Ep. 16 - What to Know in the New Semester

Welcome to Episode 15 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast! We're back from summer hiatus and ready to go for the fall 2021 semester! What do you need to know the week before classes start? What do you need to know during the first couple weeks of the term? We have answers for you! 

In this episode, we have:

• Eduardo A. Mendoza - Director, Advising and Academic Services 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey, Yoties. Welcome to the CSUSB advising podcast. It's our return from our summer hiatus. So now we are back just in time for the fall 2021, semester to be starting. In case you forgot, this podcast helps bring you the latest advising updates at Cal State. San Bernardino. Each episode is specifically made for you the CSUSB students and parents. We provide you advising tips, interviews with both CSUSB campus resources and those in academic advising. So welcome again. My name is Matt Markin. I'm an academic advisor and graduation pledge coordinator in the office of advising and academic services. Stars out today, but we'll be back for our next episode. So don't you worry, the fall 2021, semester is here, and for some of you, you are coming back to campus, and for some this will be your first time on the campus. Does that mean all your classes are on campus? Maybe, or maybe you have a mixture of in person classes and online classes. So how do you know what is what do you know? What the deadlines are coming up soon? Do you know where to go for advising? Well, we have a guest right now to talk about all of that, and that is with Ed Mendoza, the director of advising and academic services here at Cal State San Bernardino. Ed has worked on campus for many years, so he's very knowledgeable and is dedicated to helping you graduate. So let's chat with him now. Ed, welcome to the podcast.

Ed Mendoza  
Thank you, Matt, thank you for having me. I'm excited for this.

Matt Markin  
We are excited too. I know Star was, but unfortunately you couldn't make it today, but show must go on. So here we are. So let's start out with, what do you do as a director, and how do you help students or your office help students succeed?

Ed Mendoza  
As a director? I try my best to look at the big picture, but then figure out the details for the how to do things right, how I try to find the barriers, those things that maybe are preventing or holding students back from accomplishing what they want to accomplish. We know we ask them at orientation, in our conversation with students we know they want to graduate, the sooner the better, and let us help them do that. There are times that we are asked by administrators to focus on certain things and how advising plays a role in that. So it's really disseminating that information and what role advising can play in that. Graduation Initiative, retention, helping students raise their GPA. Our office, in particular, advising Academic Services, we are going to be advising the first year freshmen, within their first year, make sure they get off on the right track. Make sure they're taking the units they need to stay on track for four years, that they're understanding the resources that are on campus for them. We also advise students whose GPA may be below 2.0 so we can help them stay on campus and get to graduation as well. We have the graduation pledge program, of course, we have our undeclared population that we support and help them choose a major. So we have a lot of programs within our office as well, but the overall vision, mission, philosophy behind our offices, meet the student where they're at, help them navigate this new world of university and college and, you know, be successful along the way and prepare them for the next part of their life after graduation.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, so our office kind of does it all, a little bit of everything from when they first start to when they're about to graduate. So almost seems like a student at some point during their educational journey might be coming to our office or in contact with us, or staying with us throughout their whole time at Cal State. So that's really good to hear. So speaking of classes, you know, and being at Cal State, Fall term is going to be starting. We know, Saturday classes start August 21 regular weekday classes start August 23 so if a student's thinking, what should I be doing right now? Before classes start, what would be your response to them?

