Maryland is ranked in the top 20 Public Research Institutions in the nation! It is a fact that we are very proud of. That means academics are key here on campus and our students take their responsibilities seriously. New students sometimes have trouble navigating a new registration and course sequence system, so it is vitally important that they understand all of the resources available to them. I'll try to provide you with those resources (in order of how you will come in contact with them) in this post.
Pre-admission: Keonna Feaster and Erin Thiel are our two Pre-transfer advisors. You can meet with them even before you apply to the University of Maryland. They can help you navigate the application process and determine how your credits transfer to the University. Find their information at http://www.transferadvising.umd.edu/.
Pre-Orientation: The best way to get information regarding your advising is to become familiar with the Course Catalog and the registration system. At the University of Maryland, we use a system called The Portal for all of our needs. The Portal is a one-stop shop for our students to register for classes, check in on finances, check in on extracurricular activities and more. Log-in to your Portal at www.my.umd.edu.
Orientation: During Orientation is when you actually sit down with an advisor and figure out your course schedule for your first semester. You will receive a tutorial on how to use The Portal and other advising tools and you will receive your first semester schedule. If you decide to change your mind about a course, you can always log back into the registration system and change your classes. Just be sure to contact your advisor to make sure the course fits into your academic plan.
Post-Orientation through graduation: Some colleges require students to meet with their advisors each semester. Be sure to check with your advisor during Orientation to see if this is the case. Other colleges do not require this meeting, but a smart Terp certainly makes it a point to visit with their advisor at least once a semester. Do this prior to your advising date so that you can make sure that you have enough time to talk over your options. All of our advisors are professional, full-time advisors and have made it their life's duty to help our students succeed.
Other resources: When you come to Orientation, you will be assigned an Orientation Advisor. These are current student leaders here at UMD who have been trained to understand the intricacies of your college. As students, they have taken a plethora of classes and have some great recommendations on courses to take. They won't, however, offer opinions about quality/style of certain professors since each student enjoys a different style of learning. Make sure to write down their email when they write it on the board in your morning meeting. You can also be in touch with the other students in your Orientation group. We put you together with students in your college so that you can have some great networks from the start. Definitely be sure to take advantage of your grouping.
I hope that helps to give you some idea of the support networks that we have in place for our new Transfer students as they begin thinking about taking classes here at UMD.
What are some of the best classes that you have taken here at UMD (if you are a commuter) or What are some classes that you have heard are great classes to take here at UMD?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Hello. My name is Kaisha Baker, and I am a sophomore here at the University of Maryland. As stated above, this institution is top 20 in research. Therefore, many of the courses offered are great classes to take. However, how much you enjoy a course will very depending on your interest in what the course covers.
ReplyDeleteI took a Philosophy course on Contemporary and Moral issues in order to fill my HO core requirement, and it was one of the best courses I have taken to date. I took it with Professor Dwyer. She is an amazing professor who is very passionate and educated on all of the topics that she teaches. Therefore, I would go ahead and recommended any course she is teaching.
Another great way to find out which courses are good ones is to look them up on ourumd.com. This website was designed to tell you the percentages of grades each professor has given out in their previous semesters of teaching the course. Although this website does not give you much detail about the professor's teaching styles. Most students use it to help them choose courses because a higher percentage of A's and B's is usually a result of good teaching styles.
I hope this makes choosing courses easier for you!
~ Kaisha
Hi, Terps! My name is Sarah Woolsey and I'm a freshman double major in Spanish and Environmental Science here at Maryland, and I'll be working as an Orientation Advisor this summer.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the great advice above, I'd offer one more tip: we have a lot of great faculty here at Maryland, so I would definitely suggest taking advantage of the connections that we have.
This being such a great research university, there are tons of opportunities to participate in undergraduate research during your time here at UMD. [If you'd like to see more about research on campus, you can take a look at this website: http://www.ugresearch.umd.edu/].
Another great way to take advantage of the benefits of being at one of the nation's top 20 Public Research Institutions is to take courses with professors who are completing new research that interests you.
For example, I'm really interested in Geology, and I've always thought that dinosaurs were pretty darn cool. Next semester, I'm going to be taking a course entitled "Dinosaurs: A Natural History." Not only is the material really fascinating to me, but the course is taught by a professor (Dr. Holtz) who is one of the world's foremost paleontologists.
Take advantage of opportunities like this! Take a class with a professor doing research in a field that interests you (even if it doesn't directly correlate to your major) or work with a faculty member on campus on a research topic that interests you.
Hey Terps!
ReplyDeleteMy name's Vanessa Kong and besides being a junior English and Linguistics major from New Jersey, I'm also going to be an Orientation Adviser this summer. One of the great things about Maryland is that each student is required to complete CORE classes, which are a series of general education courses that help you explore topics outside of your intended major. While many of your transfer and AP credits can satisfy these requirements, CORE is actually a great way to find other interests you may want to study. For example, I took an Introduction to Linguistics class to satisfy one of these requirements, even though I had no idea what linguistics was, and I ended up loving it so much I picked it up as a second major. These classes can also help you pick up a minor if you want to look into those options, which generally take less credits than a major to complete.
Also, always remember to utilize your advisers! In my experience, they're very well trained to link you to other resources like career advising, internship opportunities, and special programs on campus that you may be interested in. Advisers are not only there to help you choose classes to fill your requirements to graduate, they're a great asset to figuring out how to get the most out of your time here at Maryland.
Hey everyone! My name is Miriam Meskel and I am a sophomore Communications major from Baltimore, Maryland. I will also be an Orientation Advisor this summer! My favorite part about attending the University of Maryland is the multitude of interesting classes that are available! There are great classes for every student. Although every UMD student has to complete the CORE requirements, which are general education courses, there is a wide variety of classes to chose from. The best part about it is that it gives students the opportunity to try different types of classes and explore their interests outside of their major.
ReplyDeleteI am the perfect example of the benefits of CORE classes. In my second semester of my freshman year, I needed to complete my Behavioral and Social Sciences requirement. I was just browsing through the different courses available on Testudo and stumbled upon HESP202, which is Introduction to Hearing and Speech Sciences. At first, I only saw the class as a course to just fulfill the requirement. As the semester progressed, I realized that I truly enjoyed the class and became very interested in it. I loved the class so much that I researched the major and tried to learn more about it. As a result, I will be soon be declaring Hearing and Speech Science as my second major and, in the future, I intend to be a Speech-Language Pathologist. This one unexpected class has changed my whole life. I now have found the career path I want to pursue, which was something I found to be the most challenging at first. With so many different possible paths to choose here at the University, I was very unsure about what I wanted to be after college.
One simple CORE class inspired me to pursue a field I had never even heard of before. If there is one piece of advice I can give to other students, it is that they should not be afraid to explore the unknown. Be open-minded about every class because you never know where inspiration will grab hold of you!