<p>My first bit of advice is....be prepared to be somewhat overwhelmed! There is a lot to do and a lot of information dispensed. </p>
<p>Ask your questions and I'll do my best to give you an answer, at least from our point-of-view!</p>
<p>How about you tell us everything? Actually, is there anything we should do to ahead of time to make it less overwhelming? A specific question about registering for courses: Is there any way to check if a class is still open before PittStart? Other schools have sites that list the number allowed in the class and how many spots are remaining. Last I checked the Pitt site only listed those allowed. It would seem to be a waste of time to be studying the schedule and course descriptions etc only to find that the class was closed. Also, for those staying overnight: how structured is the program? are students left to find things to do on their own? And generally speaking, what do you wish you had known BEFORE going? Thanks for being the guinea pig!</p>
<p>I'll try to answer everything....let's see. Remember this is in engineering so I have no idea what other kids were doing, but I assume it was structured the same.</p>
<p>We arrived on Sunday afternoon for our monday Pittstart. Since we had time, we did lots of exploring, including the Strip area, Shadyside (great shopping and food) and we even went to Phipps Conservatory in Schenley Park (which I highly recommend, there is a terrific glass exhibit going on).</p>
<p>Monday things began early. We went to Panther Central rather early, and there was no line or anything. We had her stuff with us, so we checked into her room and got that taken care of. If you have time to kill, check out the Pitt Shop on Forbes or the bookstore on Fifth. </p>
<p>Our sesion began with a joint parent/student meeting, to get everybody on the same page. Then the kids left for their group session (they are split into groups of maybe 10 kids and meet with an advisor) and the parents stayed for a LONG session (2 hours+) with an advisor and a prof. I recommend that if you ate an early breakfast, bring something to eat b/c the cookies they give you are not lunch to me! Anyway, the session left me a little overwhelmed b/c they talk a lot about class registration and course selection, and I am a little hands-off about that stuff. ANd of course there is lots of info about how kids will fail, get drunk, etc., and that's hard to hear, for a parent anyway! But is was interesting. Then parents went to the same group session the kids had while the kids did a peer session.The parent session was even more confusing b/c they seemed to dissuade the kids from taking honors courses. Then, on to Honors College, where they told you the opposite. By now it's 5:45 p.m. and we've had no lunch. </p>
<p>So, off to dinner, with the kid (who met us up on the 36th floor of the cathedral). Then she went to a picnic (yes, a picnic after dinner!) and we hung around until our 7:30 tour of Forbes Hall, met up with her again, and off we walked back down the street to Forbes. That was a great tour, met some nice kids who she then hung around with for the evening events. We went home and they went to a show at the Improv (this is part of their planned events). Afterwards they had time before their mandatory floor meeting at 11 p.m. so they went to a coffee shop. We met up again in the morning before her individual registration appointment (which parents do not go to). This appointment is the crucial one, they must arrive 30 minutes early and there are plenty of peer counselors around to help them get a general sense of their schedule. The important thing for them to remember is, the schedule they get can always be changed if need be, so don't panic.</p>
<p>For some reason the session on Billing was not offered at our Pittstart. Or, if it was, I didn't have it on my schedule. Anyway, it would have been a good one to go to. I did hit the Fin Aid office and they gave me a few handouts that were helpful.</p>
<p>We stayed at the Holiday Inn select, by the way, where we have stayed in the past. It's convenient and clean. The Wyndham would also be a good choice.</p>
<p>Be prepared for a long first day! Wear walking shoes and be ready to let go of your kids. And that is the hard part!!!!</p>
<p>Forgot to address the questions about course descriptions, etc. This is definitely helpful especially for your elective. But I'm not familiar with exactly how you go about looking it up. Using your My Pitt account, there is a section on People Soft, which i believe is the software that lists courses and descriptions. But I don't know anything more than that. Sorry!</p>
<p>Also be preared for something to go wrong. My D needs a Chem lab and wants Honors Physics. They are offered at the same time, unfortunately, so now some effort has to be made to fix this. Which may not work with the elective she had chosen! All very typical but still a pain.</p>
<p>Bluejay - </p>
<p>What major/school are you in? I'm in the CBA, and at my PITTStart, it was all pretty basic. We got there in the morning, they talked to us briefly (max. maybe 1.5 hrs), and then we went to make our class schedules. Being that you are an incoming freshman, unless you are in a science or engineering related major, you will likely be filling basic requirements anyway for your first semester, so I wouldn't stress too much about not getting a class you want. Send me a message if you need any more help, good luck!</p>
<p>One thing that I liked about the engineering registration was that they "prepackaged" the required courses into about 8 sets. For example, if you chose a particular package, you might get mostly morning classes or some evening classes, or most of your classes on MWF, or whatever. But the essential benefit was that all of the requirements fit together so you didn't have to worry about that issue. "Math A" fit with "Chem A" and with "Engr Anal A", etc, etc, etc. It sure made things easier.</p>