Ed Mendoza  
I'm going to break it up a little. Sorry. Every student is different, right? There's the there's the planners. So what should the planners be doing? I'm sure the planners are already looking at their schedule. What am I going to be walking from here to there? They're probably already looking at what books do I need to buy, or should I have already ordered? Because, you know, Amazon maybe gets delivered in the day. Maybe it gets delivered in a couple of days. But books and preparing, and I'm most professors, within this week of next, not next week, they're probably going to start communicating with students in terms of expectation, in terms of whether it be an email through their Blackboard, slash, Canvas, whatever tool they're going to use for the classes. But for the planners, is that for everyone else, sometimes I'd say, You know what? Take a breath this next week and a half, prepare 15 week semester is pretty is a long. Period. It's not it doesn't make school harder, but it's just a long period, and they just preparing and managing and work wise. Do you need to talk to you know your work and your bosses about schedules? Do you need to talk to family about obligations at home in terms of what your responsibilities are, your priorities are with school and how that plays in but there's not too much, just really making sure financial aid is is handled. So all those pieces, it's always good to check with an advisor. Hey, can you double check to see that I have everything my classroom there, my financial aid is set up. We could always check all that with students too, but, but like I said, there's different kinds of students and and it was a little different. Little different. And if it's I need to not think about it, so I don't stress about it. That's a good thing, too. If you need to start changing that mindset back to school or in person school, that that's going to be a shift as well. But one of the things that that's great about our university that first week is you get to know you get the syllabus. You get to see what the class is going to be about. You get to see get to see all those details and and technically, you still have an opportunity to change your schedule around it, if you choose to. But before classes, take a deep breath. Know, know that school is coming, know that professors are here to help, know that the folks on campus are here to help. But just, just get build that confidence again and maybe get to campus a little early when parking with everyone coming around the same time. But that's kind of, I guess, my tip for now.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, so definitely, if you're listening to this, before classes start, yeah, check your Student Center on your My card account, see if there's any holes or to do list items. But like you said, instructors will be in touch with students, or they might be posting things on their Canvas or Blackboard sites with information. But I know as appointments We have, students are wondering about, what books do I need? And you know, is my financial aid going to go through? So also checking that Cal State email, because you're going to get a lot of emails, but you want to make sure you're keeping on up to date with those. So we talked about prior to classes starting, but let's say, Okay, now it's the first week or so of classes. What are the important deadlines or reminders students should know about in the first couple weeks of school?

Ed Mendoza  
So in our semester world, we have a date that's particular, called census date. That's the last day a student can add a class, but that's also the last student eight can drop their class on my coyote for fall 2021, that date happens to be September 20. Now a student can add a class on my coyote all the way till September 20, because there's a staggered approach the first week of classes, and for classes open, student can still have classes on my coyote week two, three and four of the semester, you need a permission, whether approval and it's in the student center for students to go ask for a permission request to add a class during those weeks. For dropping, you can drop all the way through up to September 20. But be careful, because if you drop below a certain amount of units and financial aid changes, or your package changes, you may owe money back. If you drop all the way down to zero units, you can be prorated in an amount because you technically attended a certain period. So it's all of those. If, for some reason, the financial aid wasn't there, you cannot attend fall 21 we always suggest drop before that August, 21 Saturday, first day of class, because then you won't know anything to the university. But once you start dropping classes, once classes begin, there's some financial implications or pieces attached to that during the semester is really getting to know the area, the places to be, the Writing Center, the tutoring, the classrooms, the offices for your professors, because we encourage office hours, advising your location, you can see that all in students and who your advisor is and so forth. So I think all that would be helpful for students. That's all I could think of right now. 

Matt Markin  
Definitely great advice. But one question we get a lot in our appointments is, if I drop a class, do I owe money back? If I add a class, am I going to pay more than the round 3500 that the tuition and campus fees are. 

Ed Mendoza  
So there's no yes or no answer to this one, because every student is different, once again, based off the units they have or had. So financial aid gives money to students when they're a certain amount of units. When those units change, they can revisit how much money they gave, and they could ask for money back if you're not receiving financial aid. Same thing, depending on the timeline of when the drop happens. They can prorate an amount so that there's depending on days. I mean, we've even said in the past, you know, every day that you. Are enrolled in classes. The charge once September 20 comes around, then that full amount is there, that 3500 per anything over six units, or that 2300 for zero to six units. So there is pieces. The other piece that financial aid is obligated by the federal government to pay attention to is if you attended your classes. So if a 15 week semester, you stop attending in week five for whatever reason, and it's probably a valid reason, but that's why it's important to communicate with someone, because if you just walk away and not tell anyone, the professor might indicate on their report that this student has not attended my class for however many weeks, or when the last time they attended was week five. And financial aid can say, wait a minute, we gave you money to attend this class and receive credit for this class so they could ask for money back, even after the term for financial aid. So it's always making sure that you're talking to someone when you're making some of these decisions, not necessarily for us to say yes or no you can't if you have a valid reason for not attending school or something comes up, because there's so many unpredictable things that happen that's okay. It's really just communicating to see if there's extra pieces that we should do to help you prevent something you have to deal with later on. 

