So I finally made the decision and chose Maryland!! now I guess I have to wait 48 hours for confirmation. What am I suppose to do in the meantime to prepare for orientation day.(which I haven’t been able to chose yet) I saw on the testudo.com’s website that you can look at courses but how do I know what general education courses I need to take in addition to my engineering courses? Should I be researching all these courses so when I sit with adviser I kinda know what I want. How much time do they sit with you to figure out your schedule?
Also, what about the loan portion…will they go over that with me during orientation, will they send me emails to start certain parts of the process or do my parents and I start that process well in advance? we don’t want to wait till the last minute and then rush to make a decision regarding loans and making right decisions.
I’d look at your four year plan for Engineering and see what you should be taking. Everyone will take freshman English, a lot take COMM107 or its equivalent (INAG110). You will do this somewhat with your adviser, but that process may be rushed, so if you want to do research into times and professors: Do a search on the umd subreddit. Go to OurUMD to look at professor and class ratings, or RateMyProfessor. Google UMD Four Year Plans, and you’ll navigate to the major and get a sense of what you should be taking. This is what your adviser uses anyway. So the main thing with researching ahead of time is you can really get a sense of the schedule times and teachers you want if there are any choices in the matter. Sometimes, you have to take what you can get. Also, once advising is done, you can switch sections as you need to. They open up sections of freshman classes all summer and others fill, so that can often help you get your schedule better time-wise.
It may not take 48 hours. When it does come through, you cam set up your directory ID and password. For the loans, you accept the loan amount that you want on your FinAid page. I assume you will be able to talk to someone at Oreintation about the loans. As lenmonster, said look at the 4 year plan and the courses offered Fall 2015 in Testudo. The more you know about what courses you want, the faster registration will go. Last year, my D had a list of courses she wanted and her registration session went smoothly. I believe she said that there was about 1 adviser for every 3 or 4 students and time was not a problem. Your will have Engineering advisers and they know what you need to take. They will also have the results of your math placement test and AP test scores. You can search “ap credit” on the UMD website to see you have any courses covered that way. Get your Health form completed. It requires a Doctor’s signature. Also, figure out your insurance options. You can also start looking for a room-mate or just go the random route. About switching courses, my D did that the first week of class without difficulty and she did it again Spring semester.
Good Luck
Yes. For CompSci advising, everyone just sat down at a computer and there were advisors there to help, but we already mapped out the classes and sections, so it took about five minutes. The advisor then just came over to look at the classes and basically just gave the schedule a thumbs-up. Not a lot of “advising.” Most of the programs are pretty straightforward.
thank you, I looked at the 4 year plan I received during Admitted students day and I am a little confused. You say to decide on what classes you want…but you also said you pretty much have them set for you…so I am really only figuring out teachers, dates and times I want to take them? If I want to take a greek mythology course, I have to wait until the plan shows a general education course to take? Also, do they set up for the first 2 semesters? Also, the course ENEE101 which I think if I remember is a new course isn’t in testudo yet.
And for engineering is it better to separate your schedule to utilize up the whole week or try to get all your classes in 3 days so you have some full days to do work and projects?
I also went on ourUMD and almost every class that was set for the first 2 semesters that where not in engineering were bad reviews. I would think the teachers would want to fix what is wrong what students are saying about them. which site do you find more accurate. Its tough when you know usually only the bad remarks make it in,out of thousands of students only 1 or 2 a year
Sorry for any confusion. There are courses that are required for your major. That’s a pretty set sequence for engineering. Then there are the courses to satisfy your GenEd requirements. These, with some limitations, are courses you want to take… electives, such as the greek mythology course you mentioned. You will only be registering for Fall semester classes. Registration for the Spring semester will occur in December and you will be given a date when you can register. Registration priority is based on the number of credits you have, so Fall 2015 seniors will have first priority. Don’t worry about that. Seniors won’t be taking any courses that you need to take in the Spring semester.
All the courses you need to take will be in Testudo by the time you register/
I can’t comment on the specifics of scheduling. That is a personal preference thing and you have to live with the dates and times that courses are offered.
My D used the ratings sites first semester… I don’t think they were completely reliable. For the current semester, my D just talked to people she knew who had already take the course or had the professor. That seems to be a better source of information.
I hope this helps.
thank you to all…that was very helpful…now I can see why registering might not take so long.