Academic Advising Overview from Ed Johnson (FY Students)

Dear incoming first-year students,

I'm Ed Johnson, Occidental's Director of Advising, and I wanted to share some information with you, as well as a few "to-do" items, that will get you started on your academic journey at Oxy.

Registration for First-Year Seminars (FYS) will begin on the morning of Tuesday, June 20 and close Friday, June 23. Please read the instructions below carefully to learn more about the FYS registration process. Registration for all of your other courses will take place during Orientation in August, though Occidental does allow students to register early in some select courses after taking a placement exam or submitting a qualifying standardized test score.

Registering for First-Year Seminars

All first-year students take two First-Year Seminars: one in the fall semester and another in the spring semester of your first year. These are graduation requirements and cannot be waived or deferred. While all First-Year Seminars have the common goal of developing students' writing skills and encouraging critical analysis, they focus on a broad range of topics—you can check out the seminars being offered in the fall here!

Registration for First-Year Seminars will open at 9:00 AM (PDT) on Tuesday, June 20 and close at 12:00 PM (PDT) on Friday, June 23. Many seminars will fill very quickly, so for the best selection you should register online as soon as possible once the online registration system opens. The step-by-step instructions linked just below will guide you through the registration process.

First-Year Seminar Registration Instructions  

Special Programs

In addition to the standard four-unit FYS courses, we are offering two special programs in the fall that offer the opportunity to explore a topic in greater depth in a pedagogically innovative and immersive setting. The first of these programs is called Transpacific Movements and Activisms: Asian and Asian American Connections Across the Pacific . This program consists of two linked courses for a total of 8 units, and is taught by a team of faculty members from the Asian Studies, History, and Religious Studies departments. Students who enroll in this program will complete both their Fall FYS and Core Global Connections requirements. For more information, visit the Transpacific Movements and Activisms web page. If you are interested in the program, please fill out this interest form by Thursday, June 15 . 

The second special program offered this fall is called Computing IRL (“In Real Life”). This program consists of a connected set of three courses (for a total of 12 units). Students who participate in the program will take a First-Year Seminar (“Writing Machines: Machine-writing from Frankenstein to ChatGPT”), an introductory computer science course (COMP 131 or COMP 146), and a computer science internship (COMP 295). For more information, see the Computing IRL web page. If you are interested in the program, please fill out this interest form by Thursday, June 15 . 

Seats in both Transpacific Movements and Activisms and Computing IRL are limited. Again, if you are interested in either course, please fill out the interest forms by Thursday, June 15 !

Advising Information Form and the Advising Center

At Orientation in August, you will meet with your faculty adviser to discuss your fall course schedule. To help us match you with an academic adviser, we ask that you fill out the Advising Information Form by Saturday, July 1 . You will receive more information about advising and preparing for registration in early August.

In the meantime, the Advising Center is available to answer any academic-related questions you may have! You can send questions via email (advisingcenter@oxy.edu) or visit the Advising Center webpage for more information. 

Placement Exams and Limited Summer Registration

Some courses require you to take a placement exam prior to registration. Placement exams are offered for chemistry, calculus, music theory, and several languages. The purpose of these exams is to place you in the courses that best match your experience level. Most of these exams are available online, though a few are only offered in-person during Orientation. For the exams that are available online, we ask that new students take them no later than Wednesday, August 9 . To take an online placement exam—or to find out more information—visit the Advising Center's Placement Exam webpage.

In general, if you are planning to take courses in calculus, chemistry, music theory, French, German, or Spanish, you should take the appropriate online placement exam this summer. That said, there are some exceptions:

• If you are studying a language for the first time, you can register for a 101-level course during Orientation and do not need to take the placement exam.
• If you took an AP, IB, or SAT II score in the subject, you may be able to use that score to determine placement. See the Placement Exam webpage for more information. 

For more guidance about whether you should take a placement exam, we have created two short videos that cover the language exams and the math and chemistry exams. The deadline to take online placement exams is Wednesday, August 9 , but we encourage you to complete them earlier in the summer. This is particularly beneficial for the calculus placement exam, which you can take multiple times and includes online review modules to help you improve your placement.

Students who complete a placement exam in chemistry, math, French, German or Spanish (or submit qualifying AP, SAT II, or IB scores in those subjects) may be able to register early for the courses in which they have been placed. To learn more, visit the Registrar's Limited Summer Registration webpage.

If you have questions about any of the topics mentioned in this email, feel free to contact the Advising Center. We look forward to welcoming you to campus this fall!

Best Wishes,

Ed Johnson, PhD
Director of Academic Advising
Occidental College

P.S. Remember to stay on track with upcoming dates and deadlines by following the To-Do Checklist & Timeline ! And, don't forget to join us for our advising-focused Tiger Chat on Friday, June 16!