Scheduling the Perfect Semester | The Reschool'd Podcast

Welcome to the Reschooled Podcast, the show that discusses all the things that schools

may have missed with your hosts, AJ Couttee and Jason Gordon. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. We are the Reschooled Podcast, the show that

discusses all the things that schools may not have prepared you for. As always, I'm AJ and sitting across from me

Jason, Jason, how are you doing today? Oh, I'm struggling, AJ. I'm not going to lie

Struggling? Sounds like something I would say. Well, see, this week I had the girls all by myself

You know, so I've got two daughters, nine and almost seven. So they're quite the handful

But this weekend, I had water damage all in the floor of my studio

And apparently it's been leaking in there for a while. I just now noticed it because the floor is swelling

So I had to tear out the flooring. subflooring, re-put all that stuff down. It was, it was morning to night for about two and a half

days. And I'm so, from getting up and from standing up and sitting down, standing up, sitting down

I'm so sore. I can't hardly move. So yeah, I'm on the struggle bus this morning

Well, my, my issues weren't near that. So I was good. Well, and so this episode will be coming

out next Monday, but this past weekend, I would be remiss to not bring up the fact that Georgia

beat Tennessee. So I had a great weekend. I had a wonderful weekend. I actually told the game

did you? No, I didn't go to the game. I, uh, I went to right before like the morning of

I went to the grocery store to get groceries for the week and I thought, okay, Georgia's playing

we're going to celebrate. So I bought one of those, um, Dutch apple pies, those frozen Dutch

apple pies that you put in the oven and they're so good and so when i got home i told my girls

i said look um if georgia wins then we get to eat apple pie and ice cream if georgia loses i'm

throwing the trash we're just not having i'm throwing the trash and every five minutes the

girls would run into the room it's like is georgia winning fortunately they were up the whole time

so i was like yep we're winning they're so excited so it was fun to be able to play around with that

That's a good way to create long-term team fans. Yes. Tie incentives to their winning

When I said that about throwing it in the trash, my wife was like, over my dead body

Be like, daddy's completely joking. Because that's not happening. Exactly. That's exactly what it went like

Well, last week we talked about this feeling of being overwhelmed. And it was a tips and tricks episode

We're going to do another tips and tricks episode. We're going to take a pivot. But this time we're going to be talking about something that's a little bit more current because of what I say season, academic season we're in

And that's registration, scheduling classes. So we're going to be talking about tips and tricks when it comes to scheduling your courses for the semester or for your college career

And so what does that sound like to you? That's a good idea. Yeah, absolutely. Before we do, remind everybody, please visit us on the website, reschool.com

That's with a D, not an E-D. Check us out on the social media handles

And of course, uh, your favorite podcasting app, give us all the stars, tell other people

about us, all that jazz, but most importantly, give us some content to talk to you about

Send us a message either through social media or on our website, either one

So we can, you know, talk about the things you want to hear about. Yeah. Past couple episodes, we've had listener requests that turned into full episodes

So we love those. Yeah, that was nice. Didn't, didn't have to think about anything

Just answer questions. Yeah, it was great. Uh, quick question. When you were in college, were you a plan ahead scheduler or were you more of like, you know, schedule as they come

Oh, yeah, I was. You know, I changed majors really a couple of times during the second time I changed majors

It wasn't that big of a deal. But the first time it was a complete overhaul of my schedule

So things got wrecked completely in terms of what I should be taking and things like that

But yeah, I basically had my entire college four years planned out the courses I was going to take and all kinds of stuff very early on

Because I knew I wanted to know exactly how much pain I was going to be in for

Yeah. I understand that. Yeah. And I wanted to balance every semester, you know, making certain I wasn't so overloaded with courses, you know, the hard courses in one semester

So, yeah, I was a big planner. What about you? Something tells me you are not a huge planner in that regard

And it's interesting. You said you were talking about your major change, the change in majors

I had a change in majors. I went into college pre-med. And in most colleges, pre-med is pretty much structured for you

So here's the classes that you take throughout your career to get you through pre-med with obviously flexibility