Matt Markin  
Perfectly said. And that all just goes. If you have questions, ask you know whether it's the that specific department. So if it's something regarding financial aid, asking financial aid, or if you don't know who to go to, you always have your advisor who is going to be there. And like you're talking about, first year students usually going to meet with our office and advising academic services. And I guess that goes into this question. If a student is unsure who their advisor is, is it an advising center? Is it a specific person? How can they find that information out?

Ed Mendoza  
No, that's a great question. Thank you for asking that. For those students who have been to campus. That means you were here admitted fall 19 or admitted before. For those who there's a bank campus, your advising center, your advisor had, probably has not changed. It's probably the same advising that you had gone to before. For those that were admitted fall 20, fall 21 and you've had, haven't not had the opportunity to come to campus. It's really getting to know the location. But if you got to meet with an advisor last year, during the virtual year, for us, it should be the same advisor Advising Center. But if you're unsure, or you just never met with an advisor, even if prior or now in your Student Center, towards the bottom, it says who is my advisor there, and it might show a person's name, because that's very specific on this is specifically your advisor, or might show a center. So for example, like Matt, you just mentioned the First Year Advising for freshmen, it will say advising and academic services. I'll have the email that you can click on as the phone number, how you can contact us, our location, so you can always come meet with us or make an appointment with us. It also allows you to go into this appointment system to make an appointment with us, and you'll see advising academic services, but there's folks that probably like doing finding things on the website. So you can always just Google CSUSB advising, and it'll take you to this website, and there's a tab there that says, who's my advisor, and it breaks it down. And there's a tab there says, How do I make an appointment with my advisor? And it gives you instructions on how to do it as well. For the first year students. We hopefully, we've been meeting with a lot of them throughout the year and and the incoming fall 21 freshmen, hopefully after orientation and the meet and greets and the coyote preps that we've done, hopefully they at least know who we are, but yeah, the transition back to campus is, where are you, where are you located, and and so forth, one of the things that an advisor we're going to do to accommodate students, we're going to give them the opportunity to choose if, when they want to meet with an advisor, do they want to do it in person? Because maybe they're on campus and that just makes it easier for them to comment, or maybe they just like the in person interaction or or virtual we use Zoom dollar last year, and we we feel very comfortable with it now. So if they want to continue to have appointments via zoom, we can also do that too to accommodate them, whatever they feel more comfortable with will be available for them. 

Matt Markin  
Probably good news for students, knowing that they have that as options. So maybe they've taken all online classes and are not going to be on campus, let's say, for the most part, during the fall semester, then they have the option to do the virtual zoom appointments. Or if they're on campus and hey, they have a break between classes, maybe they're going to do an in person one, but at least it gives them, definitely gives them the options. Now, speaking of online or in person, some students have asked in our appointments, my schedule shows TBA for my class, or it says. Hybrid. Or, how do I know if it's online or in person? Is it at Palm Desert, the Palm Desert campus? Is it at the San Bernardino campus, they hear terms like asynchronous and synchronous? Can you help break some of that down for us?

