Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Four-Semester Plan


To start, my apologies for not writing for a while!  On October 7th, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world, and I have been at home enjoying time with baby Andrew.  Don't worry! I have also been in touch with students and staff in the office, so things are moving along smoothly.

Before I left, I wanted to discuss "Four Semester Plans." In this blog, I will do so as it is an extremely important piece of advising during a student's semester! This entry is actually more timely than most may care to know; it's this time of the year that many students who have not seen their advisor, or have not begun working on four-semester plans, usually have trouble putting one together.  Luckily, it's a fairly easy process.

For students in their first semester at the University, academic advisors require just a few, fundamental activities:

1. Meet with his or her advisor twice during the semester
2. Complete an "Exploration Exercise"
3. Complete a "Four Semester Plan"

In this blog, I will discuss  "The Four Semester Plan," a requirement of all students in LTSC each semester. What is a "Four Semester Plan"? It's just what it sounds like--a student's academic plan that (1) displays what courses a student will take in the time they are with LTSC, and (2) a demonstration by a student that he or she understands how to contextualize academic departments' "Four Year Plans" and synthesize a schedule on their own by which a student might work into (or experience a few classes) different majors on campus.

Understanding how to complete a "Four Semester Plan" seems to give students a bit of trouble the first time around. I believe this is for a few reasons. A main reason is that for many students, it's a first try at an academic plan in which no outside person is hand holding or supplying constant feedback during its creation. Is it difficult? Not at all. At its most basic, to make a four semester plan, students simply need to locate academic department (majors) plans online and see how they might fit their own schedule to mimic what a student already in a major might be taking. I'll explain how it works below.

A. We ask that students locate the LTSC form for completing the Four Semester Plan. It's located on our website at www.ltsc.umd.edu (see below). Under the banner "LTSC Forms & Important Links" on the right side of the page is a hyperlink to the .pdf form "Four Semester Plan."


B. The second step is to print out a copy of the student's "unofficial transcript" and copy in the courses for which they are currently enrolled, or for which they have AP or transfer credit recorded, on to the plan's first semester box and in the CORE graph (see below).  An unofficial transcript can be found on Testudo:  http://www.testudo.umd.edu/apps/uotrans/.

 * A quick explanation. Each semester is denoted by a year/month code. In this case, the semester for which this student is registered is Fall 2011.  Why?  11 denotes 2011. If it is 2012, it would be 12.  The next two numbers show semester:  08= fall; 01=spring, 05= summer I; 07=summer II; 12=winter term.  In the example, it's the Fall 2011 semester, 1108.  Fall of 2013?  1308.

C. The next step is to simply fill out the form with all information required at the top, the first semester from the unofficial transcript and anything that counts as CORE! Easy!


D. In this case, we see the student wants CCJS (Criminal Justice) as his first choice of major. We'll use the "LEP sheet requirements" and "Four Year Plan" from CCJS as a basis on filling out the rest of the form.  You'll note that students will see the same requirements are needed to get into the major as students in the majors are already taking. This student will also look at the four-year plan for Economics majors, but we won't do so here.

1. From the LEP (www.lep.umd.edu) webpage. Look under "Transfer" as students at Maryland are considered "internal transfer students":

2. From the Four Year Plan in the CCJS Department: 
(http://www.bsos.umd.edu/media/51250/ccjssgp-v2.pdf)

  
E. Now the plan will look something like what is below! In this case, the student will have completed all needed requirements for CCJS by the end of his or her third semester. This means he'll be able to declare at that point. If he doesn't declare by the time registration rolls around, an advisor will ask him what he intends to take the fourth semester, or look to see that the student has permission to take the major courses in which they are declaring.


Note that ECON is also listed in the chart, as well as any remaining CORE courses. No further planning is required for ECON because it's a non-LEP major, and a student can declare that at any time.