Problems before even starting college- not being assertive enough (scheduling), family, social

Student Lounge College Life
1

Warning- very long

I think I am going to focus on my primary issue and if I am inclined, start discussions on the other.

I was at my college for four days. Three days I spent at orientation for this math program where you take a course and if you pass, you get placed into regular college algebra. This is helpful for me because I was placed into remedial math. The latter half was for my school’s overnight orientation program.

I was very nervous about making friends and about being embarrassed because I’m supposed to be majoring in computer science in remedial math. Plus, I was worried about the size of campus (I kinda embrace getting lost, but it was a concern). But, I made a lot of friends I connected with and I even met other engineering students who are in the same predicament as me, who seem to be super smart. I also successfully (with the help of google maps) located several things on campus and the campus seemed to shrink the more I did those “tours” (aka walking around in 90-degree heat).

The summer program has their own advisor that plans out courses that we can take with us to our actual orientation. I had some ideas of classes I wanted to take. Mostly intros because I am definitely not sure about being a CS major. But, then I learned there were some restrictions (being in the major, prereqs) and that I already had some pre-filled out requirements (humanities, diversity, etc) in my schedule that my advisor said that I might as well continue. Because she only had two nights to do 40 students, I just decided to nod my head and go along with it. I couldn’t really articulate what more I was hoping for.

I think on it during the night and the following day in which I actually meet with my actual advisor. But, I got the new one. I just nodded my head and carefully directed her to my prefilled schedule because I am in the program I mentioned earlier. She appeared flustered but just put what was on the sheet. I asked her if I could take a well-known prereq class for freshman engineering’s students and she looked at my math (I am already pre-enrolled in a basic algebra math class that is contingent on me passing the course) and she had to go to a different advisor and asked if it was appropriate to override me into the course. The advisor said yeah. I asked to be placed into almost like a freshman seminar for CS. She said it was full but that people typically take it in their sophomore year, which is really odd to me based on what I heard. I didn’t push it, but I did consider asking for an override from my program, but ultimately decided not to. Thinking that I might just call it quits, I just nod my head again and go to the computer lab to enroll in the classes.

It wasn’t until lunch that another cs major mentioned this test we had to take to test our “spatial” learning or what not. I mean, it was so serious that they made people who didn’t take it yet, miss an orientation session to take the test. But, I wasn’t even asked about my score, unlike my friend.

I’m just disappointed that 1. I’m not in ANY of my major’s classes, even the ones with no prereqs and 2. I only have one “exploratory course”. I just feel like I really want to take a variety of courses to actually determine and feel out my interests. But, I feel boxed in. I’m not sure if I should get rid of the requirements and just slightly increase my credits or just keep it.

Here’s my schedule:

(fall)

ISS 215 001 4 (requirement
UGS 110 309 1 (freshman seminar for those in the summer course)
MTH 103 075 or 076 3
CEM 121 (001-006) 3 (pre-chemistry, a course I am required to take because I am in my summer program)
HNF 150 3 (intro to human nutrition)

spring

IAH 207 016 4
MTH 114 3
CEM 141 4 (chemistry)
CEM 161 1 (lab)
EGR 100 2 (engineering pre req)

I also can’t change this until two days before schools start. Opinions?

2

I assume this is your freshman year, and you know the whole schedule already?

3

Yeah. All colleges don’t use the same format? Why wouldn’t I know all my classes? Basically, orientation is to meet with an advisor, fill out courses and then head to a computer lab with a volunteer to enroll for spring and fall classes. The day our orientation is is the only day we can edit our schedule. Much like the upperclassmen, I am locked out of the system. I can’t do anything, except enroll in "planned courses " until two days before school starts.

4

My daughter is in the engineering school which also includes computer science.
In orientation she had to take math placement testing for Calculus. If a student didn’t pass the test they could not register for their freshman engineering/computer science classes. It could be that since you need more work on math there is a limit to specific classes you can enroll in because a certain math level is required to enroll in the classes for your program. My concern would be since you don’t have the prerequisites would you be able to graduate on time since you are taking some basic classes first prior to enrolling in the coursework for your major because your first year classes seem pretty basic to me. Were you a direct admit to your program?