And in that flexibility, I, much like you, I tried to make it where I had this good mix of these are the hard classes, but here's the easy classes that I'm going to be able to offset some of that with

And then I switched and went over to accounting. And in that, it wasn't as structured

I mean, they just pretty much said, okay, here's your course curriculum to get your degree

And you can kind of go about it. And granted, we had advisors and stuff like that, but you kind of, you have a lot of flexibility

you had a lot of autonomy when it comes to that, when you're going through like a business versus

a prereq structure or a pre, uh, pre-med structure. And that during that time when I switched

yeah, I was not the plan ahead type person. Um, I was not the one that was like, okay

here's my next four semesters of what my courses are going to be. It was more of like

okay, here's what I have, here's what I need. And here's what's being offered. I'm going to try to throw some strategy in there to make it a little bit easier for me in some areas

But the most I planned ahead for my semesters, and actually this is one of my tips that I'm going to bring up too

but the most I planned ahead was for summers. That was it

I looked ahead for summers just because if I could take them certain classes

then I wouldn't take them during the spring or the fall. So that was, that's pretty much it. Now, as being an advisor now for students and seeing kind of the errors of my ways and what some of them, I really push hard in saying, okay, you need to come up with a plan in some way

You don't have to say these are the exact classes, but you need to have an idea of what needs to be taken at what times so that you're not going to have that issue at the tail end where you can't take a class because you don't have the prereq

So I'm a big proponent of that now. I wish somebody would have told me that when I was an undergrad

That makes sense. I had a couple of incidences. You know, and I'm not saying I would have been a that big of a planner every single semester

But once I figured out what I knew things I wanted to do

Right. So I was able to study abroad actually twice during college

And that's that's a lot more than most. But that's very difficult to manage with your schedule

You have to make certain you've got the prerequisites, like you said, but you have to make certain at least time for other classes and how that's going to fit

And I was in the honors college, which they have a very, very rigid curriculum about the core classes, when you take them and how you take them. Right. And they, one of them was a six hour class that you have to take for a year straight. And there was no way to do that and to study abroad. And I said, well, you know, I'm going to put it off

and they and you know I went to advising and stuff and they're like okay so you can put that off but you're gonna

have to take it the next year and it's gonna have to come in this order well when I got back from

studying abroad I was so captivated I was like well I'm not doing that either

right and so I had to it was a huge undertaking to make certain I could arrange to do what I wanted to do and still graduate from college on time I mean so and it came down to the last semester I mean I had to do an extra

half semester course just to graduate on time because I didn't get all my prerequisites out

of the way when I was supposed to and things like that. You know, that's a, so anyway, that's

That's the reason I was like that. And I think a lot of people have stories like that where it comes up. Right. I had another story where basically I signed up for two courses that I didn't realize ran in parallel to each other. So you couldn't get academic credit for both of them

Oh, wow. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah. So I had to drop the course midway through the semester and sign up for a different

Luckily, our school had half semester courses and signed up for another half semester course just to complete the semester

And both of those times, a half semester course is really intense

Yeah. Right. You have to go. Yeah. You have to double your schedule for half the semester

So it was it was something. But I got out and it worked

Yeah, I think most of my issues in undergrad was, had I planned, like looking back, had I planned, I don't know how much of my plan would have actually been useful because so many things came up that I wasn't anticipating

Like when I went into college, there was playing soccer for a college team was never on my radar

We didn't, as a matter of fact, the college that I went to didn't even have a soccer team, a men's soccer team or a women's soccer team

And they got it in my second year, I believe, or third year, going into my third year of college

And I just so happened to know the coach from somewhere. I can't remember

And he came to me and said, hey, do you want to try out? And I tried out and made it. So that really put a strain on my semesters where we were in season

And there was no way, had I planned that I could have done anything with that, not knowing that I was going to be playing soccer

Because we had practiced every day. We were traveling and everything like that. So you had to really be careful in those situations too

So let's get into the tips and tricks. Let's start going through ours

You want to start it? Yeah, absolutely. So basically we want to make sure you don't make some of the same mistakes we did

