Next week our incoming first year students will join us on campus for their “New Student Orientation.” Here are a few tips to bear in mind during your registration!
-You all need ENGL/CAS 137H in your schedule
-Even if you took AP English, or even a college “Freshman English” course!
-Even if you’re doing LEAP in the summer, which comes with English 15 or CAS 100 You’ll still get credit for those courses, but the 137H/138T requirement still has to be fulfilled.
-You should all have at least one other honors course for fall, major-related or not
-You’re entitled to have just 137H in fall, but you can probably do better than that….and you don’t want to be in a situation where you absolutely need three honors courses in the spring.
-You’re also entitled to schedule three fall honors courses, but you should consider carefully whether that’s a good idea. Two is the magic number.
-Don’t take more than 17 credits and don’t take more than 5 courses, unless one of them is less than the typical three-credit course. You’re entitled to take up to 19 credits without special permission, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Don’t go right up to our recommended maximums in both total credits and honors courses—in other words, 17 credits with three honors courses is probably unwise.
-Only take honors calculus (140H, 141H, 220H) if you’re both strong in math and you have a mathematician’s interest in how math works. If you see math more as tool for what you really want to do, you may find honors more than you bargained for.
-Here’s what your adviser tomorrow afternoon won’t know about you, but maybe they should, so maybe you should tell them even if they don’t ask!
-What subjects came easily to you in high school, and what subjects didn’t
-What kind of high school you went to: big or small, lots of honors/AP courses or not so many, etc. High school is never like college, but some high schools are more like college than others!
-How risk-averse are you? Do you prefer a more-ambitious first-semester schedule that marginally increases your chance of not doing well (not getting the SHC’s required 3.40), or would you rather keep your risk to a minimum?
-Using your AP (or IB, or college-in-high-school) credits.
-We know that you don’t have AP scores for senior courses. Go with your best guess—you’ll probably be right, and if you’re wrong in a significant way you can adjust your schedule later.
-In general, if it’s a subject you’re not planning to continue with (e.g. Calculus and you’re a History major), or a relatively non-hierarchical subject (History and you’re a History major), taking your AP credits is a no-brainer.
-In subjects that are what you want to continue with, and are hierarchical (each course assumes solid knowledge of the previous ones), the decision is more complicated and should be discussed with your adviser. There are pros and cons to acceleration based on AP credits, according to your overall situation.
-Don’t make these decisions in isolation, but rather in the context of your overall schedule. The sum total of individually sensible decisions to accelerate, or to take an honors course, might be a schedule that is much too difficult in a way that increases your chances of not doing well.
-If you are considering medical school, you may want to decline the opportunity to place out of core entrance-to-med-school courses in math, biology, chemistry, and physics, because medical schools prefer to see graded university courses in these subjects.
-Don’t worry if you don’t get all of your dream courses. You’ll be here a while, and your first semester is unusual in that your priority registration still leave you behind the 75% of Penn State students who were already enrolled and registered for fall courses before you put down your deposit! After this semester, you’ll be (with all Schreyer Scholars) at the front of the line.
-Leave with a complete schedule! You may change it later, but be sure that you leave NSO with a “full-time student” schedule rather than 6 or 9 credits. The only exception should be if a department can’t schedule for a course for technical reasons, but you have a specific assurance that you’ll be on the registration list. Remember that if you change your schedule later, in a significant way, you should consult with an adviser first even if it’s just by phone or email. Formal adviser assignments won’t be made until August in most cases, but you can always contact the SHC’s advising coordinator to find out the right person to contact in your academic college or DUS.