What class is math114 specifically?

5

Okay. So at my school "on time " means five years for engineering students. It is widely accepted that engineering students do not graduate in four years. The department website says it and even at our college advising session, all the advisors were in agreement that engineering courses are hard and that they also want students to get a chance to do study abroad and internships while also having a social life. So, keep in mind for me, that “on time” is five years (the maximum my grant allows me to study almost debt-free).

Saying that I am under no illusion that I don’t have an uphill battle if I want to stay in my program. After all, only 20% of students who placed into my math group earned STEM degrees they indicated they wanted on their college app (my school, specifically) and that also includes other “softer” disciplines than engineering.

To answer your questions, math 114 is trigonometry. It put together with mth 103 and 114 makes it pre-calc. There is also this one course that is mth 116 that is pre-calc but it is a 5 credit course and a class I am mad I didn’t advocate for and just nodded my head when an advisor said they didn’t recommend it, even though taking that course would allow me to take at the least one programming course concurrently with it.

My school doesn’t have direct admits. Technically I am “Engineering preference” or whatnot. You have to be admitted into the college. As a CS major, I have five courses I have to take by the time I reach 56 credits in order to be admitted so I can start taking 300, 400 level courses.

The classes that are programming classes (and hence, for my major), first require either calc or at the min 116 concurrently, and after that math is no longer a pre-req just the course itself that was taken before it.

While it doesn’t make it better, it is not my major in which I am going to have problems with, but rather my college. I have to take up to Calc 4, statistics and physics.

But, I plan on taking Calc over the summer. I might just switch out human nutrition to a different class that is classified as “bioscience” and will count as credit toward my major rather than just being there.

The only major classes I am missing out now is the freshman seminar (which even though it is included in the flowchart and in the sample schedule as being a freshman class, my advisor told me that it was a sophomore class) and my first programming class.

6

Is your adviser in the CS dept?
How are you going to take calculus this summer (have you taken pre-calculus in high school and aren’t you at college? )

7

When I meant the summer I didn’t mean this summer. I meant next summer. And my school went from trig to calculus. I only took trig.

My advisor is the first year advisor for cs . But she was previously in another department.

Why would I be at college? I’m at home and getting ready to start my online course.

8

Ok. You are saying engineering/computer science is a five year program at your school. There are many schools where it is 4 or 4.5 years and there are students with enough AP credits that they graduate in 2 to 2 1/2 years. That means you will be paying for 5 years worth of tuition. You could do a study abroad over one summer and take classes other summers if you want to graduate in less time while also doing an internship. It appears that you are behind in your math but your school is allowing you to do remedial math before you start the program. Are you required to take multivariable calculus or linear algebra too? My child’s program is 9 semesters because she is also premed but she takes 18 credits a semester to make sure she graduates in four years. She does internships over the summer. (no classes)

My friends son just graduated from MIT in two years with a double major in EE-Computer Science and Physics as wells as a master’s degree in Computer Science. He is just 20 years old and this September he will be starting his phd in computer science after working for facebook this summer.

I would say make sure your math foundation is very strong otherwise you will have a hard time with your upper level math classes. I don’t know if you are required to take physics later but you will need a strong math foundation for that too.

It is my understanding engineering/computer science schools look for students with evidence of higher level math and physics in high school since admission into these schools are very competitive.

Does your school offer a summer program prior to freshman year for students in computer science/engineering who need remedial math and science so that they can register for the proper classes freshman year? I would recommend something like that if your school offers it.

9

I think you mean well, but I must say I do not care about some associate’s kid graduating in two years. Honestly, they are the standard. I hear about their stories all the time. I don’t care about them, I’m asking for advice for someone like me.

As I said before, I have grants that run out after five years. I asked no question about tuition and such. I am well aware of my options in that regard. I’m not paying tution. But yes, an additional year will put me in more potential debt. ( I could use my work savings for my COA if I really wanted to)

I’m not sure of other schools and their admission processes. I’m found my lane and I plan on staying in it. But, for my school only college grades matter.

But I do feel I should have been more clear. When I said calc 4, I meant multivariable calculus. I’m not sure of linear algebra.