Yes. And that's where I want to start it. How do you avoid making mistakes with regard to planning your curriculum of study, the courses you're going to take each semester

when you're going to register, things like that. So first off, talk to your advisor ahead of time

Yeah, that's a good one. Most schools have professional advisors. That's all they do

They understand schedules. They understand the course offerings. They can help you look things up

They have a lot of expertise in that field. If you don't have a dedicated professional advisor

lots of times you have a mentor that serves that role, And that's oftentimes a professor in your discipline of study

And they tend to know the course of study extremely well. Now, they probably don't have the insight into what classes are being offered what semester and things like that, the same way a professional advisor would

So anyway, figure out what you have as a resource. And it's going to be one of the two because I believe every college has one or the other

A professor who's assigned to you or a professional advisor, set a meeting with them, talk to them, do the research ahead of time and go in

When you have that meeting, have ideas of what you want to take

Don't just go in there and say, hey, I want to I'm this type of major

What should I take next semester? Because once again, then you're asking them to be creative for you

You should do the research, go in there and get their assistance in planning out things

once you've done the research yourself. Because again, they have no idea what your preferences are

They have no idea what your life looks like. If you can go ahead and put your head around some of that stuff and go in there with a

framework in mind, it's going to be a lot better meeting. And so there you go

That's my tip number one. What about you, AJ? Well, before I get into my first one, I wanted to piggyback on some of that because you brought

up a good point. that kind of stuck with me. As we were both mentors and advisees for students

I would say when you're talking to your advisor, try to create a good relationship with them

Because if you have a good relationship with them, they're going to try harder to make sure that you succeed. Like if you don't care, then it's harder for them to really care if you don't

show that you care. But if you're cordial, you stay in communications with them

you have a good relationship with them, they're likely to be able to help you even more

They'll, for the most part, bend over backwards just to make sure that you are achieving whatever goals that you're wanting to achieve

Part of that communication is being able to tell them what your goals are. Yeah. I think a lot of students don't realize that about professors

We really do get vested in your career the same way that you do

I mean, we start thinking about what's best for you. We start planning ahead

We try to give you advice and things like that, just because we can remember when we were in that situation and we hope we can instill some knowledge or impart some wisdom that will help you in a way

So, yeah, I mean, establish that relationship. And again, it's going to help the professor or mentor do better by you

OK, so, yeah, good idea. All right. So my first one is really is what this whole episode is about. And that is planning ahead. My first advice is to plan ahead. I didn't do that. And it came with some some downfalls. And when I say plan ahead, I'm again, I'm not saying, OK, I'm going to take these five classes this semester, these four or five classes

I'm just saying have a plan, have something in place where you say, okay, if this is how everything

is going and everything's going well, then these are the areas of classes that I'm going to be

looking at to take this semester. And these are the ones that I have to take this semester. And

that's kind of gets me to the second part to this tip is as you're planning ahead, you need to

understand prereqs. Prereqs are the thing that really trip up a lot of students, especially in

the tail end of their college career as they're coming up on graduation because prereqs are the

classes that hold you back from being able to take a upper level class and if you understand those

and how they work what's needed all that kind of stuff then you can go ahead and prepare in a way

that is not going to perhaps one of the things for for our our my school now um is we have a class

that has quite a few prereqs because it is the final capstone class. And if you don't pay

attention to that and strategize, then you could be taking that one class the last semester and

you're wasting a full semester on one single class and that's it. So there is this gamesmanship

of being able to say, okay, well, if I take these and these and these, then it's going to be left

it's going to leave me with this, which is the final class that I have to take. Plus, I have the ability to take this, this, and this, which gives me a full-time load from my last semester, and I'm not wasting it

And so, prereqs are huge. Yeah, just in furtherance of that, I can't tell you how many students I've advised over the years who have not done that

They have fallen behind on their prerequisites, which meant they had to push other courses off in the semester

And it meant in some semesters they could only take a few of the classes that they needed

And they were ultimately at the end, all of the honestly more difficult classes, the higher level classes came at the same time

