Explore Center New Student Enrollment Parent Session

Rebecca Carr Author

05/11/2020 Added

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New Student Enrollment information for parents/guardians of incoming Explore Center students at UNL.

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[00:00:01.440]Welcome to the University of Nebraska Lincoln's New Student Enrollment Explore
[00:00:06.570]Center parent's session. My name is Bill Watts.
[00:00:09.900]I'm an Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at the University of Nebraska.
[00:00:15.540]Before we begin and go too deep,
[00:00:17.880]I want to acknowledge the unique circumstances that have brought us together
[00:00:21.690]today in this format.
[00:00:24.270]I am a parent of a current college student and a parent of a graduating high
[00:00:29.070]school senior.
[00:00:30.990]I recognize the difficulties of this time,
[00:00:34.650]the uncertainty that we as parents face and the uncertainty that our students
[00:00:39.600]face as they look to the fall and what will happen next.
[00:00:44.280]Today, I want to assure you that regardless of format,
[00:00:48.510]the Explore Center is here to serve your students and help them connect to the
[00:00:53.370]resources they need to be successful while they're at UNL.
[00:00:58.950]Today we're going to cover several pieces of information.
[00:01:01.710]We're going to talk a little bit about the Explore Center.
[00:01:04.320]We're going to talk about what your students need to move from here to
[00:01:07.830]graduation and the components of their degree.
[00:01:11.130]We're going to talk about resources here to help them, and we're going to talk
[00:01:14.760]about what academic advising looks like now and in the future.
[00:01:19.590]On our last slide,
[00:01:20.460]I promise you'll find follow up contact information for the Explore Center.
[00:01:25.800]The Explore Center is actually the academic home for all of our students who
[00:01:29.910]are undecided, who are Pre-Health, Pre-Law, or Pre-Engineering.
[00:01:36.960]All of our students in the Explore Center will be assigned to a professional
[00:01:41.100]advisor where they'll build a one to one relationship to help them find the
[00:01:46.590]right courses, ask the questions, who am I?
[00:01:50.220]Who do I want to be? And How am I going to get there and begin developing answers
[00:01:54.480]for those questions so that they find the right path in the right place at our
[00:01:59.460]university. This, as I mentioned,
[00:02:02.790]is a team of professional staff who are here and dedicated full time to serving
[00:02:08.040]students. They care deeply about working one on one with students and building
[00:02:12.720]relationships that help students find their path and find their place.
[00:02:17.340]Here at UNL, we are located in Love Library South.
[00:02:22.980]For those of you who are alums,
[00:02:24.480]you may remember the reading room and Love Library South.
[00:02:27.780]That space has been repurposed and is the home of both the Explore Center and
[00:02:32.310]the Center for Academic Success and Transition.
[00:02:35.250]That means our offices are a place where our students who are finding their path
[00:02:39.810]or who might be uncertain about how best to study in college or how they might
[00:02:44.310]take notes better in a college classroom setting can come and find resources and
[00:02:50.070]find individuals who are here to help them.
[00:02:54.450]Many of you might have a student who's undecided about their academic pathway.
[00:02:59.560]I want you to know as a parent, as an administrator,
[00:03:03.790]that you're not alone and your students are not alone.
[00:03:07.660]Nearly a fifth of the incoming class here at UNL in any given year is uncertain
[00:03:12.820]about their academic plan. We're here to help them explore,
[00:03:17.560]identify, and declare majors.
[00:03:20.320]We know that 70 to 80% of all students nationally will change their major at
[00:03:25.270]least once before graduation.
[00:03:27.790]Our students starting undecided actually tend to be ahead of the game.
[00:03:32.170]They tend to be ready to engage in the big questions. Who am I,
[00:03:35.710]who do I want to be and how do I get there?
[00:03:38.950]We will connect them with their academic advisor.
[00:03:41.920]Students are required to meet with their advisor while they are in the Explore
[00:03:45.850]Center at least twice each semester. During those meetings,
[00:03:50.890]they'll build plans and discuss courses for future terms as well as your
[00:03:55.540]student's interests, academic, career and personal goals.
[00:04:00.850]Some of you have students who are interested in Pre-Health professions.
[00:04:05.590]I would know that this is an advising category at UNL. Not a major.
