Early in Your Program?

If you are early in your college program, here is your opportunity to build a strong foundation for your college success. Courses you take during the first year should focus on building up the required skills in reading, writing and mathematics. Your Placement Assessment results will guide you in selecting courses most suited to your academic needs and readiness. Results from the Placement Assessments may allow you to:

1. Waive the first-level of writing (through essay writing assessment) and/or the college-algebra-level math requirement, or

2. Identify some developmental courses that will help you lay a solid foundation for you to take on more difficult courses later ensuring your college success.

Learn more about Exemption Criteria, Test Options, Test Schedule, Course Placement and more at Placement Assessments. Choosing general education courses that meet the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MnTC) requirements will prepare you to be a well-rounded educated person and help you develop your communication, analytical and critical thinking skills.

Map out the courses you need to complete your program starting with:

• Metro 101 Your Academic Journey
• InfS 115 Information Access recommended
• Writing course (as assessed)
• Math course (as assessed)

Your next term select general education goal area courses such as speech, science, humanities and literature.  Consider a Psych 107 Career Planning and Development or Psyc 108 Career and Life Planning for Women that meets Goal V: Social and Behavioral Science requirement and explores the world of work and possible careers. In addition, the following courses are designed to introduce you to the discipline or area of interest that may also satisfy general education requirements:

• BIOL 101 Introduction to the Life Sciences
• CJS 101 Introduction to Criminal Justice
• COMM 200 Creating Change through Communication, Writing and the Arts
• EDU 123 Exploring Urban Education
• ETHS 100 Introduction to Ethnic Studies
• HSCD 100 Use and Abuse of Drugs: An Introduction
• LIT 100 Introduction to Literature
• MIS 100 Fundamentals of Information Technology in Organizations
• MGMT 100 Introduction to Business
• PRSP 301 Perspectives: Educational Philosophy and Planning
• PSYC 100 General Psychology
• SSCI 100 Introduction to Social Sciences

In addition, many of the 300-level introductory courses to the different disciplines may have prerequisites and require admission to the major such as Introduction to Social Work, Connections and Introduction to Communication Studies, Marketing Principles and Finance.

You can learn more by reading the course descriptions that explains what will be covered in the course and find the list of "Prerequisite(s), which means taking courses in their proper sequence so that you can build on the content that you have learned in the previous course.