MEEM Undergraduate Advising

Category: FAQs

I am feeling stressed. What can I do? (And Study Tips)

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Stressed? Many things happen during college life that can increase stress. Trying to balance everything – good academic performance, social life, family obligations, employment, activities, etc. – can be tough. First, understand and remember why you are here and keep reminding yourself of that (graduate, get into a desired career, self sufficient income, etc).  Second, remember you are here for yourself and not anyone else. Realizing that you choose to pursue this degree is an important factor in your success.  Your daily choices need to support that long-term choice.

Why have I chosen to be here? Your goal may be something like this: To earn a nationally accredited mechanical engineering degree at one of the nation’s top engineering universities. To obtain a position with a successful company. To be financially viable and independent in your career.  To go on to earn a graduate degree, etc.  To accomplish long-term goals, you must set supporting short term goals for yourself (exam/project performance, course grades, semester GPAs, Dean’s List, 3.0 cumulative GPA, etc) and effectively work towards them.

  • Establish personal priorities that will allow you to perform well academically and meet your goals.
    • How do the daily and weekly choices you make affect the short and long term goals you have set for yourself?
    • If your friends want you to hang out, but you’ve got homework or a test, hang out another day.
    • If you are working too many hours, evaluate your need to work or consider reduced course loads and/or additional financial aid options (loans, etc).
    • If you are involved in too many organizations (including enterprise) or a leadership position that takes away time and hurts your grades; cut involvement back, limit your hours, or postpone participation.
    • Are your expectations of the time commitments you expect from yourself realistic – especially also considering instructors’ expectations of you?
    • It is perfectly OK to graduate in 4.5 or 5 years.  How you perform and what you learn matters most, not how long it takes to earn your degree.  Employers typically don’t care how long it takes you to earn your degree.
  • Attend all your classes.
    • One of the most important factors for success in college is class attendance.
    • Don’t skip a class to catch up on sleep or to catch up in another class. This time is where you begin to learn what you need to know in order to be successful on quizzes, homework, and tests, and where you should be achieving a deeper understanding of the course material.  Feeling the “need” to skip class for these other considerations is an indication of overall poor time management or general overloading.
    • If you rely on just reading the textbook, you will miss out on important information or waste time on material that may not be included in the course.
    • However, pre-reading and previewing the assigned material before class times will make those class sessions more effective.  The text and class time go hand-in-hand to best facilitate your learning.
  • Get help when you need it.
    • If you are falling behind in any of your classes, see your instructor, a learning center coach (whenever available for appointments or walk-in), and your academic advisor.  Form study group(s), especially for upper level courses that may not have learning center assistance available.  Utilization of these resources from the very beginning of a semester can also help prevent falling behind in the first place.
    • If you are feeling undue pressure from many/all areas of your life, are overwhelmed in any one or more aspects, feeling depressed or homesick, or having difficulty coping with anything at all; see Counseling Services (see link below) right away and nip it in the bud. You have to watch out for yourself, have balance for a healthy lifestyle, and seek help if needed.
    • Also, for any difficulties with substance abuse – including alcohol – please contact Counseling Services.
    • If your grades or midterm marks are low (or if you feel they will be), see your academic advisor early and often (in your academic career, in a semester, etc).  Keep track of your estimated grades throughout each semester so you proactively realize when things are going well and when they are not, and to what degree.
  • Get your homework done (graded or ungraded), study for quizzes and exams, and work on project progress, etc as your main priority. There will be plenty of time for fun after that.  If you reverse this priority, your grades and your chance for success will suffer.  Your academics are your current full-time job and must be a top priority in your life in general in order for you to be successful.

Grades, probation, and suspension:
If you are earning/estimating low grades and/or unsatisfactory midterm marks (1st-year students), see your academic advisor early on. Once you become a student on academic probation, it can be a difficult process to get yourself back to good academic standing. If your grades do not improve and you have two bad semesters in a row (remaining an academic probation student), you may be placed on academic suspension (see FAQ #7 regarding probation and suspension).

If you feel that you are doing the best you can, approaching your academics very seriously, and utilizing resources in a systematic way, but still are unable to get good or acceptable grades, you may want to consider whether or not you are in the right major.

Resources

Career Services offers career advising.  This may be a very helpful process for you if you are considering a major change or are at least unsure of your current major.  The Career Services web site and staff also offer many other services that are helpful for job searches, being prepared for Career Fairs, Career Fair information for each semester, résumé and interview help, etc.

Counseling Services offers academic and personal counseling and can connect you to resources beyond their on-campus presence if needed. Call 906.487.2538 or go to their offices on the 3rd floor of the Administration Building to make an appointment.  Please contact them ASAP if you are feeling overwhelmed, unable to focus on homework and studying for exams, experience test anxiety, are depressed, have other anxiety, have substance abuse issues, etc. Learn new study skills, coping strategies, and how to focus on what is important to you in order to reach your personal goals.