And it made for really painful semesters. It made, you know, some of them made lower grades because of it

They had to take courses during the summer that they otherwise didn't want to take. And, you know, that's a lot of extra money to have to pay for

And I can tell you how many students had to go for a whole nother semester or a whole nother year to complete out the course schedule just because they didn do the planning ahead of time So I seen that over and over and that is an excellent tip Yeah and let me add to this too I wanted to add one more thing to that

and that is typically colleges give you this curriculum sheet of all the classes that you have to take

and it's usually divided up into areas of some way. So you have all your core classes

then you have all your major classes, and probably some other basic classes, electives

and all that kind of stuff. I know in our situation, so some schools may have it differently. I'm not a big fan of the way

our schools is, or my schools now is set up because it gives the impression that you should

be following it from top to bottom in that order. And I don't, you never want to do that. You want

to, again, plan ahead to figure out what's the most optimal order for you. You were talking about

having students at the tail end where it just, they can only take so many classes because they

we're lacking prereqs. I've seen the same thing in the middle of a, of a college career where they're

like, okay, I want to get into this, but I'm like, you don't have the prereq. And where you're

thinking about taking five, you can literally only take three because that's all this offer that you

have the prereqs that meet, that meet the prereqs. So it really, again, it pushes you back. So yeah

it's a tough thing. What's your, what's your number two? So this one's, you know, I'm thinking

about, I've got two more tips, but I think this is the best one to say at this time

Career plan. We've talked before in other episodes about career and life plan and what you hope to

accomplish and all that stuff. Well, this four to five or three to five, depending

Yeah, right. It could be longer, right? I don't want to make any assumptions

but this few year experience is an important part of your career. So if there are things you know

you want to accomplish in your career. You have aspirations. Make certain you're taking the

courses that are going to allow for that. You mentioned earlier that you were pre-med early on

right, which means you intend to go to some form of medical school. Lots of people assume that you

have to be a biology major or a chemistry major to do that. Well, that's just not the case. I mean

you have to have all of the courses that are necessary to gain entrance to medical school

you may have a certain number of courses that you need to be prepared for an interest exam

like the MCAT, which is a medical school acceptance test. Well, plan for that. Okay. I mean

make certain that the courses that you intend to take are related to your overall career objectives

So even if you're not a biology major, but you realize that you're going to need a couple of

classes, make certain that you take those classes. And yeah, they'll have to come in the form of

elective or at least classes that you have the option to take as part of your major. Make certain

you're connecting those with what you ultimately want to accomplish. Sometimes you'll major in

something because you're passionate about it, but you have other career plans. You want to study

fashion, but you want to also go into fashion writing. Well, you need to take courses as well

not just on fashion, but on professional writing, right? That type of thing. So make certain you're

taking the courses that are going to give you not only the skill set, but the exposure, the general

well-rounded knowledge, and potentially the connections, right? That's particularly important for things like internships when an internship is part of your curriculum or particularly in like

engineering fields where you have these cooperative programs where you work for an entire semester

in industry before you know before you graduate you at least do one or two semesters like that

so make certain these courses and whatever extracurricular stuff like like for teaching

student teaching or free engineering cooperatives or in mandatory internships, things like that

and even optional things like study abroad, right? Make certain all of that fits long term with you getting out of college with the requisites

for, you know, to pursue your career path or field to get that job or to undertake whatever

you know, type of type of career progression you're going to undertake

sake. So yeah, that's my second tip. So with that tip, do you think that it becomes more

magnified when it comes to your electives as well? I do. You know, it's so funny. So many

majors have so few electives. Yeah, I know. That's one issue. And, you know, the question becomes

do you take the course or not? Right. Because it might extend another semester. It might extend

another year. So, you know, I can't answer that question for everybody. You just have to understand

the repercussions behind either one. Certainly, you know, do what it takes to graduate. But

you know, like I say, if things are going to require additional time, additional effort

they're not required, they don't fit within your potential elective pool. Again, that's where you

got to go back and talk to your advisor and get some very specific information about your situation

