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Nervous about starting at Michigan State? Worried about your class schedule, living away from home, or where to even start? The Spartan Orientation Station (SOS) is a podcast hosted by New Student Orientation staff and was created by students for students. This podcast will launch twice a week throughout the summer, and each episode will feature a unique interview with campus departments discussing their services, common misconceptions, and fun Spartan engagement opportunities. When you need help at Michigan State, it is okay to signal SOS! Don’t worry – MSU is there for you.
You're listening to the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact eighty nine FM, the podcast by students for students. Now this week's episode.
Andrew P.:Hello, and welcome back to the Spartan Orientation Station. My name is Andrew. I'm a student coordinator here at New Student Orientation and a fourth year student majoring in political science pre law and history. And I'm here with
Jonah D.:I'm Jonah, I'm also a fourth year student coordinator here majoring in advertising management.
Andrew P.:And today we are here with Doctor. Ebony Greene who is the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Advising here at Michigan State University. Thank you for joining us Doctor. Green.
Dr. Ebony Green:Thanks for having me gentlemen.
Jonah D.:Well to get started can you just tell us a little bit about you and what you do here?
Dr. Ebony Green:Sure! Am one, I'll start with I am a proud alumni of Michigan State University myself from the Communication Arts and Sciences realm. My bachelor's degree was in telecommunication. But I returned here as an administrator four years ago and I get to work with all of our undergraduates across the entire institution. So it's an amazing gig in that respect.
Dr. Ebony Green:But more importantly for this, I get to work with all the advising leads from all 14 of our colleges and advising units that are going to welcome our new Spartans Inn this fall. I'm super excited about that.
Andrew P.:Thank you so much again for being here. And then our first question for you is when and where do advising appointments happen?
Dr. Ebony Green:For our first time Spartans, so those of you that are coming to join us at orientation, May 1, you all will be introduced to your first experience in the new student orientation process. As of May 1, our Desire2Learn or D2L modules will be open to you. That means you needed to have done some things. We want make sure that you have your NetIDs available because you will need all of those things to check into the system so you can start the orientation modules. And what these modules do is to help everybody learn kind of all of the information that you as a new student should know.
Dr. Ebony Green:And you have a safe space to go back to to double check on some resources. It's a lot of information, but we have it compiled for you all in one spot. It also starts to introduce you to some of your college information. So making this connection, reading more about some of your majors. Hopefully, you are also checking those newsletters that are being sent to you and your families.
Dr. Ebony Green:That's how you're going to initially start the process. You must complete those modules. D2L must be complete before a college can reach out to you. They open May 1, so we really want you to do the first couple of weeks of May through the May, we really want everybody to get those modules done. Your colleges will start to reach out to you.
Dr. Ebony Green:Some of them around May 18. So May 18, students will start to hear from some colleges. May 22, The rest of the colleges will start to connect with you, but know that that week roughly, if not before, you'll start to get an email. So it's imperative that you check your MSU email. Cannot go wrong with that.
Dr. Ebony Green:Check it daily and often. I cannot repeat this enough. They will send an invitation to you. Some colleges will require you to do some next steps. They may want to do some more information gathering for you.
Dr. Ebony Green:They may want to align you in your departments a little differently. So please follow the instructions that you receive in that MSU email from your college. Other colleges will give you the direct link to actually register for your advising and enrollment appointment. So that is how you're going to start the process. Do not go online looking for an advising appointment.
Dr. Ebony Green:We want to make sure that you are going through our process and registering for the appropriate appointment.
Jonah D.:Can you talk a little bit about how a student would schedule an appointment during the school year?
Dr. Ebony Green:Sure. So during the school year, it's a little different. We use our appointment system. Some of our colleges also use some friendlier versions like Calendarly and things like that. Bookings in Microsoft Office to help students get to certain appointment areas.
Dr. Ebony Green:But for the most part, we use our appointment system, which you will learn our D2L modules that you were introduced to if you were a student when you came through D2L. But we also have videos as well to help you walk through how to actually make an appointment.
Andrew P.:Going off that a little bit, how should I prepare for my appointment?
Dr. Ebony Green:Great! For any student, new or returning. Always have questions for your academic advisor. You should also be very well aware and be able to see pretty much at least your first couple of years if you're a fairly new student. But if you know what your major is you should always be asking about the things that you need to do to make yourself the most well rounded individual in your major.
