<p>SoCalDad2 - Engineering students do not meet with their advisor. Your son should recieve a packet from the school of engineering that provides a course list for first year engineering students. Also on the front page of YES the name of their advisor should be listed next to their picture. If you have any questions you can email or call the advisor or the school of engineering.</p>
<p>Your S will probably be taking Chem 102A and associated lab, a math class (which one depends on AP credits) Intro to Engineering (3 modules) and an elective. That’s 13 or 14 units depending on the math class. I would not recommend any more for the 1st semester of college. Beside developing a strong academic foundation, this is when students are developing their social and support networks. They need time to do that.</p>
<p>I would say you would expect to get registration materials in the mail soon, but you can call to ask just in case if you are worried about it being lost in the mail. I haven’t read enough of this here to know if others have gotten them yet. Also, I would refer everyone to the course catalog. Read it thoroughly as there is a lot of information there about AXLE/LAC requirements, degree requirements, AP credit policies, prerequisites, etc. You can link to it on the YES registration page. Also, you may find registration and degree requirements on your specific college and specific major webpages. I know there is quite a bit of information on the Engineering school webpages. You will need to speak to an adviser to clear the advising hold before registering. Our son called or emailed (I can’t remember which) his adviser and scheduled a phone appointment. They spent about 15 minutes on the phone, and I listened in without speaking. The adviser was helpful, but he did expect that our son had read the information published in the catalog about course and degree requirements, AP credit policies, etc.</p>
<p>Finally, when you have questions do call the main phone number for the office that you think has the answer. Everyone at Vanderbilt is extremely helpful and happy to answer your questions or direct you to where you need to go. Often you can get a question answered by an assistant at the main number without having to speak with an upper level administrator, adviser or professor. But even if you can’t, the upper level contact you are directed to will also be helpful. Vanderbilt is top notch. Congratulations!</p>
<p>Our engineering son was required to speak with his adviser to clear an advising hold. I wonder what the difference was between the 2 of them. Perhaps there was a hold for your son that was cleared when you spoke to them at some time before registration? He has an advising hold every semester and is required to show his proposed schedule each time, which is great for keeping on track for graduation. However, I don’t see any mention of an advising hold in the registration information linked below. I agree with Go9ersjhr to go with the light schedule. Our son had added a 3 credit LAC class first semester (for a total of 17 credits) which he quickly dropped in the second week. Also, if you are interested in one of the 1 credit freshmen engineering seminars and are waitlisted, just stay on the waitlist. Those classes were under enrolled just a few weeks into the semester.</p>
<p>Engineering majors following this link to see the registration information that is also sent by mail:</p>
<p>SMMboys - S spoke to his advisor to have his hold lifted for 2nd semester freshman year and the upcoming fall semester. He did not have to speak to an advisor prior to registering for his 1st semester classes his freshman year. The information from the school of engineering provided the guidance needed to register.</p>
<p>I could be wrong about it (it’s happened before, haha!), but I seem to remember the panic of what the heck is an advising hold . . . If there is one, it will be listed on the YES student landing page, but I see the engineering registration info online doesn’t mention it at all. Once you read that packet, you will see that there actually is very little choice for the first year. Student’s are mostly picking the times and maybe the profs, and the engineering module topics. If you have AP credits that changes things a bit. Our son would say to take all the AP credits you can.</p>
<p>Okay… First of all registration is a snake, meaning that if you get “screwed” with a late enrollment date this semester you will get first choice next semester. Class registration is also based on seniority, which means that us non-first years get first choice, but this is fair because we start having major requirements we have to fill… All in all, don’t panic if you have a “bad” enrollment date your first semester because in all likelihood you will change what you want to major in before you declare in any way :)</p>
<p>I would suggest to start putting the classes you want in your cart. Load up on as many classes as you are interested in BEFORE you talk to your adviser. Your adviser has access to what you have in your cart so she can see what you are interested in and help you pick classes. It will make her life easy if you do this before you talk with her so you don’t have to verbally tell her what you are interested in. Also, listen to your adviser, I know so many first years who get bad outcomes from doing things that are not recommended (taking 18 hours and/or two labs is a recipe for a bad first semester.)</p>
<p>DO make back-up plans in case you don’t get the exact class you want. You can use the “schedule” feature so you can see how all the times line up for classes in your cart. Look at a campus map to make sure you can make the classes that you select geographically (for example, blair to wilson in 10 minuets is not feasible for some).</p>
<p>Also, pick a wide range of classes, knock out some axle and some intended major requirements. Your first year or so is there for you to explore options, not to grind out xyz major track. </p>