Ed Mendoza  
Yeah, no. I mean, I could only imagine students, not that we're any better than them, but we work here 40 hours a week, and we still under need to understand all these words that you just mentioned or acronyms that you just mentioned. But no, you're right. Our campus goal was to come back to campus similar to what we were prior to the pandemic and prior to spring, 2020 quarter. But we also now feel comfortable with more online classes, and we want to make sure we provide that, and then, obviously, to add another layer on top of that with the whole vaccine, or vaccinated now vaccinated for those students who have chosen or are choosing not to be vaccinated, we want to make sure that we have classes for them too, and if they and if by a certain date, they're not, they're not allowed to come to campus because of that reason, we want to make sure that they can still continue their education and obviously earn their degree. So it's kind of thrown it for a loop. There those extra pieces, but the online classes. So if you look at your class schedule. If there's no classroom on there, there's no if there's no classroom, that's a good indicator that it's online, right? But it should say it on there online or fully online and so forth. If there's a date or time to meet, even though it says online, then that's usually what the Synchronous means. Synchronous. Pretty much means, though you're going to be home watching us on Zoom, we still expect you to be watching us during these days, in these times, because that's more than likely when the professor will be giving their lecture. There are some where it won't say a classroom, it won't say a day or time, and it'll say fully online. Those are usually the asynchronous, meaning you do the work at your leisure, your time, if it's at midnight, because that's when you are the best to study or whatever the reason is you do it, and yes, they'll probably be recording from the professor on there using Blackboard or Canvas, like I mentioned before. But those are usually the asynchronous now, our university has invested a large amount of money because we want to make sure we're giving the students the option to succeed. So we've set up a lot of cameras in all the classrooms. There are as many of the classrooms as we could. So in case a professor ever needs to have the live presentation, or be able to have some students for whatever reason, have to do it via zoom, they can just turn that camera on to kind of and every professor is going to create their own rules and policies on that, and I'm sure they will share that with you on those first couple days of classes, but that ability will be there our classrooms are now set up to do, to do that the hybrid ones. Those are the ones where hybrid means, some days this way, some days this way, some days on campus, some days this way. And every professor will probably indicate and every professor might say, okay, only one of the days you need to come to the campus. The other day is asynchronous. You do the work on your own. Or the other day, we'll just meet via zoom at the same time, just another day. Or maybe some professor might say, just the first couple of weeks will be this or that. So every professor might change it up, so it could be a class by class decision on the hybrid model, but the hybrid model means a little bit of both, right? I'm looking here. I don't know if I wrote it all down, but Did I miss any one of those Matt asynchronous

Matt Markin  
Oh, and if the if it's Palm Desert or the San Bernardino campus?

Ed Mendoza  
Great question. I I remember my days working in front of University Hall in the first couple of days of classes, just to try to help students know where to go. And I'm going to say funny, I would, I would find some humor in it. But at the same time, it was set for the students to come and say, Hey, where's this RG building? Or where's this IW building? And those are in Palm Desert, which are a little further away, 70 miles away from this campus in Palm Desert. So it's important that you're looking on your schedule, because the buildings usually say most of the Palm Desert classes are usually section 80 through 99 and I don't expect all students to kind of know where the section but when you're looking at your class schedule, there's usually a five digit class number. But when you're looking at accounting, 2210, Dash 01, or 02, or zero, that's the section number. If it says dash 8182, 80, those are usually the Palm Desert sections. But it's really knowing so. RJ. Is the Rogers gateway, IWS, the Indian Wells, and hopefully you intentionally try to register for Palm Desert classes, but if it's fully online, you can take the classes even though they're Palm Desert sections. You're more than welcome to and same thing with the Palm Desert students, they are more than welcome to take the classes at the San Bernardino campus or the San Bernardino sections that are online. So it's not a restriction. Don't worry about it, can I or can I not, or am I not allowed to? It's more. Matt asked that question so you don't have to worry about having to figure out how I only have 10 minutes to drive 70 miles to my next class kind of, kind of thing.

Matt Markin  
And speaking of like, let's say 10 minutes, we get that question a lot too, in terms of I have classes that are pretty much back to back, and it says they're 10 to 15 minutes apart. Am I going to have enough time to get to my next class?

Ed Mendoza  
So when I when I was a student here, 10 minutes was plenty of time. But when I was a student here, then he had all the buildings that we have now as well. It was still spread out. It was still 10 minutes. Is plenty of time for you to get from class to class. Do not worry about that. I always tell students, you're perfectly fine the back to back classes. Maybe try to figure out if you need a lunch break or a snack break in in the middle of that. Or if you feel you you know, because when you have back to back classes during finals week, they might be back to back finals too, and even though we try to move things around for you. But yeah, no, 10 minutes that you normally have between class, you have plenty of time. Sometimes professors on certain days, maybe you get out a little earlier, depending on the on the time for the week, and other ones already expect that? So you'll be perfectly fine. 

