Hi, our child has been offered admission the PSU/UP and must start in summer session. As a student who is truly undecided on a field of study, we are wondering what is the best path forward from here to help identify a filed of interest while keeping control over the potential time and expense of making mid-stream changes.
Some of the things we are wondering about are: is the LEAP program better than a “self guided” approach for summer? If so, which pride is best for undecided students? Is any assistance provided by the school to help students figure out what major they should pursue? How does one keep the time spent at school to 4 years (plus the first summer)?
Any thoughts, experiences, suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!
@ww4397 , DUS sounds like the perfect place for your student because she still isn’t quite sure what she wants…as opposed to half of the students in DUS who would just prefer to be Smeal or engineering but checked off DUS to help them gain entrance into UP. Yes, there are plenty of exploratory resources and activities that will be offered to help her narrow her interests and DUS advisers will also help.
It can be a challenge to graduate in four years if you are changing majors a lot. Have her start thinking about what types of problems she envisions herself solving. Think about her natural strengths (math/science or english/social studies/humanities). Advisers will help her work through it. There are a ton of gen-eds that she’ll need to take, so her adviser will likely have her fill her first year schedule with that to see what she enjoys.
One strategy to get through all of this in less than four years is to consider taking summer classes at a nearby community college – especially for math requirements. Just just the transfer credit tool online to ensure the course is accepted. Penn State World Campus has offered discounted courses for online summer courses to help kids catch up on their gen-eds.
I personally think LEAP is better than self-guided. Just have her look through the options and pick 2 to 3 prides that stand out to her. When registration opens, more popular pride fill up almost immediately. If nothing jumps out, consider getting the two required courses (ENGL 15 and CAS100) out of the way as every student at UP has to take them.
I have a couple quick follow-up questions that I hope you wouldn’t mind taking a look at. Would the Speech and Writing Prides in LEAP be the most DUS centric of them all? The others seem to include a course that is generally inline with the specific Pride. Would guidance resources and activates be available during the summer session?
Also, I see there is a SLO for undecided students (Discover House). Anyone have experience with that?
Discover House would be perfect for her as those activities align to help students find their unique path. I would definitely recommend it.
She can really pick any pride. Some like to pick one based on their major. Others like the idea of getting certain courses out of the way. Others pick one based on “fun” factor. One popular choice are the prides that take the back-packing trip at the end of summer. Great for developing strong friendships. I would recommend that you contact someone in admissions to specifically ask which resources are available via summer versus regular school term. Unfortunately, I’m not completely clear on that. Then maybe ask them to kick you over to the people who can talk more about the leap program. I don’t believe there’s a specific DUS pride, but I promise there are a ton of DUS kids who come for summer.
LEAP is a much better choice than simply attending summer term. LEAP prides are a very small group of incoming freshmen who take the same two courses together for the summer, plus their upperclass mentor arranges activities with other LEAP prides. In addition, there will be academic leg-up activities like tours of Pattee and media centers. The LEAP program is excellent. Otherwise, you are just Joe Freshman, on your own, for the summer. LEAP prides of writing/speech are useful for everyone.
Most freshmen take gen eds their first two terms, regardless of intended major. DUS students will have extra programs designed to help them narrow down their choices. If she is thinking engineering or education or another specialized major, then yes, she might need some summer catch-up. But don’t assume DUS necessarily means more time. Also, most students change their major. It happens.
Summer classes elsewhere can help, but be sure they transfer before you take them. PSU has a transfer tool that will show you that. (just google it)
Unless she’s thinking she might major in a Liberal Arts and would like to be a Paterno Fellow (there’s a special LEAP for Paterno Fellow Aspirants), she could take a gen ed that can double up as an intro to a major, like Information, People, and Society (an IST intro course) or Macro Economics or Micro Economics (Economics/Business intro course), or she could take Gen Eds which will be in a smaller setting than during the Fall semester, like Environment&Society ( a science class) or Business Statistics (much faster paced, but not weedout, and very doable if she’s studied stats before).