The Center for Advising and Academic Support provides administrative and curricular support to all St. Olaf College students and their faculty mentors. The center provides quality, timely service on routine and general academic curricular questions and encourages all students to become more knowledgeable and involved in planning academic programs.
ACADEMIC PLANNING TIPS
- Successful academic careers at St. Olaf are planned. Your planning must be purposeful, regular, and well-informed.
- Think about larger, long-term goals. To decide what to do now, you need some sense of what is important to you and where you are going.
- Take the initiative. Your faculty advisor and other college staff are eager and available to assist, but seeing that planning happens is your responsibility. Whenever you have questions, seek out the answers from the true source – not the St. Olaf grapevine. Don’t hesitate to ASK!
- Get to know your advisor, and help your advisor get to know you. Your faculty advisor helps you understand the goals and resources liberal arts curriculum offers. Your faculty advisor will help you explore and balance your individual goals with a broad liberal arts education so that they complement one another.
- Get the most out of your advising sessions. Sign up promptly for advising meetings; schedule ahead of time. Come prepared to meetings; have information (from Academic Catalog, Degree Audit, etc.) collected before you meet.
- Become familiar with rules and regulations.Your best source is the St. Olaf College Academic Catalog. It is your responsibility to see all requirements are being met. St. Olaf’s Catalog is online at https://www.stolaf.edu/catalog/
- Keep track of deadlines.
- If you are in academic difficulty, use the College’s resources. Your faculty advisor, your class dean, and the staff of the Academic Advising Center and Academic Support Center are available, trained, and interested in providing assistance. Use them.
- Plan regularly, but be flexible. At some point, things will not go as planned. Don’t panic. Use your resources, explore your alternatives, and persist.
- Trust yourself. You arrived at St. Olaf as an accomplished and successful student and will leave as one if you take advantage of the rich opportunities at St. Olaf College.
TO DO DURING YOUR FIRST TWO YEARS
- Attend to General Education Requirements
– begin a foreign language
– take a SPM course
– complete First Year Writing and Religion 121
- Try something new, experiment
- Pay attention to deadline dates
- Consider, plan or participate in off-campus study
- Think about a concentration
- Investigate experiential learning opportunities
- Enjoy opportunities at St. Olaf College!