<p>Now here's a tip for second semester registration (engineering). Go early. Get in line before registration opens if you have any preferences. Take your coffee and some work and be at the front of the line. Not only will you get the schedule you want, but you will be done in no time flat. If you go later in the day, they will be backed up and it will take much longer to register.</p>
<p>Pitt has been working hard on online registration and they are expecting to switch by fall '08.</p>
<p>The problem with those engrg packages is they don't work well if you're bioe and think you're going to med school after. Then you have to take chem with lab (as opposed to chem for engrs w/no lab) and not only is the class in a weird place so is the lab (vis a vis the rest of the engrg pkg). My D wound up taking chem and the lab at night. And she also wound up with no elective fall semester. However, she did take all honors pretty much so it helped to have one less course.</p>
<p>Don't worry about the engrg advisors discouraging people from taking honors. The fact is they get kids from all over, every kind of hs, and they know there are people who were at the top of their class but whose scores are lower than others from bigger, harder schools. They have seen kids drown in the past and they're trying to avoid that. A lot of people drop out of engrg after first semester. It's hard by its nature and some people don't realize what they're getting into. </p>
<p>Not to scare anyone! The engrg advisors want you to succeed and not drop out. They don't want you to be overwhelmed is all.</p>
<p>Mercymom, you are exactly right. My D is bioe/pre-med and that chem lab is tough to find and fit in. She thinks she'll end up with a night lab, too. </p>
<p>I'll definitely pass along the advice to get in line early second semester! Thanks for that tip.</p>
<p>Maybe Pitt could add a BioE/Premed option to the preset "packs" of classes. How difficult could that be? The clearly work with the Math department to have 2 or 3 sections of math classes designated for the engineering students, so why could they not do the same with the Chem department? Maybe nobody ever requested it?</p>
<p>Can someone comment on the quality of the advising at Pitt? Does the school try to match you up w/a professor in your chosen major/field of interest? Or are the advisors randomly assigned? Are grad students ever advisors to freshmen? What happens if you just don't like your advisor? Can you ask for someone else or are you stuck?</p>
<p>From my experiences, the advisors are excellent. Advisors aren't professors or students, their full-time job is advising. They are randomly assigned, but it is very easy to switch advisors if you don't like yours.</p>
<p>Pat, that's really interesting... Do you know what qualifies them to be advisors? Do they have office hours if you need to get in touch?</p>
<p>LBP, I don't know what kind of degrees they have or anything like that. I don't believe that they have walk-in hours, but I could be wrong. It is very easy to make an appointment to see one though.</p>
<p>i'm a freshman student who just returned from pittstart and had such a blast. when i first got there i played volleyball, then learned about computer stuff (most of which was boring, though it was great to find out that you can get windows xp, vista, & office + adobe all for free!! don't buy them when you get your computer!), played tons of board games, ate dinner, had bowling, pizza and stayed up chatting with tons of cool kids. Day 2 I met my advisor, who was awesome. He was very candid, and helped me find some great classes that I didn't know about beforehand. After my advising session I had to head home, but I'm so glad I stayed overnight to meet other kids. Definitely would recommend it. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask : )</p>
<p>hopefully i'll be doing this next year. i'm getting excited already haha.</p>
<p>We just got back from PittStart and I'd suggest that a student bring along copies of his/her AP scores and any college transcripts which reflect dual enrolllment courses. My D's advisor had no information/no file in front of her, even though this info had been submitted to OAFA. IMO, the advisor should be aware of what college credits the student has already accrued. (How can you "advise" when you don't know what the kid's already taken in hs???) My D had prepared a rough schedule for herself, bearing in mind distance between dorm and classroom buildings and anticipating AP credit for certain courses (following the AP credit chart that's on Pitt's website). Going in with a tentative schedule is a starting point and can be helpful, IMO.</p>
<p>I'm here at PittStart now and I'll post more later. But I definitely agree with LBP in that you should have an idea of what courses you would like to take. Maybe pick 10 possibilities. Use the Pitt website to choose courses. Also, keep in mind that you can change your courses up to two weeks AFTER classes starts, although the advisers don't like to make changes willy-nilly.</p>
<p>actually, arts and sciences already has implemented something called Choices where students have to pick 10 classes that interest them so their advisor has some idea of what they are looking for. but maybe you guys are in different schools that haven't done this. i have to say though, having looked over my options and getting an idea of what i wanted was incredibly helpful and i'm glad Pitt decided to do it. if other schools (business, engineering, etc) don't have this, they really should!</p>
<p>Oceangirl, can you explain the choices program you were referring to?</p>