Director of Academic Advising gives tips on how to plan next semester’s class schedule

Advising can be stressful for students, because of all of the factors to take into consideration when choosing classes and fulfilling requirements. Navigating through core requirements and the multitude of classes offered tends to be overwhelming, but Director of Academic Advising Gretchen Potter has some advice for students who may be struggling.

First off, students can always go to the Advising Center if they need help or if they have questions. If students feel that their advisor is not helping them, they can turn to the center to get the information they need.

Potter says that there really is no need to stress. “The tools for the new core are so much better,” she said. And the best kept secret is the advising handbook. Each major and each

department has a handbook page, and a lot of students aren’t aware of this fact.

There’s a new feature that will help students out with the advising process as well. The academic catalog functions as a web page and is a place where students can look up the programs they are in. There is a handy feature in the Advising Handbook as well, where all majors have a sort of sample plan that can help students figure out when they need to take classes for their major.

In general, there are three areas that students struggle with, and this can lead to them not graduating on time. The first is total number of credits. All students need 124 credits to graduate.

The second requirement deals with upper-division credits. Each student must take 40 upper-division credits, numbered 300 and above. These higher level classes are not always covered in their major. Finally, all students are required to take 72 credits that are outside of their discipline.

In terms of what has changed in advising since last year, Potter says that the big difference is the core change. Old students had the choice to stay with the previous core, and focal studies, or move on to the new core.

“Now, there’s a way on BoxerOnline to look at core requirements, last spring that wasn’t up and running yet,” Potter said. “If you wanted to look at a core and see what classes there are going to be, you couldn’t.”

With all of these resources available now, Potter and the rest of the advisors want advising to be as easy and streamlined for students as possible.