Matt Markin  
And our last question for you is an advice question, like, what advice would you give to students that maybe are coming back to CSUSB after being remote for almost a year and a half, or even those that this is their first time that they're going to be on the San Bernardino campus, whether they're a new student coming in for fall, or they were a new student last year, but didn't have the opportunity to be on campus. Any advice you have for those students?

Ed Mendoza  
It's similar to the advice I try to give students all the time. It's whatever you want out of this. It's up to you. If you just want to come to class and go home, that's that's perfectly fine. Who am I to judge your life and your schedule and your priorities, it's whatever you want out of this. If you at some point did picture college as a place to learn and grow. You're learning in the classroom, but are you doing the other pieces to grow? Are you doing those other pieces to gain that confidence that you're going to need when you're interviewing for jobs in your career path and so forth. If you're looking at to go to graduate programs, are there any things you're doing to prepare for that? Are you meeting with professors that may write your letters of recommendation? Are you meeting with the right folks that can help you prepare for all those deadlines and all those priorities? So coming back to campus. We're looking forward to it on campus to welcome you back. You'll see, if you haven't seen some of the new stuff we have on campus. If you were a student before you left, you saw that we were starting to build a student union that will be open during this academic year, and you'll start seeing that there's some nice new CSUSB letters that you can take pictures with now behind the library. So there's a lot of those fun activities. I know our Student Affairs partners are looking to really engage students and get them involved, because there's so many benefits to doing that. I know covid is still delayed. Some of the programming that we want to do in terms of big events, in terms of maybe national student exchange programs, in terms of study abroad programs, but really engage. Whenever you have the opportunity to engage. You don't have to go to every single thing. You maybe not every single thing is something that matches your interest, but try to engage in some way. Maybe it's engaging with an advisor and getting to talk to them, or maybe it's engaging, like I said, with an activity that you find just more fun or relaxing or or stress relief for you, whatever that may be. But it's really, it's really about coming back to campus to gain all that that you missed for a year. So what are the pieces that you weren't able to do because you were at home and and virtual so start taking advantage of all that. I mean, I've always told students, you pay, you pay a good amount of money to attend school, and part of that money that you pay is for a lot of these resources that you can do use. I didn't mention the the Rec Center. Go work out, go, go do intramural sports, if that's something that helps you. But one of the things too is I to try to try to make a positive of of what happened last year in the pandemic and and so much negative pieces that come with that you are in a position that others have not ever been in to. And for you to thrive through that, for you to be resilient through that, and come back to campus and now do the other pieces. These are things that are going to help you later on. These are things that within yourself you're going to be like. I've been able to do these things before. I know I can do this later. Hopefully build some of that confidence within yourself too. But I guess that's that's really the big thing. Make it whatever you wanted to be, but don't sell yourself short. If you wanted to do something, don't be shy to do it. We can. We can. If you need someone to nudge you, I'll help nudge you. If you need someone to just talk more through it, we're more than helping in the advising community to do that too. So I'm looking forward to seeing all you guys back, though, I may not see every single one, but I think it's going to be great. It's going to be great experience for all of you guys.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, it's definitely great advice. And I mean, especially with knowing that there's plenty of opportunities, but, yeah, you don't have to do everything, but there's always going to be something for you, whatever your interests are, or whatever you're looking to do, and so at least that's definitely something that our institution, among others, too, that we'll be offering our students. So thank you again, Ed, we reached the end of our interview. Appreciate taking the time to give us this information. It's very I know it's gonna be very helpful for our students, and I'm sure they might have more questions and might come to you and say, Hey, can you help nudge me in a certain direction? But thank you again, Ed for joining us.

Ed Mendoza  
Thank you Matt a it was my first podcast, so I appreciate it.

Matt Markin  
Thank you again, Ed for joining us. If you liked this episode and learned something. Make it easy and subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform, Apple, Spotify, Google, you name it, we're there and stay up to date on our social media, Instagram, tick tock at CSUSB, advising until next time. Go Yotes and keep advising.