The arithmetic of the week
A bachelor's degree is usually 120 credits, which means 15 a semester to finish in four years. Twelve credits counts as full time for financial aid, but it quietly puts you on a five-year plan with a fifth year of tuition. Each credit assumes two to three hours of work outside class for every hour in it, so a 15-credit load is a job of roughly forty-five hours a week. Schedule that work in daylight, between classes, and your evenings become your own.
The first six weeks
- You put every exam, paper and deadline from every syllabus into one calendar during the first week.
- You visit each instructor's office hours once before you need anything, because a professor who knows your name is more useful in November.
- You find the tutoring center and the writing center while your grades are still fine.
- You join two things, one for your career and one for pleasure, and you drop whatever bores you by October.
Dates that cost money
Learn three dates each term: the last day to add or drop a course with a refund, the last day to withdraw with a W on your transcript, and the day of the final. A W is a shrug on a transcript, while an F is averaged into your grades for good. Financial aid has its own standard, called satisfactory academic progress, which commonly requires a 2.0 average and passing about two thirds of the credits you attempt. Fall below it and the aid stops. The FAFSA must also be filed again every year, and students lose grants annually by forgetting.
Why the first year weighs so much
A grade point average is an average, and early numbers are hard to dilute. A student who earns a 2.0 in the first year needs a 3.5 in every remaining year to graduate just above a 3.1. Going to class is the cheapest correction available, since attendance is one of the strongest predictors of college grades.
Body and money
Sleep is the first thing students trade away and the thing most of their work depends on. The counseling center is covered by fees you have already paid, and the wait is shorter in September than in December. Rent or buy used textbooks, and wait until the first class meeting to confirm that a book is truly required.
Tip When a course is going badly, talk to the instructor and your adviser before the withdrawal deadline, not after the final.
