YOUR CLASS SCHEDULE: If you need help, ask an advisor - they know more than you think

By Bill Cross

You made it. You’ve been—or soon will be—accepted to college, the capstone achievement of your teenage-years.

Now that you’ve almost validated 12 to 15 years of school, what are you going to do next? Have a cookie? Throw a party? Go to Disneyland? Hey, if Super Bowl champions get to go, shouldn’t you?
Whatever you do to celebrate, you’ve earned it. Just don’t spend too long congratulating yourself. A whole new challenge is waiting, and the sooner you focus on that, the better off you’ll be.

You’ve undoubtedly thought a lot about how your college career will start. Besides all the deliberation that goes into choosing a college, you may have considered where to live, what your roommates may be like or where to go and what to do to make friends during your first collegiate weeks.

Those are all important things to think about. But don’t underestimate how much thought you should put into choosing your first classes—they could make or break the goals you set for yourself during the next four to five years.

Let advisors advise

Unlike high school, most colleges give you, the student, the final decision on exactly which classes to take. Sure, the more advanced classes have prerequisites, so you won’t be taking theoretical quantum physics in your first semester.

But you’ll be eligible for dozens, if not hundreds, of classes, and choosing the right one isn’t easy.

At some colleges, you’ll be given an advisor within your major. At others, you’ll have to ask for help. Do it. You don’t have to take their advice (in most cases), but these faculty members can help you grab a toehold as you start your climb toward a college degree.

If you’re not sure how to find an advisor, ask the first official-looking person you see at your orientation. Poke around your college’s Web site. Most have a section for the “registrar,” the office in charge of enrollment. Find an email address or phone number there, and whoever’s at the other end of that correspondence should help you find an advisor.

Face it: you’ve never had to make these kinds of decisions all alone before. You’ll have enough new stuff to worry about without the stress of researching every single class you may
or may not take. Get some help.

Be open-minded

It’s a good idea to look at a course catalogue (which the registrar should be able to provide) and go into a meeting with your advisor with some idea of what you’d like to take. But don’t get so attached that you’re unwilling to listen to your advisor when he or she tells you you’re wrong.

When I started college, way back in twenty-o-one (2001, as you kids say these days), I was pretty positive that I was the smartest math student my college had ever seen. I was a good math and science student in high school, and I decided to attend my “safety school” because it offered the best financial aid. Surely no one at my college had ever seen anybody with my mad skills.

Imagine my surprise when, at orientation, my advisor told me I shouldn’t take the most advanced math class offered to freshmen. Imagine my embarrassment when the classmate I had eaten lunch with told me he would be taking Math 143, while my advisor was urging me to slump into Math 142. My only college friend was, apparently, better than me at math.

I begrudgingly took my advisor’s advice, figuring it couldn’t hurt to show her how wrong she was by notching 100s on every exam and homework assignment. Turns out, Math 142 was plenty challenging, and Math 143, which I took the following semester, would have been nearly impossible for me if I had tried to take it straight out of high school.

You shouldn’t necessarily always take the faculty’s advice —just like you shouldn’t always kick the football away on fourth down—but it’s a good, safe idea nine times out of 10.

And stay open-minded

Once you get past your first enrollment period, you can relax and finally focus on your classes, until you get to the middle of the semester, that is. Then it’ll be time to enroll for the spring semester. And summer classes, if you’re taking them. Unlike high school, summer school in college isn’t just for students who failed a class or need to play catch-up. It’s a great chance to get ahead or knock off some general education requirements, like those pesky history, English or speech classes.

Your advisor may tell you it’s a good idea to get those classes on your transcript as soon as possible, thus delaying complete immersion in your major – you never know when you’ll have a change of heart.

My first-semester math episode was an eye-opener – the first of many. Later, I realized print journalism was a better fit for me than math and science. I suspected that was the case, so I took a science writing class in the School of Journalism to test the waters without straying too far from my initial major.

There’s always a path to achieve your goals, even if they suddenly change. Sometimes you need someone to help find the trailhead.

You’ll soon have more opportunities and choices than ever. Whether you choose the right ones will determine your success and enjoyment during the next four (give or take) years. That’s the blessing and curse of college. But don’t worry about that just yet.