[00:04:10.150]Students can't graduate from the university in a Pre-Health major.
[00:04:14.650]However,
[00:04:15.580]our team is here to help students find an academic major to go along with this
[00:04:20.890]very important professional career interest.
[00:04:24.760]Our team is well versed in professional school entrance
[00:04:28.720]requirements.
[00:04:29.770]We work closely with admissions professionals from those schools and many will
[00:04:33.940]come to campus and your students will have the chance to engage with them.
[00:04:37.510]To learn more about the professional school admission process,
[00:04:41.020]our team will help students identify prerequisite coursework and out of
[00:04:45.040]classroom experiences that will allow them to be highly competitive applicants
[00:04:50.110]for professional school.
[00:04:52.360]We want you to remember as parents that students can major in anything and enter
[00:04:57.040]professional school.
[00:04:58.480]The key is finding the right balance between the prerequisite coursework and a
[00:05:02.650]student's interest as well as those out of classroom experiences that make them
[00:05:07.750]a great candidate. Pre-Law
[00:05:11.140]is another category where many of your students are considering a career
[00:05:14.860]interest. Like Pre-Health,
[00:05:16.810]this is an advising category and not a major.
[00:05:20.410]We again look to connect students to outside of classroom experiences like the
[00:05:25.360]Nebraska State Supreme Court or our state Capitol,
[00:05:29.050]not to mention the College of Law on East Campus.
[00:05:33.160]All of these opportunities and experiences allow students to expand what's
[00:05:38.380]happening in the classroom so that they once again are competitive applicants
[00:05:43.450]for professional schools.
[00:05:45.370]Our team will help students think about when to prepare for the entrance exams,
[00:05:50.260]what types of coursework and majors they want to consider, and how they can
[00:05:55.030]balance all of that with those wonderful experiences.
[00:06:00.440]Some of your students are in Pre-Engineering.
[00:06:03.860]This is a little different than our other majors in the Explore Center in that
[00:06:08.570]we clearly know the direction these students want to go.
[00:06:11.780]There's not much ambiguity.
[00:06:13.640]Our goal is to help connect these students to the right math and science courses
[00:06:17.870]so they can be on track and declare into the College of Engineering by the end
[00:06:22.550]of their freshman year.
[00:06:27.440]Switching gears a bit, I want to talk about the components of the degree,
[00:06:31.310]whether your student's undecided and decides to become a philosophy major or
[00:06:36.320]they're Pre-Health,
[00:06:37.250]and maybe they picked biochemistry, or they're Pre-Law and want to enter our
[00:06:43.070]College of Business to pursue business law,
[00:06:46.880]or if they're Pre-Engineering and ended up in a mechanical engineering major,
[00:06:50.960]all of them will have some common degree requirements that they need to complete
[00:06:55.400]along their pathway.
[00:06:57.170]All of our students will complete a minimum of 120 credits or hours to graduate
[00:07:02.420]from the university.
[00:07:03.920]Those credits and hours are spread across a variety of different requirement
[00:07:07.580]areas or buckets. On this slide you'll see the first area noted is ACE.
[00:07:12.800]That stands for Achievement Centered Education and represents UNL's shared
[00:07:18.170]general education requirement.
[00:07:20.840]Each academic major at the university is located in an academic college.
[00:07:25.820]You might hear people refer to the College of Engineering or the College of
[00:07:29.300]Business.
[00:07:30.560]Each college at the university has identified additional requirements that
[00:07:35.000]define what it means to be a major within that college. For instance,
[00:07:39.380]in the College of Business, all students will complete two economics courses,
[00:07:44.330]a pair of accounting courses, an intro to management and marketing course,
[00:07:48.470]all the types of things you would expect in defining a business major.
[00:07:53.210]By contrast, in our College of Arts and Sciences,
[00:07:55.850]these shared requirements focus on a breadth of education,
[00:07:59.000]so all students will take a foreign language,
[00:08:01.880]complete courses in the social sciences,
[00:08:04.280]the sciences and the humanities. Beyond the college requirements are the major
[00:08:10.340]itself.
[00:08:11.720]We talked a minute ago about the numbers of students who change majors between
[00:08:16.070]now and graduation. I'd like to put into context for you.
[00:08:21.020]Most majors on our campus require between 24 and 30 credit hours.