I do plan on during study abroad in the summer and also summer math classes. I’m not sure what you mean by "proper freshman courses " As I said there are only three freshman courses, one in which I’m in. 1 in which have no pre reqs. The other in which my math is barring me from it unless I go against my advisor’s decision.

I examined all my options. I am already in a stem summer math course that promotes me to college algebra. The other programs are similar to this one, except a lot of them are residential which I can’t do because I have no job.

I suppose I will just have to follow my instincts on this one because I am finding out that no one is your greatest advocate than yourself.

10

Best of luck.

11

Thank you. I appreciate it. I always find myself in particular situations but they do seem to work themselves out in the long run. I guess I’ll see in 5 years how it plays out! You did give me some things to think on, so thanks.

12

  1. It’s pretty common not to take any major courses in your first year, especially if you are aiming for a major that isn’t direct admit and requires you to apply to after your freshman year. Usually you have to complete prerequisites for that major first. That’s even more crucial if you are in remedial math.

  2. Engineering (and computer science offered in engineering schools) are demanding majors with lots of courses. Particularly as someone who is already starting out a little behind since you have to take remedial math courses, you are going to get to take fewer “exploratory” courses than someone who is majoring in, say, math or economics or history.

13

You are behind the 8 ball on math at this point. I’d say your greatest risk of not finishing in your preferred major will be problems with completing the math requirements and the way those feed into your major coursework. Most engineering or CS students have taken Calc or are ready to take it their first semester of college. My guess is that the classes are pretty full and you need to get more math completed before you are ready for them.

I’d pour a lot of focus into the math classes this year. Get a tutor if you need one, find other students to study with, and go to office hours for help.

14

Agree with @juillet and @intparent. Five class per session are enough and you want to do well in your math classes so that you move forward. Yes, you found your voice here and need to follow your path.

15

@lalastar:
Basically, your first year you take basic pre-reqs in math, science, English/writing/communication, social science, foreign/language humanities, and one class related to your future major.
Your schedule, as is, does have the pre-reqs in math and science, but I’m not sure it has many other pre-reqs.
Looking at your schedule, I think you should replace nutrition with CSE 100 (CS as a profession, 1 credit), and if possible Freshman Composition/Writing your first semester (unless you have an AP Language score that waives that, in which case, take the “Communication” requirement instead). Or does IAH 207 second semester “count” for the Writing requirement?
Don’t you have a foreign language requirement in the COE? To the best of my knowledge you must take either 4 courses in a foreign language OR 5 courses in the College of Business OR 5 courses from Communications, Psychology, Philosophy, Social Science. If you do the Business sequence, you need to take ECON 201 your first year.
You don’t need the “nutrition” class at all, it’s a science class requirement and your major has all sorts of science classes that meet the requirement. It also requires some science classes like MMG141 (Introduction to Genetics) OR ENT 205 (Pests, Society, and Environment), both of which would count toward the requirement, whereas Nutrition does not.
Your second semester looks good. If you could take IAH207 first semester instead of nutrition, it’d free some space for another class second semester (such as Econ 201.)
If you wish to do the 4-semester foreign language sequence, you’d need to start first semester. Do you speak any language well or have you studied a foreign language in high school that you’d like to continue or do you want to start with a new language?

We can discuss all this and perhaps we can all figure out a way for you to contact your adviser to let her know you’d like to change a class.

Note that you’ll be able to change classes in November when you register for the Spring.

CSE231 IS a second-year class and the instructors expect you to know Python before you take it. Do you have experience with Python? If not, use your summer program’s resources to learn about it. It’s not hard, but 231 moves very, very fast.
Have fun with…
https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/python

Finally, lesson of this confusing meeting:
Come prepared, with lots of information memorized AND written down. Play around with possibilities, know what classes “count” and which don’t, etc. Find the “4-year plan” for your major, the college’s general education requirement lists, the calendar tool, etc. Sometimes, you don’t even know what you don’t know. Make it your business to know as much as you can that pertains to you.

