academic advising

APR stands for “academic planning and registration.” Most students learn to use it as a registration system pretty quickly. Only a small proportion, though, have really learned to use it as an academic planning tool. At any time, and from anywhere, a St. Lawrence student can look at her or his APR. This means that you can check your course selections (both active and saved) during registration periods, of course, but more than this you can look at your transcript, check your grades (both midterm and final grades are posted there), and see if transfer credit has been recorded.

A one-unit course at SLU is three hours of class time per week. The schedule is arranged in such a way that courses meet one hour per day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or 90 minutes per day on Tuesday and Thursday. (You will, however, see variations from this pattern.) Class periods have ten-minute breaks between them, which generally provides you with enough time to get across campus, so you can take “back to back” classes such as on MWF at 9:40 to 10:40 and 10:50 to 11:50. In general, course times do not conflict with athletic practices.

You should put as many as you want. List as many courses as you think you might be interested in and you can then begin to narrow that down as you talk with your advisor or as the registration process continues. Remember, you should not be trying to pick the “perfect” three courses to fill out your schedule. If you think that narrowly, you will probably end up being disappointed if you don’t get all three. Have a flexible plan that you have thought carefully about so that you have additional choices if you don’t get your most preferred choices.

As we begin an advising cycle—the period when each student is expected to create a Working List of courses for the next semester and then go talk to her or his advisor—every student begins with an “advisor hold.” This is there to ensure that you sit down and talk to your advisor. Only your advisor can lift this hold, so you need to talk to her. Don’t expect your advisor to lift this hold without talking to you.

The practical answer is that you need to take approximately thirty-two courses over four years and not all of them can possibly fulfill major/minor/distribution requirements. However, you should approach your courses with a different mindset.

If by “the wrong class” you mean a level that is too high or too low for you in math or foreign languages, it’s not a problem because those departments allow you to move back and forth to a course at the appropriate level that fits into your schedule. If instead you mean a class that you start attending and decide you really don’t like, you have seven class days to drop the course and add another. After that, your schedule is set. Twice during your fours years you may withdraw from a class before the end of the tenth week of classes.

Students normally declare their major during the second semester of their sophomore year. This gives you plenty of time to explore the curriculum and be in conversation with your advisor about your interests and options. It is possible to declare a major before the second semester of the sophomore year in most departments and programs; given high numbers of majors and specific prerequisites, economics and psychology do not allow major declaration before second semester of the sophomore year. You cannot register for the fall semester of the junior year without declaring a major.

Although distribution requirements may be fulfilled at any time during your four years, you will have better access to courses that carry distribution credit in your first and second years. Additionally, because these requirements are designed so that you can explore the curriculum, it makes sense to take them early. Most students see one or two courses as less desirable—science (NSC-L) and arts and expression (AEX) are frequent here—and the best advice there is to take such courses sooner.

Part of the mission of a liberal arts institution is to encourage our students to explore a broad range of topics and disciplines. Think of distribution requirements not as a punishment, or as hoops through which to jump, but rather as an opportunity to take courses you never imagined you might be interested in. They are a way of learning more about areas of knowledge which interest you, and which you may want to major or minor in—seeing such courses as exploration is key. Not as requirements, but as opportunities.