Academic Planning and Academic Statement Workshop

Calendar:

  • Week 6 Tuesday May 3, 1 – 3 pm, CAL West – Academic Planning and Academic Statement Workshop
  • Week 7 Wednesday May 11, 1:30 – 4 pm, Library – All-Campus Mentoring Day
  • Week 7 Wednesday May 11, 4 – 6 pm, CRC – Academic Fair
  • Week 7 Thursday May 12 – Academic Statement posted (and “turned in”) via your my.evergreen.edu (to avoid a registration hold)
  • Week 8 – Summer 2016 and Fall 2016 Registration. Check your time ticket.

Academic Planning (stop at 2pm):

  • Navigating the online Course Catalog class discussion.
  • “Science 16-17 Spreadsheet” class discussion.
  • Go to the Mentoring Day Schedule, and look over the First Concurrent Advising Sessions and the Second Concurrent Advising Sessions. Pick your top choice from each time slot that you plan to attend, and put your initials next to it on the board. If there is nothing that you find interesting or relevant to your academic pathway, please suggest a session you would find interesting or relevant, and we’ll pass that on.
  • Use the Science Spreadsheet and Course Catalog to identify programs or courses you are considering taking next year (these need not be science programs). If the programs have prerequisites, see if you have met them – if you don’t, find another program, but pay attention to how you can meet the prerequisites. Write down the program names, major topics and themes, and faculty. Plan to meet these faculty at Academic Fair, and come up with three questions you can ask them. Re-read the program description – if your questions are answered there, come up with other questions.
  • Use the Science Spreadsheet and Course Catalog (either for this year or next year) to investigate several advanced science programs that you could imagine taking, even if you’re not prepared to take it next year. In particular, pay attention to listed prerequisites and especially to prerequisites that are implied in the program description. Make a list of those prerequisites, and find programs or courses where you can meet those prerequisites that you don’t already have.

Academic Statement (start by 2pm):

  • Explore the information available at the Academic Statement webpage, especially the rich information under Writing Resources.
  • Since you are early in your academic pathway, it’s likely that this early version of your Academic Statement will only bear peripheral connections to your final Academic Statement. Still, it is an important document for planning purposes, and it’s certainly possible that faculty will ask to see your most recent Academic Statement for programs that have an application/signature requirement, or if you are trying to negotiate an Individual Learning Contract (ILC) with a faculty member.
  • If you have a narrative strategy or structure for your Academic Statement that you are satisfied with, feel free to use that. Spend this time working on that earlier draft, making sure to update it to the current point in your academic work.
  • You may want to try out a different narrative strategy, or not have one you are satisfied with, or not have one at all. If this applies to you, we offer a structure we call “Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead”, described below.

Looking Back, Looking Around Looking Ahead – An Academic Statement Structure and Narrative.

One primary goal of your Academic Statement is to make sense of your academic trajectory. This might involve framing your past work (highlighting certain elements, minimizing others) to impose sense on (or reveal the sense of) that work. For most of you, it should also involve making thoughtful and informed choices about what makes sense to do next, and how best to prepare for that. The writing prompts below are designed to help you look back on your academic work, talk stock of your current work, and look ahead to your future work. The brainstorming and free-writing you do can then be transformed into an essay.

Looking Back. (suggested time: 15 minutes) What previous decisions, pressures, accidents, dilemmas, serendipity, etc. have brought you to this point in your academic trajectory? Brainstorm and free-write on this question. In addition to whatever you might brainstorm up right now, also pay particular attention to other artifacts of your academic path: in particular, any drafts of your Orientation Essay, Academic Statement, past Self-Evaluations, or other written work in which you discuss how you got here. As possible, assemble any brainstorm writing you have just completed along with relevant portions of any of the written artifacts mentioned into a single document under the heading “Looking Back”.

Looking Around. (suggested time: 15 minutes) What are your goals for your current academic work, including your work in Plants in Motion and your work at Evergreen in general? How do your goals align with program-level and institution-level goals? Review the expectations and outcomes from Evergreen and Matter & Motion by reviewing/investigating Evergreen’s Five Foci of Learning and the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate, and by re-reading our Program Learning Goals (which you can find in the program syllabus. Note any of the Foci, Expectations, and Learning Goals for which you have made satisfactory progress (it’s important that you be able to articulate that progress as specifically as possible using concrete evidence), those which you are dissatisfied with your progress towards, and any which you are not interested or able to pursue (for these, it is particular important that you can articulate a defensible position; it’s within your agency to reject any of these expectations but such a choice should be thoughtful). Assemble your responses and add to your previous document under the heading “Looking Around”.

