Who is my advisor? When you first enroll in Seton Hall, an advisor from our Freshman Studies program
will help you find classes. This advisor will continue to help you once you arrive
at Seton Hall for your second semester of classes. After that, a student with a declared
major will have an advisor in the department of their major. In some departments,
several faculty share the advising depending on the student’s last name or program
within the major, or the chair or another specialist may advise all students; a list
of the advisors for each major are listed on the website, along with other advisement
resources collected by departments.
What should happen at a meeting with my advisor? Regular meetings with your advisors are opportunities for academic advice and career
advice. You should review your entire plan toward graduation with your advisor to
strategize about required courses, as well as the overall core curriculum for your
college. You should discuss strategies for elective courses, the options of summer
courses, and other opportunities in the context of your career plans. Your meetings
with your advisor can also cover concerns you may have and feedback you would like
to provide.
While you can, and should, meet with your advisor frequently, some meetings will also
cover your schedule for the upcoming semester; at the end of your meeting, when your
advisor has approved your schedule, you will receive a Personal Identification Number
(PIN) so that you can preregister or register for classes. However, this review should
take place in a broad context. Your advisor should review if the proposed courses
contribute to your academic program (your majors and minors and any planned certificate
programs), and whether you are eligible to take the proposed courses.
How do I get career advice? Discussions about your career should be part of every meeting you have with your advisor,
at least once a semester. It does not have to wait until registration time – most
advisors are available for additional meetings to discuss your career options and
questions. You should also visit the Career Center, Seton Hall’s very successful nexus for information on professions, internships,
practica, and Co-ops, aptitude tests and career instruments, and the like.
How can I report if I have suggestions for improving our advising process? One excellent way to share your observations is by using the Feedback form which is linked to the advising page. Also let us know if your advisor is great! We look forward to hearing from you.
How can I authorize Seton Hall advisors to talk to my parents or guardians, if I wish
to? FERPA is the acronym for Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act; compliance with
this Act is managed by the United States Department of Education. This federal law
protects the privacy of student education records and generally prohibits the improper
disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records. Once a student
enrolls in a postsecondary institution, he or she becomes an “eligible student” and
is thus granted FERPA rights. FERPA applies to all educational agencies and institutions
that receive federal funding under any program administered by the United States Department
of Education. Since both, public and private, postsecondary schools generally receive
federal funding, they are subject to FERPA rules and regulations.
A student has the right to control who has access to information about his or her
academic performance and progress. A student must give his or her permission before
anyone, even a parent or guardian, may have access to that information. Students can
find the FERPA Authorization form on their SHU Portal “Academics” Tab. Additional FERPA policies and guidelines at Seton Hall can be found here.
Do I have to see my advisor to get my PIN? Yes, in each of the colleges, undergraduates are required to review their schedules
with their advisors to receive their PIN. This is also true in most graduate programs.
The review does not necessarily have to be on campus; in many cases the consultation
can be by phone call or email if the potential advisement hours don’t fit well with
the student’s schedule. However, it is recommended that students should take advantage
of an in-person meeting when possible, which can promote a fuller and more effective
conversation. While classes can fill quickly and it may sometimes be necessary to
change some of your plans after receiving your PIN, bear in mind that you are responsible
for those changes.
How do we schedule our advising session? You are encouraged to reach out to your advisor throughout each semester, not only
at preregistration time. In terms of preregistration, the Academic Calendar on our website lists the date each semester that PINs are generated and available
to departments. At that point, most departments will contact majors with information
about advising times, though departmental practices may vary and the responsibility
may fall to the student.
Do I have multiple advisors for different majors/minors? Different departments handle minors differently. Some actively contact enrolled minors
before pre-registration; all departments will be willing to help you with a minor
in their programs if you reach out. Few departments will assign an official advisor
for students taking a minor. Keeping on top of a minor may require somewhat more initiative
on your part because the department in which you have the minor does not have your
PIN and it can be more difficult with our systems to obtain a current list of minors.
Some students prefer to keep a minor unofficial to preserve options for other goals
they have, but this practice makes departmental knowledge of its minors even more
challenging, and chairpersons stress that it is easy to change or drop a minor when
necessary – you are encouraged to declare your minor even if you are not yet certain
you will complete it.
What advising should I receive as I near graduation? Naturally, the questions you are likely to have about life after graduation, employment
and/or further study, will increase as you near graduation. In addition to career
advisement, your advisor should go over your degree audit (see degree audit question,
below) with you and verify that you have all needed requirements for graduation.
Your Curriculum and Requirements
How do I determine which Catalogue I should follow? The Seton Hall Undergraduate Catalogue is published each year, generally both in print form and online, and labeled according to academic year. Requirements for graduation, and for specific
majors, minors, and other programs can change each year; however, the requirements
that apply to you are generally fixed according to the official Catalogue published
for the academic year you joined Seton Hall. For example, if you transferred into
Seton Hall in January of 2017, the requirements in the 2016-17 Catalogue would apply
to you. Occasionally, requirements need to change to reflect external authorities
that accredit our programs and offer licenses and similar credentials to our graduates;
sometimes these authorities require changes to students who have already started in
a program.
What is my class standing? Because students may transfer from other institutions, and some students also bring
with them credit for AP courses, Project Acceleration courses, and the like, students
who have joined Seton Hall in the same year may have very different credit totals.
Your class standing is determined by the number of credits you have successfully completed.
A student who has completed fewer than 30 credits is considered a Freshman, one with
at least 30 but fewer than 60 is considered a Sophomore, between 60 and 90 is considered
a Junior, and a student who has completed 90 or more credits is classified as a Senior.
