>> Welcome to the pre-orientation presentation for new, exploratory freshman students. For this presentation, you will need the following items, speakers, your pre-orientation advising worksheet, a pen or a pencil, and a piece of paper for taking notes. Now let's begin. >> This video contains important information for students. Parents, it's important that your student view the video. You may review the parent handbook if you would like some information specifically for parents. This presentation will cover some basic information before you come in and meet with an academic advisor to discuss your interests, questions and courses for the upcoming semester. You must view the presentation in its entirety before you meet with an academic advisor. Meeting with an academic advisor before orientation allows you to use the advising segment to explore co-curricular activities during your schedule or orientation day. >> The academic advisors in the Center for Academic Advising, Retention, and Transitions, or CAART, will work with you on all aspects of your academic career, including classes and degree requirements, major and minor exploration, registration and much more. We meet with all exploring students until they are ready to declare a major. We recommend that you meet with an advisor once per semester until you have declared a major. Once you choose a major you will be assigned a new academic advisor in your discipline. For example, if you declare biology as your major, you will be assigned an advisor in biology. >> To help you create your schedule for the upcoming semester, it is important to understand some key terms. A semester is an academic period that lasts 15 weeks. There are two semesters a year, fall and spring. Mason also offers a summer term. Courses at Mason typically last one semester. Therefore, unlike high school, you will register for different courses each semester. Each course is a certain number of credit hours. Credit hours are based on the amount of time you spend in a class per week. For 1 credit hour you will spend about 50 minutes in the class per week. Most classes at Mason are three-credit hours, a laboratory science will typically be four-credit hours. >> One of the first steps in selecting a schedule is understanding course hours and titles. Each course at Mason has a title with a course abbreviation and number that gives you basic information about the course right away. For example, the abbreviations COMM, ENGH, PSYC, all refer to the department that manages the course. This abbreviation gives you some insight into the content that will be taught in that course. A course with the abbreviation C-O-M-M, COMM, will cover material related to the study of communications. In addition to the abbreviation, each course has a number indicating the level of course is taught. Although not universal, this number gives you some information about the audience intended for that course. A 100 or 200-level course generally covers introductory material suitable for freshman and sophomore students. There are, however, a few classes, such as literature, English 201, that requires completion of the 100 level course first. A 300 or 400 level course typically covers material at a more advanced level, more suitable for a junior or a senior. Some of these courses may be suitable for a sophomore, but are generally not appropriate for a freshman student. For your first semester, you should try to select 100 and 200 level options from the Mason Core worksheet. If you have any questions of which courses to select, please ask your academic advisor during your pre-orientation meeting. >> Selecting courses before you consider some important details may be putting the cart before the horse. To be considered a full-time student, you need to register for at least 12 credits per semester, 12 credits typically is about 4 classes. Students usually take 12 to 16 credits per semester. If you wish to graduate in four years, you should average about 30 credits per academic year. When you register for courses, it's important to see if there are any prerequisites. A prerequisite is a requirement that you must complete before taking a course. You may need to take a placement test, for example, some math courses and language courses require an appropriate test score. Or you may need to take another class before registering for a course. For example, you will need to successfully complete chemistry 103 before taking chemistry 104. Lastly, you may need to take a certain number of credit hours before taking a course. A good example is that in order to take English 302, a required Mason Core class, you will need to complete 45 credits. Sometimes you may want to register for a course, but the class is full. In some instances there is a waitlist option, not all courses offer a waitlist. Please review the waitlist frequently asked questions for related detailed instructions for how to get on and off the waitlist. When selecting courses for the upcoming semester, please take into consideration any AP, IB, or dual enrollment credit. You may receive college credit for these exams or courses. Be sure to let your academic advisor know if you have AP, IB, or dual enrollment credit. Most degrees here at Mason are composed of four basic parts. First, the Mason Core requirements. All students must complete the Mason Core, these are university-wide requirements. The Mason Core is intended to help students achieve a well-rounded education. Courses come from a variety of disciplines including art, composition, math, natural science, global understanding and much more. Freshmen students typically focus the first couple of semesters on the foundation and exploration of the Mason Core classes. College and additional requirements. These additional requirements are highly dependent on the type of degree you choose. For example a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Fine Arts, etc. Major requirements. Each major will require certain courses to complete that major. Credit hours for the major requirements can range anywhere from 30 credits to 90 credits, depending on that major. Electives, we will discuss general electives in more depth in a little bit. General electives are extra courses that help you reach the 120 credits required for graduation. The amount of electives will depend on your major. >> Mason Core classes. Please take out your Mason Core worksheet and your highlighter. I will now review the Mason Core requirements and provide you with some examples of courses that fulfill each requirement. Please follow along and highlight one or two classes in each category. The Mason Core is composed of three major categories, foundation, exploration, and integration courses. For your first semester, we will primarily focus on the foundation and exploration courses. Written communication. To complete the written communication requirement, you will need two courses, English 100 or 101 and English 302. As a freshman you can take English 100 or 101. English 302 is a junior level writing intensive course that you do not need to worry about for right now. >> Oral communication. To complete the oral communication requirement you need to take one course, either COMM 100 or COMM 101. Some majors specifically require COMM 100. >> Quantitative reasoning. The quantitative reasoning requirement may vary by major. Some majors require a specific quantitative reasoning course. For this reason, you may wish to choose a major before taking a math course. You may need a passing score on the math placement test if you select one of the courses listed in bold or if your new major requires one of these specific math courses. Literature, to complete the literature requirement, you will need one course from the list of approved courses. You must have credit for English 100 or 101 before taking a literature course. You may have received credit for English 100 or 101 from AP IB exams or dual enrollment. Therefore, the literature course may be most appropriate for your second semester at Mason. Arts, all students need one art course for graduation. Some courses are lecture-based, and others require you to engage in generative artistic processes. Western civilization. To complete the Western civilization requirement, you will need one course, either History 100 or History 125. >> Social and behavioral science. Students must complete at least one social and behavioral science course from the approved list. Depending on the major you select, you may need to take an additional social and behavioral science course. Natural science. All majors at Mason require two natural science courses or seven to eight credits total. To register for a natural science lab course, you must register for lecture and the corresponding lab course. Please note that some majors require a natural science sequence like CHEM 211, 213 and CHEM 212 and 214. Other majors only require seven credits of natural science, one lab and one non-lab. You may wish to postpone taking your second natural science requirement until you have selected a major. Global understanding. All students must complete one global understanding course for the approved list. Information technology. To complete this requirement, please select one information tech course or a combination from the approved list. Some majors require a specific IT course. For example, if you plan to be a chemistry, computer game design, criminology, government, or computer science major just to name a few, your major will require a specific IT course. You may to wish to take the IT course until you have selected your major. >> In addition to Mason Core courses, you may also wish to take your general elective courses your first semester. Most majors at Mason will require that you take some general elective courses to help you reach the 120 credits required for graduation. A general elective is a course that is not required to complete the Mason Core, major or college and other requirements. We recommend that you use electives as an opportunity to explore areas outside of your major. For example, you can pursue a minor with your general elective courses. One elective that we recommend is UNIV 100. UNIV 100 is a one-credit course designed to help new freshmen transition to Mason. This concludes the pre-orientation presentation. We recommend that you like us on Facebook, and visit our web page to stay connected and receive useful information throughout the semester. We hope that you found this presentation helpful. See you soon.