The Wahtera Center for Student Success offers academic skills development and mentoring/coaching, especially for new students.  If you feel that you are capable of doing well and are feeling good about being at Michigan Tech, but mostly just need some direction on how to approach your studies correctly, the Center for Student Success has programs that can help.  They can also connect you with more experienced student mentors that can help you find your way here at Tech.

Student Disability Services is part of the Dean of Students (DOS) office.  If you have a diagnosed or possibly undiagnosed physical or mental condition or learning disability, please contact this office to see how to handle your specific situation according to university policies.  You should also always contact DOS if you have to document any excused absences from classes (illness/injury, death in the family, etc).

Academic Approach

When you are in tough class(es), which you are every semester – and especially if anything is not going well – do not just give up.  Seek help throughout the semester (starting right away in Week 1) and whenever you feel you need it.  See your instructors regularly and an academic advisor whenever necessary. Go to learning centers in a structured way.  Make regular weekly learning center appointments whenever possible. Even if you don’t feel you need this help, it can only improve your performance.

Homework prepares you to be successful on quizzes and exams but may not be collected and graded.  Whether it is collected and graded or not, you must do this work.  If you don’t understand how to do a problem, don’t accept that situation. See your instructor and/or a learning center coach. Do the problem over and over until you can do it yourself without error. Repetitive study – including homework – will help tremendously on exams.  As you move into the core ME curriculum, grading will become more and more based on exams, sometimes solely, so exam performance is critical to your long-term success. Take interest in your subjects. One class is a building block for another, so it is important to do well in each and strive to truly learn the material in addition to earning a good grade.

What is Repetitive Studying?  The reason that it takes a lot of time to be successful in your courses is that you need to practice and have repetition in the concepts you are learning. Just like you need to practice to improve in athletics, the same is true for academics.  By following the below steps to go through material over and over, by the time you get to the point of taking an exam, that material should be second-nature to you and easily recalled.

  • Preview material (before class, reading, any pre-quizzes, videos, Canvas, etc)
  • Attend every class and take good notes
  • Review notes and formulate questions (instructor’s office hours)
  • Complete homework/practice problems (learning center coach)
  • Work on projects/labs as applicable
  • Study for quizzes/exams

Instructors: Your instructors want you to succeed and robustly learn/retain the course material. They are not trying to trick you. Ask questions, learn how to learn and understand your contribution to the process. Explore the subject. Master the material. Instructors don’t ‘give’ grades, you earn grades. Our curriculum is challenging. Get help as soon as you need it (or before that with proactive use of resources, like learning center appointments). Know your instructor’s office hours and utilize them (or make alternate arrangements to meet with them).  If you have any difficulty in understanding any of your instructors, this is not an excuse to miss class or do poorly.  By seeing your instructor during office hours you should be able to communicate effectively one-on-one. Your instructors are experts in their fields and enjoy teaching those who want to learn.  Also, if you ever must miss class for a legitimate reason (university travel, illness/injury, death in the family, etc) please communicate this directly to your instructors; in advance whenever possible.  Also document these absences with the Dean of Students office.

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How to change your major or add a major/minor and/or concentration:

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Change my major or add a major/minor and/or concentration: Meet with your new (or maybe your current) advisor. Advisors for each major and minor are listed online.  The advisor for the major you want to be in can answer how your credits already taken will apply, what your next semester’s registration should be, when courses are offered, possible time to graduation, etc.