Dr. Ebony Green:So for some majors it's standard things that you have to do. If So you're in education and you want to become a teacher, you're going to have to have field experience. It's the law. However, if you're in social sciences and you are in economics or something along the history or something along those lines, those things aren't necessarily required, but they do make you so how do you access an internship? Those are the conversations that you want to have with your advisor outside of just what class do I need to take this semester or next semester.
Jonah D.:Can these conversations be in person or online?
Dr. Ebony Green:Yes, all of our colleges have in person and virtual options. What I also say to students is make your human connections. At least have a couple of these appointments in person. Trust me, we get it. You don't want to come outside when it's cold.
Dr. Ebony Green:We want you to engage and really get to know not only your advisor, but the advising community for your college, as well as the students that are also milling about in those spaces that you can make connections with. So yes, the options are there, but we will always say please engage with us as much as possible because it helps you in the long run.
Andrew P.:So now that I actually have a plan, what now? What happens after that?
Dr. Ebony Green:Once you go through the advising enrollment process, just remember advising and enrollment for new student orientation students will happen June 1 through July 17. Those are very important dates. We want to make sure we've got 10,000 year students to get through. We want to make sure that you are making those appointments. But when you make the appointments, there's a couple of things.
Dr. Ebony Green:You're going to be instructed on how to enroll because this is a process you'll be doing over and over and over again. So one of the things I always tell students double check that things just aren't hanging out in your shopping cart. Make sure you pushed, fend, that you actually wanted to commit to those classes and schedule those classes. So that's the first thing. You can always double check that.
Dr. Ebony Green:Get yourself prepared. Make sure any final advanced placement test or any final if you're a dual enrollment student and you've taken something through the first half of the summers, those final official transcripts get sent back to MSU. Those are critical because that's the only way is once they're officially here is we can document them and add them to your actual record. Also get yourself ready and prepared for transitioning from home to here. Start practicing.
Dr. Ebony Green:How do you make your own appointment? Try to make that last appointment to the dentist before you come up here on your own. Practice those types of things because as a young adult that's what our expectations are going to be setting up for you. Practice now while you're in preparation to come into this new experience.
Jonah D.:Yeah, absolutely. I think last question we have for you here. How do I make sure I am taking the right number of classes and the right amount of credits to graduate?
Dr. Ebony Green:At minimum, every program requires one hundred and twenty credit hours to graduate. At minimum. So you can't get out before then. However, making sure that the credits that you have are applicable. So some students have taken a lot of credits even in dual enrollment or taken some kind of transferable credit before they get here.
Dr. Ebony Green:Not all of that credit might apply. Even if it applies, it might not necessarily apply to the classes you need in your program to graduate. So those are things that you'd have those conversations to ask those questions about not only your first New Student Orientation Advisory appointment, but that very first appointment in your first year. You want to make sure you're following up with that and making sure. What we're doing is when we're having you schedule your appointments, it is towards graduation to the major that you are, you have told us right now.
Dr. Ebony Green:To be honest, most of y'all going to change your mind anyway. So we really want to center most of your classes around what we call university requirements. You've also probably heard heard to them referred as general education or gen ed requirements. Those are things that most everybody has to take in some form or fashion to get out of this institution. Really, those take about your first year and a half, to be honest.
Dr. Ebony Green:So you're not losing anything even if you don't quite know what you want to do. You haven't lost anything. Now, on average, we want our students taking between fifteen to seventeen credit hours. 16 is pretty standard. If you do the math, 15 credits over eight semesters, 120.
Dr. Ebony Green:So that's how we get out of here on time. Now you don't have to always take 15. You could take thirteen one semester, seventeen one semester. Think about if you're going to actually be a student in the summer, those types of things, and that might change the duration of which credits you take in which semester. But in theory, that's what we would be targeting every single term.
Andrew P.:All right, well thank you so much and that's super important. I definitely changed my major and added one on the span of being here. So again, thank you Doctor. Green for joining us today. If you're listening, tune in next time at the Spartan Orientation Station.
Andrew P.:Thank you all.
Narrator:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact eighty nine FM. Let us know what you think by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at MSU underscore NSO.