot at applying for them by the time the student accumulated 60 credits, typically by the end of year two, their sophomore year. In the meantime, they're advising takes place in LTSC.

Here's a website for each Limited Enrollment Program and the requirements for entry: www.lep.umd.edu.  Advisors in LTSC work with students who are interested in these LEPs to make sure they are on track for a timely declaration of the major(s). For most of the programs, it's a simple case of taking certain courses and earning a specific GPA (see sheets). For a couple, Business and Architecture, the road is made slightly more difficult because entry into the major is competetive. It's not enough to just earn good grades for these majors, students have to demonstrate they are experienced, participatory and have good references.  Again, we'll cover more about LEPs later in the semester.

So, those are our students..."undecided" and "undeclared."  But no matter which may define our students, the beginning of the semester is all the same. They've come through orientation, advisors have worked with them to take appropriate courses, and now it's up to our students to get a strong start in their courses. Once they get going, we'll ask them to come in and see us to begin planning for the spring semester.