Yeah, I actually have one example of that is at our school for accountants

Obviously, this is kind of where I'm more familiar with. You know, we have in all business majors, concentrations at our school or my school

I keep saying our school. I keep it's just natural. Um, but we have one general elective, which is any, any class 2000 level or higher, um

that the, the unit, the college itself, like not, not the schools, but the college general

that, that, uh, that's being offered. And I have a lot of accounting students come in and say, well, what can I use for that

And I tell them literally anything that's 2000 or higher. However, if your career plan is to be a CPA, you have to have at least 30 hours of upper

level accounting classes taken at our university or at our college, you don't get 30. So you could

it's not advised, but you could use that general elective as in another accounting class to get

three more credit hours towards that CPA. Now we have to go through a form to get it switched

because it's supposed to be outside, but that is an option. But again, that goes directly with

their career plan. So that's a good, that's a good tip. Uh, my second one, you got another one

Yeah. My second one. Uh, and this is, again, this kind of comes from the strategy side of me

Uh, when you're planning ahead, you want to plan it to where you mix some easy classes with some

hard classes. You want to have it to where you don't have, if you're taking five classes a semester

you want to try your best not to have five hard classes or you don't want to make it early in your

current college career to make it where you have five easy a classes in a semester you want to be

able to mix those around because some classes are going to be more labor intensive some classes are

going to be easier especially depending on what you're what you're like maybe math is easier for

you so you're not gonna have to take as much time versus another class uh so you want to have that

mix. I would also say too, when you're dealing with that, you also want to pay attention

to scholarships as well. I think I brought this up on another episode

In Georgia, we have the HOPE scholarship and they're tracked. They check, so you have to

maintain a 3.0 average throughout college in order to maintain your HOPE scholarship

They check it at least when I was in college, so it may have changed, I'm not sure. When I was in college, it changed

to they would check it at the 30, the 60, the 90 hours to check

So knowing that, we would take some hard classes that would get us to 29, 28 hours

knowing they wouldn't check our GPA at that moment. And then the next semester, which would get us to, you know

what 40 hour classes because we would take 15 hours we would take easier classes We would include easier classes in theirs to bump up our GPA So they not actually checking at 30

they're checking it at 40. So we had more classes to input into that number to maybe raise it up

if necessary. So you need to pay attention to your scholarship requirements. And then also

like I said, you don't want to give yourself an incredibly hard semester because you'll get burnt

out. And you don't want to waste an entire semester on easy A's where you can't put those

other places. And that, again, goes back to pre-rec. Like there are classes at college where

like you look and go, well, it's so early in my college career. Like these are ones that's

really high up in core classes, like really early, like some kind of IT class. And there's no pre-rec

after it. Like it's not a pre-rec to another class, but yet a lot of times they take it so early

because it is so early in their curriculum sheet. I'm like, just wait, wait on it

because it could be one of those classes that you can take towards the end that's going to make that last semester

where it's grueling for most people. You may be able to use that as an easy class

to offset those hard classes. So that would be my next one. Just strategize some easy mixed in with some harder

Yeah, that's great advice. And you do not want to fail and you do not want to have a semester in your core

where you make bad grades. Yeah, no, absolutely. Because, you know, I would say employers, if they ever do look at your grades, they care more about what you have going on in your core, in your concentration, in your major than they do outside. And certainly the same goes for graduate schools. Right. So once again, don't want that

All right. My last tip. OK. And this seems to go fly in the face of what I said last time, you know, link it to your career plan. You also need to take your take courses that matter to you in life. Right. So say you just want to take something you don't want to miss that opportunity. Right. That was the way it was for me in studying abroad. I did not want to miss that opportunity for you

It may be any number of classes. If you don't want to graduate college without having taken a drawing class or painting class or music class or something that is completely collateral to, right, completely outside of your intended career track, your major, anything like that

but it's just something that personally fulfills you, don't waste that opportunity