[00:08:27.020]If we do the quick math and go back to me mentioning 120 credit hours to
[00:08:31.220]graduate,
[00:08:32.480]please realize that the major only defines about a fourth of our students'
[00:08:37.190]educational experience here at the university.
[00:08:40.220]We know that our students are more than a major and we want them to begin
[00:08:44.720]realizing that they are more than a major.
[00:08:47.810]They are made up of their entire educational experience and all the co-curricular
[00:08:52.490]experiences they are going to gain along their pathway.
[00:08:56.640]In addition to a major,
[00:08:58.080]many of our students will choose minors or double majors.
[00:09:01.410]Minors like majors are a focused area of course work generally 15 to 18 credit
[00:09:07.890]hours.
[00:09:09.210]Along the path we will make sure our students who are interested in health and
[00:09:13.140]Pre-Law areas are following the right types of prerequisites to complete the
[00:09:18.840]entrance requirements for those professional school programs.
[00:09:24.120]In almost every case, our students will have elective credit opportunities.
[00:09:29.160]The traditional pathway in college suggested that elective credits were the fun,
[00:09:33.450]interesting things that students did close to graduation.
[00:09:38.430]You may recall I mentioned that 70 to 80% of students change their major at
[00:09:42.660]least once before graduation.
[00:09:45.210]I want to suggest to you that it is okay for our students to explore elective
[00:09:50.460]credits early in their academic career.
[00:09:53.460]It's normal and it's healthy for them to use those credits to make sure they
[00:09:57.930]found the right pathway.
[00:10:00.120]Our goal is to make sure all of our students have a declared major by the end of
[00:10:05.310]their sophomore year.
[00:10:06.960]The vast majority will actually declare by the end of their freshman year,
[00:10:11.580]but in any case,
[00:10:12.690]those elective credits are a great way for students to explore their path and
[00:10:17.160]find their purpose here on our campus.
[00:10:20.010]So please don't panic if you see your student has an elective or two in their
[00:10:24.390]first year while they're making progress towards other degree requirements.
[00:10:30.600]During the course of New Student Enrollment parent sessions,
[00:10:34.260]you'll have the opportunity to hear from many of our academic partners across
[00:10:38.760]campus, the many resources and programs and offices that are here to help
[00:10:43.680]students be successful.
[00:10:46.140]There's two key things I'd like you to know now.
[00:10:49.350]All of our students in the Explore Center will actually build multiple semester
[00:10:54.930]success plans that help them lay out coursework or map plans of what they'll
[00:11:01.080]take for the next three or four semesters,
[00:11:04.350]helping them envision what the future might be.
[00:11:07.590]We know they might change their mind about majors,
[00:11:10.500]but by engaging in that planning process,
[00:11:13.110]they'll know how to build a long-term plan once they declare their major.
[00:11:18.270]For the rest of the resources,
[00:11:20.490]I wish I could take the time to delve in deeply and make sure you knew all of
[00:11:24.570]these in detail,
[00:11:26.070]but the reality is we don't have that time today and more importantly,
[00:11:31.380]I want you to know that the advisors in the Explore Center know all these
[00:11:36.240]resources.
[00:11:37.380]They know what they are capable of providing for your students.
[00:11:41.700]They know the individual team members in these various offices, and I want you to
[00:11:46.860]know that if your student has questions or has concerns and they're uncertain
[00:11:52.290]about where to go, you don't need to remember all these offices.
[00:11:56.560]I just need you to remember that your student has a professional advisor who's
[00:12:01.870]in their corner, who is their team member who's here to help them be successful.
[00:12:07.930]Over the course of my 20 years in higher education,
[00:12:11.350]things have changed and we know now that parents tend to be the first ones to
[00:12:17.170]hear if a student is in trouble or is having a problem on campus. With social
[00:12:22.240]media and texting, students rely on their parents and will connect with you.
[00:12:28.390]If you happen to have one of those moments this fall,
[00:12:31.510]please remember you don't have to know all these offices.
[00:12:35.590]Just ask your student if they've been in to see their advisor yet and make sure
[00:12:40.720]if you want to let the advisor know that the student will be coming and we can
[00:12:44.920]make sure to have those good deep conversations to help students understand
[00:12:49.480]which campus resource is most appropriate for them at that moment in time.