  1. Find out the latest requirements for your proposed major/minor and/or concentration from the departmental advisor offering the curriculum. See Degree Audits / Minor Audits and/or go to the department website for flowcharts. Find out requirements for declaring a new major regarding GPA, probation status, etc.
  2. Some credits you’ve taken may be applied toward your new curriculum – see the new advisor to confirm your progress towards the new requirements and get any information on possible substitutions.
  3. The new curriculum advisor will handle all course enrollment issues for their curriculum and will register students and/or process waivers as appropriate.
  4. Use this link to see the process to request a change to your major, add/drop a major, add/drop a minor and/or add a concentration.  See the Registrar’s Office to drop a concentration.  Major add or change requests must be made by 5:00 pm on Wednesday of Week 2 to be effective that semester. Requests made after Wednesday of Week 2 will be effective the following semester.  You may need registration waivers for the following semester if your request is after this date. Minor or concentration add or change requests will become effective for the current semester, regardless of when submitted.  Curriculum drops become effective immediately in the current semester. If you are interested in getting a dual degree you should first express your interest to the additional major’s advisor.  If Mechanical Engineering is your primary major, adding a major is almost never a double major.  You should request to add a dual degree.
  5. All add or change requests require advisor approval. Please feel free to contact the advisor of the major/minor/concentration you are adding PRIOR TO using the request system.
  6. A minor requires a minimum of 18 credit hours of course work, but the actual number of credits required varies. Of the minimum 18 credits required, at least 9 credits of the 3000-level or higher courses must be taken at Michigan Tech (not transfer or external placement credits). Students interested in adding a minor to their degree program must consult an academic advisor for their major as well as the minor advisor. It is a good idea to provide a copy of the minor audit, showing the planned completion of that curriculum, to the major advisor. The major advisor can help identify courses that double-count and thereby the number of any additional credits that may be necessary for that major/minor combination.
  7. Credits may count towards both your major and minor. Some minor courses are also ME technical electives and some minor courses are HASS General Education distribution courses, depending on which minor is being considered. Some minor courses may even be specific requirements for your major as well as the minor.
  8. For ME students, the ME-EM department minors (Aerospace Engineering, Manufacturing, and Naval Systems Engineering) can be earned for no additional credits.  The credits for these minors will completely double-count for ME majors if the right technical electives are chosen.
  9. Minors have no minimum additional credit requirements. However, you may need to plan for extra credits if pursuing a minor outside of the ME-EM Dept (e.g. electrical engineering).
  10. Credits may not be shared between 2 minors.
  11. Declared minors must be completed in order to award the degree associated with a minor. An incomplete minor will delay the awarding of the degree and processing of the diploma (i.e. a degree and associated minor(s) must be completed concurrently). A minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0 for courses completed as part of the minor must be earned in order to award the minor. Minors may be dropped by students to allow the graduation process to proceed if desired.
  12. You must declare a minor to receive it, even if all the courses are already completed. The minor must be declared prior to graduation.
  13. Mechanical Engineering-Enterprise students must declare the Enterprise Concentration through this process.  If you need to drop this concentration, that must be done through the Registrar’s Office.  Concentrations cannot be dropped online.
  14. Dropping a double major, dual degree, minor or concentration does not require advisor approval.
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Co-op Credits

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If you have accepted an offer to go on co-op for a fall or spring semester, you should follow the below steps to get that set up with the university or choose to withdraw for the semester.  Relevant summer jobs are typically internships (no credits enrolled for the job experience) and relevant fall or spring jobs often are co-op employment (enrolled in UN3002, UN3003, etc co-op credits for job assignment), however a student may decide to take credits in the summer and not take credits in fall/spring.  Taking credits through the university for the job is what makes it a co-op versus an internship.

  • First, until you have a 100% accepted and confirmed offer agreed to, you should maintain any course registration you have for the semester in question.  Likewise, don’t skip registration for a semester unless your job is confirmed already.
  • Once you are accepting employment, consult with Financial Aid and your health insurance carrier to determine if you need to maintain part-time student status, full-time student status, or if no student status is acceptable for you during the semester you will be away from campus.  Also discuss how your co-op compensation (salary) may affect your FAFSA status.
    • 2 credits of co-op is considered full-time status (equivalent to 12 or more credits on campus).
    • 1 credit of co-op is considered part-time (half-time) status (equivalent to 6 or more, but less than 12 credits on campus).
    • 1 credit of co-op, plus any other registered Michigan Tech credit (online course or on campus) is considered full-time status.  Please see an academic advisor if you are considering an online course so we can discuss options.
    • If you do not need to have student status for any reason, then you can just choose to take no credits for that semester (internship, not co-op).
    • International Students: must take 2 co-op credits in the fall/spring semester and 1 credit in the summer.  Also make sure to consult with IPS regarding maximum limits working in the U.S. while on a student visa.
  • Once you know what you need to do for co-op credits see Career Services (2nd floor Admin Bldg) to drop any course registration and add applicable credits. Part of this process includes meeting with an academic advisor to go over current progress through the curriculum, estimate graduation timing, discuss if there is a academic need for online/transfer coursework while on co-op, registration for the return semester, etc.
  • If you are choosing not to take any co-op credits, instead of going to Career Services, go to the Registrar’s Office (1st floor Admin) to withdraw for the upcoming semester. Make sure you are activated for the next semester’s registration by completing the Undergraduate Application for Readmission.  You can submit the re-admit app anytime after your co-op semester starts and you should do so before registration for the semester you plan to return occurs.
  • For the BSME, co-op credits are usable as free electives only.
  • For the BSME-Enterprise, co-op credits are usable as free electives or up to 2 credits of enterprise modules.
  • Co-op credits are graded based on reports/reflections and supervisor/student evaluations that are submitted during and after the job assignment.  Reports are submitted to Career Services and that office determines due dates, grades, etc.
  • If you plan to try and complete any transfer coursework while you are working your job assignment, please reference FAQ #5 on the ME Undergraduate Advising web page for the transfer process, and consult with an ME academic advisor regarding course options to progress towards your BSME completion.

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