Tip1: some professors don’t have office hours because they found these useless when they have 300 students. They ask students to “book time” using their Googlecalendar. Tip = block time EVERY WEEK at the beginning of the semester for each of your 4 big classes. Write it down in your own calendar. During the week, write down questions you had during the lecture, the reading, the problem sets, on a page dedicated to Office Hours in the subject (have a page in your notebook dedicated to Office Hours for the week, with the questions and space to jot down the answers.) If perchance one week you don’t have any question about something that confused you, ask a question about something you found especially interesting. Just put it down in your calendar that every week at time z you go see the professor.

Tip2: find The Naked Roommate at your town’s library and start reading. EXCELLENT preparation for what college will actually be like, problems to navigate, and real solutions to these.

16

@juillet Yes, I am finding out that there is little wiggle room because my major is housed in the college of engineering. What I wish I would have done when given two opportunities to do so was to actually talk. I get what you’re saying and most likely what my advisors were trying to tell me, now. But, I could have saved myself a lot of worrying and felt more at peace with more schedule if I could have just articulated what I felt properly. I’m not sure if that makes sense though.

Like for instance, while I do have to take some university requirements I can choose the topics they cover instead of just sticking with the one pre-picked for me. For instance, I wanted to take a class dealing with African American history.While the intro class is unlikely to fit in my schedule, there is a class that counts as requirements that does talk about race and inequality which is really close to what I was looking for.

I should have examined more “what if” scenarios and had my advisors explain why I should keep those requriements and why I should take certain math classes. Now (word of the day), I see that it is a good time to knock out the university requirements when I am not so busy doing upper-level classes.

Thinking back, I definitely could have made better use of my time. But, you live and you learn.

Thanks for responding.

17

@intparent Yes, I am planning on getting a scope of the courses when I first go in and if I don’t understand the material, going and asking for help. To be honest, what I like about my school is that because it is so large, it has so many resources including where certain “support services” offers free personal tutoring to its members. So, I am looking to join programs like that so that I can be connected to resources I may or may not need.

Also, I might just stick to either the general tutoring (MLC) or the member based tutoring and study groups because office hours, even though people keep saying that professors are willing to help, they seem very “high.” Or, more like really intimidating. It might take me awhile to actually work up the nerve to ask questions directly to them.

Yeah, and you are right about the math feeding into other courses. Currently, I have to take up to calc 2, Physics and 3 other courses to even get into my major by the time I am a junior. I definitely have to hustle.

Thanks for your advice.

18

@TQfromtheU Really? Are five courses standard? Because while I am going to be a sophomore by the end of the year, it feels weird to only have 14 credits when other people have like 18. But, yes, I do have to focus on my math. I feel I am kinda getting bummed out by my “exploratory” courses that I am neglecting the fact that my math should be my main focus, because even I don’t go into CS, the math I am taking now is a university requirement. Plus, I still have to ace the courses for my technical GPA.

19

Engineering is usually pretty standard. My daughter was handed an outline for all 4 years, and at most she gets one or two electives per year, and it’s usually ‘do you want to take THIS history class or THAT English class this semester?’ Her first semester, her schedule was handed to her with no options for electives. Her first two years were all the basics like the math sequence (Calc I, II, III, and the then next two) and chem, physics, English writing, a history. Most of her engineering courses have been taken junior year and upcoming senior year.

It may be that you can’t take chemistry before you are taking calc. Will taking both pre-chemistry and pre-algebra keep you in compliance for any financial aid you have? Normally I’d say to just drop any class you don’t want and pick up one you do want, but since you are in a special program, make sure your adviser is okay with that. If you drop nutrition and pick up art, you may be short a science course.

Is there any way you could take a math class this summer that would get your into Calc I in the fall?

20

To me this course schedule looks reasonable. Are you are CS major? This seemed to be implied by your post but I was not certain.

“I’d pour a lot of focus into the math classes this year. Get a tutor if you need one, find other students to study with, and go to office hours for help.”

I agree. You need to do well in your math classes, because math is quite central to a lot of what you are going to be studying going forward.

I think that your best chance to graduate in no more than 5 years requires that you don’t fall behind in math. The best chance to graduate in 4 or 4 1/2 years is to keep up in math, and also take some classes over the summers (all of them), focusing on classes that will help with prerequisites going forward.

To me it sounds like you are understandably a bit nervous, but it also sounds like you are on the right track.