<p>Lastly, look on VOICE instead of rate my professor for more accurate reviews. </p>
<p>The instructions say to contact your adviser the week before your enrollment window. It seems that at the point where you meet with them, you should already have classes in your cart and have a pretty good idea what you want to take. What if you have question before that? What if you can’t figure out what level of course you should try or have some preliminary questions before you even start putting things in your cart? Is there someone else who could answer questions? It seems like the adviser won’t really be available until the week before registration opens.</p>
<p>What percentage of freshmen engineers take the Freshman Seminar their first semester? Is it time-consuming?</p>
<p>P.S. I see that there is only a single seminar in the fall, and it is limited to 35 students. So if my math is right, only a little over 10% of the freshman students can take it.</p>
<p>"Can you enroll in two classes at the same time, where one is waitlisted and you will drop the other class if you get into the waitlisted class? Yes, I think that is called the “drop if enrolled” function.</p>
<p>Our son took a 1 credit engineering seminar both semesters of his freshmen year. I just looked back and I can see that in the fall the class was limited to 25 students and there were 6 open spots, in the spring the class was limited to 15 students and there were 3 open spots. Both of these classes started out with waitlists. Son liked both of them and didn’t find them overly time consuming. He made good connections with the profs and classmates. Both classes were good GPA boosters.</p>
<p>Indeed, the freshman seminars are intended to be pretty easy and interesting. They usually offer two or three of them, I’m surprised to only see one. Either way, it’s always tough to get in. Engineers should always be on the lookout for some easy GPA boosters, particularly in their first two years!</p>
<p>Once your adviser has been assigned, you can contact them anytime. As others have mentioned, Engineering students are not required to get adviser approval as their schedule is pretty much laid out for them. Other students should receive some info from Vandy about their major but they have a much less structured curriculum and there are a lot of choices. You need to sit down and really dig through the YES and the Course Catalog before bothering your adviser, but do give them a call if you are confused, and I do believe they must “OK” your schedule before you can enroll. They won’t be unavailable-- I think Vanderbilt is just trying to prevent them from getting overwhelmed with questions. Many advisers really are not all that knowledgeable on specific courses and professors (how could they be?)-- their main role is to make sure you are on track with the requirements of your major and liberal arts core.</p>
<p>On the YES landing page, it shows the name of your adviser once one has been assigned (next to your picture). You should also receive their contact info by mail I believe.</p>
<p>@jrmama496
I have found my CASPAR adviser to be very, very approachable. IF you have a question about classes I would suggest dropping them an email. They will probably be more than glad to talk with you early as opposed to later when they are flooded with requests for information. I would go ahead and call/email</p>
<p>As for which introductory level courses to take I would suggest looking at the department website. You may also look at some of the upper level classes to see what prerequisites they have so that you can stay on track for a major/minor in that area. For most students, however, your class selection for your first semester is actually the least important, you have plenty of semesters to iron out the details, so don’t stress too much over it. At least this appears to be true for A+S, I can not speak to anything engineering or Blair related.</p>
<p>Each course listing on Class Search on YES is quite complete, except for the absence of any info about the location of the classroom. That info could be useful at registration, when you are trying to determine if ten minutes between classes is enough time to get from one class to another. How and when does the university get this information to students?</p>
<p>Look again for the location on YES registration pages. The location should be there, building and room number. Then then look at the interactive map on the Vandy website that you can type in the building name to find it. BTW, Stevenson Center is a group of buildings all close together.</p>
<p>Example for Chem 102a</p>
<p>Days, Time, Location, Dates
MWF, 09:10a - 10:00a, Stevenson Center 4309, 8/20/14-12/4/14 </p>
<p>Also, a joke around campus is that “staff” teaches the most classes and has several doctorate degrees in a wide range of fields. If a class has the professor “staff” that means that the department always offers that particular class this semester, but they have yet to select a teacher for it. Don’t worry it will be filled and you will get a chance to change your class if it is filled by a professor you do not wish to take.</p>
<p>Hmmm… it appears that this forum blocks external linking to image hosting. When I search for chem and I am logged off I see classes for graduate level biochemistry on the first page. When I go to page 6 I see a bunch of chem 102a sections in Stevenson. I am using the exact same URL that you are posting. Do you have access to YES via a VUNET ID?</p>
<p>I’m going to try to find an image hosting site that CC accepts.</p>
<p>edit: In my original post I switched image hosts, so it might be working now.</p>
<p>Advanced search gives me the info on your screen capture, but it is on page 1. When doing the basic search like you did, I get a page that looks identical to yours (page 6), except you appear to be logged in while I am not, and on my screen there is no classroom info. </p>
<p>Weird. </p>
<p>My son has access to YES via a VUNET ID, but he is not here right now. Will have to see if we can get the room info while logged in.</p>