Helping Students Make the Right Choices

Providing guidance from admission through graduation

Choosing a Major 

An academic major may be linked to a person's interest, or it may be linked to the career that a person wants to pursue. Choosing a major requires gathering information about interests or about a career and the suggested area of study for that career.

Career Services has many resources to assist students with choosing a major:

• CHOICES (a computerized guidance system) offers interest, skills and values assessment that link to occupational and educational information.
• Occupational guides that describe different careers and the educational requirements needed to qualify for those careers.
• College catalogs and transfer information for students planning to transfer to another college.
• Computers to access websites that provide career and educational information. Professional association and college websites are a good place to start.

Students should ask questions like:

• What were my favorite subjects in high school? What majors relate to them?
• What jobs has the student had that he/she liked? What does this suggest about interest and abilities?

The most satisfying careers will be those where students are:

• Using skills and abilities that come naturally and that the student enjoys using.
• Involved in meaningful activities that interest the student.
• Doing something that is consistent with the student's values and personality.

Course Selection / Building

The following outline provides tips for planning a class schedule:

• Review test scores (ACT/SAT scores or COMPASS scores), high school grades, and relevant college courses to help in determining the level of classes for which a student is ready. Be honest with the student, and schedule college preparatory courses if necessary. Remember college preparatory courses are remedial classes with the purpose of helping the student to increase skills in reading, mathematics and writing. In other words, skills necessary for the student to complete educational goals.
• Review the requirements for degrees and certificates
• If the courses for the program are listed term by term, then follow that sequence as closely as possible.
• Write down the classes needed or those the student would like to take for the term. Plan to schedule a balanced load. It is best to fill the schedule with a variety of subjects in order to avoid overloading in one subject area or overloading with classes requiring a lot of reading. For example, you may choose to register for a math class, an English class, a psychology class, and an interesting elective class.
• Refer to the course descriptions in the catalog to make sure you have met all prerequisites.
• Check the course schedule to determine which classes are available and how many sections are being offered for each relevant class.
• As you plan your schedule, start with the classes that have the fewest sections being offered, and work around those. Then fit in the classes with the most sections being offered.

Course Load

When planning schedules and deciding on the number of classes a student would like to take, it is important to consider their abilities, work obligations, family obligations, and commitments to other outside activities.

During a fall or spring term, a course load of 12 credits or more is considered full-time; during the summer term, 8 credits is considered full-time. Suggestions for determining an ideal course load are outlined below. These suggestions refer to the fall or spring terms only, and are not appropriate for determining a summer term course load.

GPA Calculator

Calculate GPA
This site will help a student to determine the grade point average.

Calculate GPA needed
This site will help a student to determine the grade point average needed in order to raise the cumulative grade point average to a desired level; this information will be calculated using the current GPA, current number of credits completed, and what the desired cumulative GPA is.

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