Nuts and Bolts of Academic Advising
Provided you agree that a change is in order (if not, have a look at “Mentoring Challenges” in this FAQ), start by visiting the catalog page, where you and your advisee can consult curriculum checklists. Be sure to try to help her understand the implications of a change, especially when courses she has already completed may not count toward a different degree.
Students may obtain a change of major form in the college office of the major they are changing to. For example, if a student is changing majors from History to Marketing, they would report to the College of Business Administration in 106 White Hall to complete and get a change of major form signed. Once the form is complete, the student will turn the form into the Office of Records in Candies Hall.
Students wishing to enroll in more than the maximum allowed 18 hours per fall and spring semester should complete a Course Overload Form, which is available in their academic dean’s office.
Students with less than 30 earned hours can obtain these forms from the Academic Services office in 234 Elkins Hall.
If a student is placed on academic suspension they will have to submit an appeal before being readmitted to the university. Instructions and forms are available on the “Academic Suspension Information” page on the Nicholls website.
Students should be aware that there are appeal deadlines each semester and they should submit their appeals as soon as possible to be processed.
Advisors can help students once their appeal is approved by working with the student and connecting them to campus resources that will help them be more successful. Along with all appeal approvals are recommendations for the students such as attending tutoring or enrolling in University Studies 100: Strategies for College Success.
Advisors can also help students by reviewing these recommendations with them and encourage them to comply with the appeal recommendations.
SAP stands for Satisfactory Academic Progress and is the term for the criteria that must be maintained in order to receive federal financial aid such as student loans and PELL grants. If a student does not maintain SAP then financial aid may be suspended(they don’t get any aid). The full SAP policy is found on the financial aid page.
When students appeal their financial aid suspension an academic advisor has to complete an Academic Plan form for the student to go along with the appeal. The student will bring the form to you and you will complete and sign it. The student will attach the form to their appeal packet and return the packet to financial aid.
Advising for General Education
Nicholls Online/Online Learning
Hybrid courses, which are listed with regular campus courses at Nicholls, are not Nicholls Online courses.
If a section code begins with an H, the course will be conducted both in person and online. Depending on the ratio between in-person and online instruction, sections will be one of two types:
- HYL: less than 50% online instruction
- HYB: more than 50% online instruction
Online courses will have one of the following codes:
- WWW WWW: Strictly online instruction and testing
- WWN WWN: Online instruction with all tests at Nicholls
- WWP WWP: Online instruction with tests at Nicholls or another proctor location
Visit the Nicholls Online page and select a term to see a schedule of courses.
Students may register for nine hours in each eight-week term.
Advising for Transfer Students
Course designations like XXXX 1XX, MATH 2XX, and MKTG 3XX (or X courses) are used when courses from other institutions do not match any of Nicholls’ courses. For example, South Louisiana Community College teaches a 200-level mathematics course, MATH 240, titled Finite Mathematics. Although we do offer courses in the MATH discipline, we do not offer that particular course. A student transferring that course to Nicholls would be awarded credit for a 200-level mathematics course, MATH 2XX. This course designation along with the course title, Finite Mathematics, would appear on the student’s academic record.
As another example, LSU offers a freshman-level course in interior design, ID 1051, titled Introduction to Interior Design. Nicholls does not offer courses in the interior design discipline, so a student transferring this course would be awarded freshman-level credit appearing as follows on the student’s academic record: XXXX 1XX Introduction to Interior Design.
It depends on the course, of course. As mentioned above, the courses do become part of a student’s academic record. The credits awarded for the courses by Nicholls are equal to the credits earned at the transfer institutions, unless the transfer credits are based on quarter sessions instead of semesters(see “How are courses from quarter calendar institutions articulated?” below).
Courses like the MATH 2XX is degree applicable if your program does not require specific mathematics courses. A substitution may be required (see “How are courses from quarter calendar institutions articulated?” below).
The XXXX 1XX course may satisfy a free elective requirement. If your program allows a true free elective course, no substitution is required.
The Transfer Student Resource Center (TSRC) has access to catalogs for nearly all institutions in the United States. The amount of detail in course descriptions varies by institution. If you would like to see a course descriptions for transfer courses, please contact TSRC. Syllabi for courses is difficult to obtain. It is rare that those are available online. If you need more information about a course, the best approach may be to ask the student submit a syllabus.
Course credits transferred for institutions operating on a quarter term semester are automatically converted to semester credits in Banner. A quarter credit is roughly ⅔ of a semester credit. A student earning 12 quarter credits would be awarded eight semester credits at Nicholls. A course bearing four quarter credits would convert to 2 ⅔ semester credits.
Some quarter credit schools will often offer what we consider two or three semester sequences in three to four quarter terms. For example, our three semester calculus sequence, Maths 165, 166, and 265, is sometimes offered through the span of four quarter terms.
As we do, institutions on the quarter system determine the quarter credit value of courses based on contact hours, with the exception of laboratory courses. Those that assign 4.5 quarter credits to courses works best for students transferring to Nicholls sense 4.5 quarter credits converts to three semester credits.
The articulation of quarter credit courses depends primarily on course content. However, credit value is a consideration sense the amount of contact impacts content. Generally speaking, course that are close in credit and in contact may be articulated as Nicholls courses. For example, a freshman English composition course may transfer as an ENGL 101 with 2 ⅔ credits.
The English composition course mentioned in the previous paragraph is degree applicable and will be selected by the CAPP degree audit system in Banner as fulfilling the first freshman composition course requirement. This means that the student will need to earn ⅓ of a credit from some other course to attain the 120 required for graduation. Transfer students often have extra credits that will take care of this.