Plan that in as well, right? Identify the semester in which it works

Balance it out with those other classes that you have to take and make certain you get to

take that class. For me, I was really into languages. So there were a couple semesters where I knew I just wanted an introduction to a couple of classes

and so I took a couple of language classes that were you know outside of my concert I was a

language major right but I took a couple of other language classes just entry-level classes just so

I would know the structure of things and how it works and that made a huge difference for me I was

really glad I did it and it took a lot of work to fit them in right they had to you know I was

Luckily, I was able to make them count as electives. But that may not be the case

It may be that you take a course that really does not move you towards graduation

But again, there is some personal fulfillment and life benefit to it

So, yeah, there you go. It's interesting you say that, too, because I was in that position. I've said this before on another episode

I was part of a university team when I was an undergrad. And part of that university team was a course

It was actually two semesters, of course. So you actually got two credit for two semesters, three hour courses for your elective. And it didn't work for me. Like I'd already I'd already filled my electives, but I wasn't going to give up the opportunity to be a part of that team

I mean, I just, there was, there were so many benefits that I was able to get from that team

whether it's just, you know, personal benefits, like being able to travel, uh, the connections that I made from a career standpoint. So it was, it was one of those ones

where you see it at the bottom of your, your degree where it says hours not used. I had those

but it was so worth it. So my third, uh, tip, my final tip, uh, I would say utilize the benefits

or maybe a better word would be understand. Understand the benefits that come from taking

certain courses over the summer. Now, in order for this one to be useful in your situation

you do have to have some, I would almost say, some kind of insider information. So, this actually

brings it back to your advisor being close to your advisor, having a good relationship because

again, they want to help you out. But there are times when certain classes are offered

in the summer. Now, we all know summer classes are very condensed. They're very quick, but there are

also times where a lot of professors don't work during the summer. They choose not to work

And so they may have to bring in an adjunct. And the reason I brought this up is because it was

my situation when I was an undergrad. There was a class that everybody was just afraid to take

because it was just notorious that the professor was very hard and you were going to be putting in

a lot of work, but it was also to some known catch on that, that professor doesn't work in the summer

That class is offered and it's offered by an adjunct. And so knowing that I said, okay

I'm just going to wait and take that class in the summer. And that was, that was a breeze of

class. And granted, I mean, I learned stuff and it was, it was condensed, but compared to what it

was being said to, you know, by other students about how hard that class was. I came out of that

class with an A, no issue, um, because I strategized to say, I'm going to try to avoid a certain

professor, take it in the summer. Um, and, and it just so happened to that, that was the only

like that class, it was one of the upper level classes and he was the only professor that taught

that class during the regular semesters and the adjunct will come in. So, uh, it just, it worked

very well for me. So I would say, you know, utilize those benefits

I have gotten caught with a couple of professors I did not want to take before

So I know the feeling well, you suffer through it, but you really wish you would plan better

ahead of time. Yeah. I mean, I remember in undergrad, there were like four professors

that everybody just dreaded. And I got through my college career only taking, I believe I took

two of them and one of them usually you had to take more than once i was able to only take them

once so i managed to get through that fairly unscathed now i will say you know i bring this

up to my wife who also went to undergrad with me she took all four of them she just and yeah i was

like you didn't know and she's like no nobody told me it sucks i was about to say either she's a

glutton for punishment or she just didn't know she didn't it didn't matter to her she still had

days. She was just, she was a hard worker. So, um, but those are tips and tricks. I think those

are really, really good tips and tricks. Like I think those are things that are very important

for students, especially, like I said, right now with this, the registration season being upon us

getting ready for the spring semester. These are vital things that students really need to

pay attention to. Um, and it doesn't matter what area of your college career you're in

if you're early or late, um, if you're early, you know, some of these are even more important

like establishing the relationship with your advisor, those kind of things. So you got any parting words before we head out

Well, hopefully this will get you guys off to a great semester, get you planning ahead

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Awesome. Well, we hope you enjoyed the episode. We hope to see you next time. Until then, goodbye

Take care. Thanks for listening to the Reschooled podcast. Be sure to head over to Reschooled.com for news and other information on things we're getting into