Attention incoming freshman

Yesterday I worked the open house for graduate admissions here at Stockton. My job was to give out information about the different programs for students considering graduate school. I found that most students were those considering to come in as freshman, and there a common question surfaced. They asked what major is needed to be able to apply for their desired grad program. It is a very good question in the endeavor of paving the path and planning your future. The answer, for all of the graduate programs such as, occupational therapy, physical therapy, communications disorder etc. there is no set undergraduate major that has to be taken to apply to these programs. The saying, "all roads lead to Rome," can be applied here meaning that you can take any major and as long as the requirements and prerequisite courses are fulfilled you can apply to your desired graduate program (for most occur during your senior year). There are however, programs that are more geared toward your desired program. For example, students who want to eventually apply for the Doctorate of Physical Therapy program, here at Stockton, usually come in as biology major for their undergraduate degree. The reasoning behind this is that the requirements for the biology undergraduate degree include all of the same prerequisites for the physical therapy graduate program. This means you won't have to take any extra classes outside of your degree path to cover the prerequisites needed for the program. The same research should be taken for the other graduate degrees as well. When coming in as a freshman/transfer, you are assigned an advisor (called preceptor) and they are very helpful in choosing which major is best for you to take for your undergraduate and take in account your planned graduate degree.

Making the decision to go to graduate school

Making the decision to go to graduate school is a difficult, but rewarding task.  There are many questions to ask yourself in choosing which school and which program you want to pursue.  You most likely have a general idea of what field you want to continue your education, but be reminded that most graduate programs are very focused and fine-tuned to specific professions.  Before going through all of the trouble of applying to a program, do detailed research on aspects of your program so you are confident that you know what the profession entails and it is the goal you want to pursue.
After establishing a school and a program, time must be delegated in preparing yourself to be a desirable applicant by making sure all requirements for the program are achieved.  These requirements could be prerequisites, volunteer hours, CPR certification, etc.  In making yourself a desirable applicant, apart from good grades, you may want to apply for an internship in the field, try to establish important connections, or if available join the club organization that the program is associated with.  When the program directors have your application coming across their desk, you want them to already have heard about you, or have an application that cannot be refused.

Do not miss the deadlines!

A tip to all fellow students applying to grad school. Your number one priority should be successfully completing your application and making sure all of your information is in the Graduate Admissions office by your deadline. If at all possible try to give yourself some room for error and submit it at least a month before the deadline.  There are those who believe that it is a relaxed deadline and Graduate Admissions can take your application, background info., etc. after the deadline passes.  As much as I wish this was the case, it is not.  You want to turn in your information ASAP to take away the possibility of having those devastating unforeseen factors like losing your info. in the mail, not filling out information correctly etc. For those of you who do not know when the deadline for the program you are applying for, you can simply click this link Graduate Programs. It will take you to the page of graduate programs. Just click the drop down box of your desired program and it will show your particular program's deadline.

Finding information for Stockton's Graduate Programs

Here is an easy way to get the information needed for those who are uncertain if they have met their requirements in applying for graduate school.  Whether it be information on the needed prerequisites, observation hours, letters of recommendation, etc., navigating Stockton's website is easy. You could either click on this link Graduate Degree Programs, or go on to Stockton's website (www.stockton.edu) and type in the search bar, grad studies.  Once you have searched grad studies you just click on the first link on the page, which says School of Graduate and Continuing Studies - Graduate Studies. It will take you to the graduate studies web page. This web page has links to information such as, financial information, starting Stockton's application, graduate events, graduate programs etc. For information on particularly the graduate program of your choice just click on graduate programs, and find your graduate program.  You can click on the drop down bar and there will be the desired information. If there are any other questions or concerns, you can call the Office of Graduate and Continuing Studies at (609-626-3640) or email at gradschool@stockton.edu.

How to: Handling Online Classes

I was someone who originally despised online classes because I ran into many of the common problems that many other students faced in taking them.  Through learning good tips and experiences, I actually feel quite the opposite about online courses and have now grown to like them. Like many of my fellow students, some of the common things that I did was put my online classes on the back burner and stress about them when the assignments would build up. Lets face it, time management and organization seem to be the biggest downfalls for students. To avoid this, I developed my own system of organization so that due dates are not missed, and you will have plenty of time to do assignments stress free. I provided some tips that I wish I received when taking my first online courses. Doing these will greatly increase the chances in succeeding and excelling when taking online courses.

-First tip, go out and buy a daily planner if you do not have one already.  It will come in good use when you receive your course syllabus. The beauty of having an online college course is that all of the assignments are already planned for the semester and are shown in your course syllabus. As soon as you get the syllabus for your course, look at it and then mark all of the due dates of your assignments in on your daily planner.  This may be tedious at first but well worth it in the end.  I do this for all of my classes now. It gives you an idea of how much time you have on your assignments and allows you to prioritize what assignments are needed to be done first.
-Second tip, plan certain days of the week and times to dedicate yourself to completing the assignments. This will put you in a routine schedule which will help you avoid procrastination, and missing assignments altogether.  Usually with online classes, teachers make assignments due the same day and time each week which will allow you to easily come up with a routine schedule.  It is best to make this schedule so that you complete your assignments a day or two before its actually due. Which brings me to my third tip.
-Third tip, never do assignments the night that it is due. This is for multiple reasons.  First off, if it is the first time you are looking at the assignment you may not understand how to do it, then you have to email the teacher and it may take days for a response.  This may result in losing points on your assignment or handing it in late.  Second, since the class is online, you may run into technical difficulties where your computer may crash or have a virus etc. In this case you can email the teacher ahead of time and may get an extended deadline to complete your assignment. Lastly, I seem to have better quality of work when I am not stressed out and trying to complete my assignments last minute.

These are just a few tips of how I organize and utilize time management for my online classes. This technique may not be useful to everyone, but I know it seems to be the strategy for many students who are online class veterans.