[00:12:56.470]Along with all those academic support resources,
[00:12:59.500]we also have a variety of technological resources available to help our students
[00:13:04.000]track their progress towards a degree, to enroll in the right courses, and make sure
[00:13:10.390]that they are making good progress. That includes the Undergraduate Catalog,
[00:13:15.130]which is online at catalog.unl.edu.
[00:13:19.330]MyPLAN is a tool that students can use to register or make appointments with
[00:13:24.070]their academic advisor. Canvas is our learning management system.
[00:13:28.870]That's the tool faculty will use and that students will use to track their day
[00:13:33.070]to day progress and individual courses.
[00:13:36.130]MyRed is our student information system.
[00:13:38.930]That's where students will enroll in their courses, track their class schedule,
[00:13:43.480]view their student bill and view something we call a degree audit,
[00:13:47.500]which allows them to track their individual progress towards their declared
[00:13:51.610]majors and minors.
[00:13:54.220]All of our students in the Explore Center will enroll in UGEP 50. This is the
[00:13:59.860]Explore Center Start Smart course.
[00:14:02.500]I encourage you to ask your students in early August if they've logged in and
[00:14:07.810]completed their Start Smart modules. This is a great opportunity for a
[00:14:12.340]student to spend an afternoon working in the modules and reminding themselves of
[00:14:19.300]all the important information they've learned at NSE and to gain good
[00:14:24.070]perspective on how they can be successful this fall.
[00:14:28.180]I hope that you'll encourage your students to complete these modules before they
[00:14:32.320]return to campus for the start of their courses.
[00:14:38.140]Quickly, I mentioned that we have required advising in the Explore Center.
[00:14:42.250]We call our program COMPASS because our goal is to help our students find
[00:14:46.240]their direction. We'll work with your students on goal setting,
[00:14:50.530]building their degree plans, exploring the majors, how to get involved,
[00:14:54.980]and the ways that they can connect to extracurricular activities.
[00:14:58.520]The whole goal is to help engage students in those big questions I mentioned
[00:15:02.330]before, who am I? Who do I want to be and how will I get there?
[00:15:07.490]During new student advising this summer,
[00:15:10.610]all of your students will spend time 20 to 30 minutes,
[00:15:13.670]maybe 45 this year as we adjust to remote advising,
[00:15:17.840]talking with the academic advisor about your student's plans and interests for
[00:15:22.220]this fall,
[00:15:23.420]we'll talk about their math placement exams and the advising inventory your
[00:15:26.930]students completed, and maybe their language exams.
[00:15:30.050]We'll talk about their experiences in high school and through the course of that
[00:15:34.340]process we'll identify a list of courses that your students will be enrolled in
[00:15:39.950]by New Student Enrollment. Through the course of that conversation,
[00:15:44.780]we'll review credit from high school interests in majors,
[00:15:49.850]possible activities your student wants to engage in. On your student's
[00:15:55.190]New Student Enrollment day,
[00:15:56.990]which could be different than the day that they meet with their advisor,
[00:16:00.350]the Office of New Student Enrollment will register your student and your student
[00:16:04.670]will then be able to access their courses and their schedule for the fall, and
[00:16:11.090]Explore Center advisor is looking forward to connecting with your student and
[00:16:14.900]answering their questions.
[00:16:16.940]I encourage you to ask your student thoughtful questions about what they hope to
[00:16:21.380]gain from their advising appointment this summer and know that our advisors will
[00:16:26.450]be available throughout the summer, so even after your student receives their
[00:16:30.260]schedule, if you or your student has questions or they want to make changes,
[00:16:35.210]they'll be able to reach out to their Explore Center advisor and we will be here
[00:16:39.320]to help. Once again,
[00:16:41.900]our contact information is located here on the slide.
[00:16:45.140]I hope you'll reach out if you have questions or concerns.
[00:16:48.620]I thank you for your attention and I appreciate once again the uniqueness of our
[00:16:53.900]situation this summer.
[00:16:55.730]I appreciate your support for our university and your confidence in your student
[00:17:02.150]and our team to help your student find their path and be successful at the
[00:17:07.370]university. Thank you for your attention today.

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Explore Center New Student Enrollment Parent Session

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