How can I change my major? If you are considering a change of major, the “what-if” tool (see question 19) is
a useful way of gauging how your current courses would contribute to the new major
and how it might affect your time to completion. Most advisors would also be happy
to discuss the new major with you, even if you are considering leaving their program.
Once you have decided on the change, an electronic form is available in PirateNet,
under "Student Records;" look for "Request to Change Major/Minor/Concentration." The
change request will need to be approved by the chairperson of the program you will
be joining, as well as the Dean for that department if it is in a different college
than your original major.
Transfer Students
If I transfer into Seton Hall, how will I find out which courses will transfer? Seton Hall has a Transfer Center located in Mooney Hall, room 15. By calling (973) 275-2387 we will be ready to assist
non-SHU students who are thinking about transferring to Seton Hall, as well as Seton
Hall students after they have transferred. The Transfer Center will work with the
Registrar and the Academic Departments to review the courses you have taken at a different
institution and determine which would carry over to the student’s Seton Hall transcript.
Note that in some cases a course might not have an exact equivalent at Seton Hall
or may be determined to not be at the same level as a course with a similar title
at Seton Hall but in many cases can qualify as an elective.
Course Registration
Should I preregister? During each semester, there is an opportunity for students to sign up for classes
in the next semester; this is called preregistration. In addition to the basic goal
of helping students plan their futures, preregistration gives students who are further
along in their careers an earlier opportunity to reserve a seat in a course that might
fill or a section scheduled at a time that better fits the student’s own schedule.
Preregistration also gives students an early alert if a desired course is not available
in the upcoming semester so the student can contact his or her advisor and make alternate
plans.
Preregistration also provides important information to the University for our continuous
effort to make more efficient use of resources. A course or section of a course that
fills up quickly can lead to the opening of an additional section. On the other hand,
a course offering that hasn’t enrolled sufficient students during preregistration
will be carefully considered for reassignment or cancellation. This means that a course
or section that you are considering for your upcoming semester might not be there
if you plan to wait until after preregistration.
What is a wait list? Each course offered by the University has a set capacity reported in Banner, which
is decided together by the Dean, department and faculty following the policies in
the Faculty Guide. The capacity is based on a number of factors, including the grade
level of the course and the course assignments and course requirements that students
engage in during the course. For example, laboratory courses are ordinarily limited
to the number of lab stations available.
Courses for which all the available seats are taken for a given semester will maintain
a wait list for students who had hoped to register for the class. Students may enter
their names on wait lists for multiple courses or multiple sections of a course. If
a seat becomes available later in the year because another student changes his or
her plans, or the capacity is changed, the first student on the wait list will be
emailed. That student will have 72 hours to take advantage of the opening (24 hours
when we are closer to the end of Add-Drop) before the next student on the wait list
is given the opportunity.
What is Add/Drop? For a few days after the start of each semester, students have the opportunity to
change their current course schedule. Students may wish to do so after attending the
first class or two if they find the class is at a different level than expected or
they have reconsidered their workload for the semester. In some cases, the department
may have added additional sections of a course that the student sees as a higher priority
than one for which he or she is already registered. In these cases, it is the student’s
responsibility to find out about what was covered in the class before he or she registered.
The final Add-Drop date will be posted each semester; no classes may be added to the
schedule after that date.
When do I have to declare my major? The earlier you declare your major the earlier you can take care of courses in your
chosen major that will serve as prerequisites for more advanced courses. While you
can change your major within limits later in your career, we encourage all students
to go into their second year with a major declared; Freshman Studies holds special
events to make the choice easier for undeclared students. The maximum number of credits
an undeclared student may have before officially declaring a major is 75. There are
also some scholarships, both internal and external, that require students to be enrolled
in a major.
Should I consider a dual degree program? Some of our undergraduate programs include special tracks that allow the undergraduate
to start early on a related graduate degree and finish both degrees at an accelerated
pace. For example, a 3+2 program generally means that, after 3 years, the student
would have mostly completed his or her undergraduate credits and would have started
on Masters’ level coursework, and is on schedule to have also earned a Masters’ after
5 years. These options are listed in detail in our Catalogues, and are appealing to
many students eager to save time on an academic plan that includes a graduate degree.
In some cases, officially enrolling in a dual degree program also comes with advantages
in admission to the graduate program, some of which are quite competitive. Since fewer
total courses will be needed for the two degrees, there can also be cost savings though
financial aid is primarily for undergraduate coursework, and students may find that
some potential undergraduate financial aid is unused when they switch to graduate
courses. You are encouraged to discuss these options with your advisor, exploring
both the advantages as well as implications for your financial aid, workload, possible
need to take summer courses, and the like.
Resources
What is a degree audit and how can I see mine? A degree audit is a table of the courses you have taken and the courses still needed
to complete your official major and other requirements. It is useful for checking
that you are on track for your intended academic program, and is worth reviewing at
any advising meeting. Seton Hall students can look at their current audits through
Banner – one way to access yours is to use the “Student” tab, and then select "Generate
New Evaluation." After you have entered the requested information, click "Generate
request," selecting the general audit or the detailed audit.
The same Banner area also offers a useful tool called “what if analysis,” that allows
you to look at majors and programs other than your current ones, and to see what courses
and requirements would still be necessary for those majors. What-if analyses are available
for most majors, though not currently for minors, joint or dual-degree programs, or
special programs (like Honors).
Our Registrar’s Office contacts students whose records suggest they are nearing completion
of their requirements and reminds them about the Application for Degree, which can
be done online. If you believe you are in your final semester but don’t receive this
communication, check with your advisor. Even if you have completed your degree requirements,
you need to file an application for a degree so your progress can be verified by the
Registrar.
