What is “Conquering COVID-19”? This is a small series designed to help incoming and current college students navigate university life in the era of COVID-19. This series consists of advice, freebies, tips, and tricks to use for the upcoming year from the GPSNeeded Blog, run by a rising sophomore student at Rice University, taking the same journey!
Here’s a post catered to a lot of my rising underclassmen! Mentoring and college planning resources may be a bit harder to come by this semester with some universities undertaking a completely virtual format but there are still some things that you can do to try to format the best 4-year plan that you can for yourself! Here are some tips I have formatting your plan!
Know your graduation requirements: When taking the time to plan out what your years are going to look like, the first thing to keep in mind is what you need to graduate! Make sure that you have all those requirements accounted for in your plan before you venture and choose the courses you want to fill your plan with. This means looking for any required courses (at Rice we are required to take a writing seminar, physical activity class, and a couple of other requirements), looking at the total number of credit hours needed to obtain a degree and knowing the amount of upper and lower level classes that need to be taken for you to graduate.
Plan for your major requirements: If you have read some of my other blogs you know that what you major in completely is up to you. There is no perfect major and what you major in should be something that interests you! However, I do think that is it important to decide on a major early in your college career so that planning those requirements is smoother and you have adequate time to meet all the requirements.
Keep Standardized exams in mind: This is for all my pre-professional kids! When making your four-year plan keep in mind when you will be planning to take certain standardized exams for the professional path of your choice. There are additional requirements for those in these fields to help prepare for professional schooling and exams.
Plan in some exploration: Now that I have rambled on and on about requirements, please do not forget to plan in some fun! College is a great time to explore different interests and learn new things. There are so many courses in so many different things that you can explore and I encourage you guys to do so! If there is a class that interests you, take note of it and see if it fits into your plan!
Meet with an advisor about the plan you have in mind: Although it may be hard to schedule, I recommend finding an advisor or an upperclassman in your same area and asking for some feedback on your plan! Four-year planning is a lot and at times it can get very overwhelming. Luckily for you, you never have to do it alone! There are so many people who can help you with your planning and making sure you are able to achieve everything you want with the least amount of stress possible. I recommend being completely honest with advisors about your goals and interests so that they can help you in the best way possible, all these resources are there for you and to help you be successful! Do not be afraid to lean on them!
Thank you for joining me in my Conquering COVID-19 college series! I appreciate all of your support and hope to be able to bring more series like this one to you guys!
Love Always,
Karen