Four Things to Keep in Mind for Spring-term Advising

 
  1. Catching up, looking forward Your advisees will benefit from discussing their thoughts with you, even as they will also have in-depth, course-specific conversations with their residential college deans and first-year counselors (“frocos”), and with directors of undergraduate studies, faculty members, and other advisers. Some topics you might want to bring up  include:
    1. A recap of, and their reflections on, the fall term
    2. How they spent their winter break
    3. Their residential college, and their housing/roommate situation
    4. Their summer plans, including study abroad, internships, fellowships, or jobs (deadlines fall earlier and earlier in the year and now is not too soon to begin this conversation).  You may also want to refer your advisees to Yale Summer Session, the Office of Career Strategies, the Fellowship Office, or the Center for International and Professional Experience in general
  2. Fall-term grades It’s useful to check your advisees’ fall term grades (via Student Profile) to inform any conversations about lessons learned from the fall and plans for the spring. 
    1. You might open your spring-term conversations by asking your advisees’ how they feel they did last term (keeping in mind that, for some students, a C in a challenging course is as welcome as an A in others).
    2. To get an idea of the evolution of your first-year advisees’ thinking about academics, you might also ask them which course(s) they looked forward to last term and which course(s) didn’t turn out as expected (and why).
    3. Requirement for Academic Good Standing and Promotion to Sophomore Status: at the end of the second term, a student must have earned at least eight (8) course credits.
  3. Language requirement 
    1. ​Credit is awarded for L1 courses, even if students don’t enroll in L2 (prior to fall 2018, students were required to complete both L1 + L2  before credit was awarded for L1).
  4. Course sequences
    1. Many courses, especially in STEM fields, are sequential in nature. Check with your advisees to make sure they are following the correct sequence. Refer any questions to the DUS of the relevant department.