Looking Ahead. (suggested time: time remaining, follow up on your own) Read the following categories and follow along for whichever category fits you best. It’s quite likely that you identify with several categories; in that case, work first on that category which is most immediately in front of you, and then as time permits, work on other categories. If no category resonates particularly with you, choose your own task that you judge follows with the spirit of the activity. Indicate your chosen or created categories, assemble your responses, and add to your document under the heading “Looking Ahead”.

  • Planning to stay at Evergreen and focus in a natural, mathematical, or physical science? Look at the Evergreen Course Catalog for this year (2015-16) and next year (2016-17); you should be able to find both online. The reason to look in both years is that many math and science programs are offered on a two-year cycle, such that something that is offered this year may not be offered next year but would be the year after that. Identify programs and courses that offer more introductory, intermediate, or advanced work in the sciences. Read the descriptions, and pay particular attention to any implicit or explicit information about prerequisites and/or how to prepare for that program. Are you, or are you in process of becoming, prepared for those later programs?
  • Planning to stay at Evergreen, focus in science, and already have your academic plans laid out? Review the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate. Which of those capacities can be developed through math or science study? Which seem harder to achieve through math or science study? Look at the Evergreen Course Catalog for this year (2015-16) and next year (2016-17); you should be able to find both online. Identify areas of the curriculum where you might be able to develop the capacities in the Expectations that you won’t be able to in your science study, and see where there is room for that work in your academic plan.
  • Planning to stay at Evergreen and not focus in science? Look at the Evergreen Course Catalog for this year (2015-16) and next year (2016-17), which you should be able to find online. Identify programs and courses that are in subjects you find intriguing or do plan to focus in. Read the descriptions, and pay particular attention to any implicit or explicit information about prerequisites and/or how to prepare for that program. Are you, or are you in process of becoming, prepared for those later programs? In what particular ways will your work in Plants in Motion help prepare you for non-science work?
  • Planning to transfer from Evergreen to another undergraduate institution? If you haven’t already, identify one or two schools you are considering transferring to. Look particularly at the transfer admissions requirements. Do you apply to transfer to the school or to a major or program at that school? What admissions requirements does your past college work (Evergreen or elsewhere) fulfill? In particular, what does your work in Plants in Motion and earlier programs fulfill? In many cases, the application essay is of particular importance for transfer students – an Academic Statement might be easily modified into a compelling transfer essay. It’s possible that you might have to make a compelling case to your transfer institution to accept your Evergreen credit as counting towards your major requirements; you can use this opportunity to reflect on your work and assemble evidence to support your argument.
  • Planning to go to graduate or professional school? If you haven’t already, identify one or two top graduate/professional programs in your chosen area. Look at the graduate admissions requirements and, see how well you meet those requirements based on your past and current work, and identify any gaps and figure out how to fill those gaps meaningfully. If you already have a fully laid out graduate school plan (good for you!), it might be interesting to investigate why that program has made the subject areas covered in Matter & Motion an admissions requirement – what does your graduate program claim that study in calculus or physics will do for your focused advanced study in their field? In almost all cases, your statement of purpose (letter of intent, etc.) is key for graduate school admission – An Academic Statement should serve well in crafting your statement of purpose.
  • Planning to take a leave of absence? *Please check in with faculty if you identify with this category* If you haven’t already, investigate how to take a leave of absence, paying particular attention to any financial aid implications. Whether you are done with school for the short or long term or you plan to return to Evergreen as soon as you can, figure out your exit strategy and especially a re-entry strategy (when to come back to school – year, quarter, for what program? etc.) An Academic Statement can help with such strategies. Also, in most cases, students who leave school enter the work force; a candid but careful Academic Statement might easily be modified into a cover letter for job applications.
  • Planning to participate in undergraduate research? In the online Evergreen Catalog, look at Advanced Research in Environmental Studies or Undergraduate Research in Scientific Inquiry. See if any faculty are doing work here that interests you. See what background they ask of students hoping to join their research group. Figure out if you have that background or how to get it. Also, do some online research to find out what an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) is and what they entail, then explore options at https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp and other similar search sites you might find. In particular, look at what these programs require of students, and figure out if you have that background or how to get it.