Your First Semester

If you are an entering freshman, your first semester on campus will be a period of change and discovery. You will take courses in areas perhaps unfamiliar to you, adapt to new living quarters, make new friends, and adjust to campus life in general. Additional demands on your time might include part-time employment, involvement in athletics, or other extracurricular activities. Often students are concerned about subject areas they do not feel prepared for (e.g., math, chemistry, etc). All of these factors should be considered when planning courses for your first semester.

A full-time semester course load is 12-18 hours. If you have been admitted as a new freshman, you will probably meet with an assigned advisor in June to determine your semester schedule and enroll for Fall classes. A typical schedule for a new freshman in the Nutrition & Kinesiology major would be as follows:

Deficiencies. The schedule above is suggested only, and will modified by your background and preparation, career interests, and course availability. If you have not taken a chemistry course in high school we suggest that you enroll in CHM 110 General Chemistry (lecture only) your first semester; and take CHM 210 Chemistry I at a later time. The Admissions Office may also recommend that you take a lower level algebra course before you take MATH 100 College Algebra. CHM 110 General Chemistry and lower-level math courses will not count towards the Nutrition & Kinesiology dual-degree program.

Additional career interests.  If you are interested in becoming a Registered Dietitian ("R.D.") in addition to the NUKIN major, you should enroll in HRIMD 130 (1) Careers in Nutrition and Dietetics.   This course will not count towards the Nutrition & Kinesiology program, but is suggested to familiarize you to opportunities in the field and help you make informed career choices.

College courses already taken.  If you have taken courses for college credit elsewhere, you should have that registrar’s office send your transcripts to the KSU Office of Admissions as far in advance as possible (sometimes it takes months to process). This insures that your advisor will have complete set of records so that he/she can advise you correctly when you enroll for classes.

Foreign language. Students who have had previous language training in high school, at home, or through living abroad may be able to earn college credit in that language.  The K-State’s Department of Modern Languages has an informative FAO website that includes info on Placement tests, Advanced Placement credit, and Retroactive credit.  This is of special interest to Nutrition and Exercise Sciences majors because they can take two courses in one foreign language to satisfy the requirements for both Western heritage and for Literary and Rhetorical Arts  (only certain foreign languages will apply).   For further questions you can contact the Modern Languages office by phone (785-532-6760) or send   email  to modlang@ksu.edu You can also access the Department of Modern Languages Home Page.

Closed courses.  Because new freshman enroll after continuing KSU students, some courses or course sections may be closed by the time you enroll. A continually updated list of closed KSU classes is on the web.   If the suggested courses listed above are closed, some alternative ones you might consider are: PSYCH 110 General Psychology, SPCH 105 Public Speaking IA or SPCH 106 Public Speaking I, Humanities courses, or the CIS 101-104 Information Technology series. Another suggestion: if you are given a choice of dates to enroll, come as early as possible to get the best selection of courses.

Speech Quiz-out. Students may earn 3 credit hrs for SPCH 106 by completing the quiz-out option with a grade of C or better. However you are not advised to try this unless you have had the equivalent of a university-level public speaking course. Other good indicators of success are competitive experience in informative speaking, oratory, and extemporaneous speaking, or 4-H speaking. Students who want to try the quiz-out should enroll in the quiz-out section of SPCH 106 in the schedule of classes (usually it is listed with this description as it appears online in the course listings), and follow the instructions that appear there.

Credit by Examination. Kansas State University encourages students to test out of courses if they already have academic knowledge comparable to that gained in collegiate study. Nutrition & Kinesiology students most commonly try to test out of MATH 100 College Algebra, ECON 110 Macroeconomics, PSYCH 110 General Psychology, or SOCIO 211 Introductory Sociology, although other courses are available. Please refer to this website's  Credit by Examination section , and the official KSU website:  KSU Credit by Examination

iSIS.  Get used to using "iSIS", the K-State student information system on the web at http://isis.k-state.edu . You can use iSIS to find out what grades you got at the end of the semester. You can also use iSIS to enroll, add/drop courses, check your semester schedule, and see if you owe the university money. If you move or change your address, telephone number, or e-mail address you can change it through iSIS. It is critical that you let the university know your correct address so you can be notified if needed. Use of iSIS is described more fully in the sections on iSIS, Early Enrollment, ADD/DROP and Grades

You can access iSIS as soon as you have been officially admitted. Instructions on how to access the web in the university open computer labs is described in the section on Computer Facilities/Info

DARS.  This is discussed in greater detail in the DARS chapter, but DARS is an option under the iSIS menu above that tells you which courses you have taken (KSU and transfer courses) apply towards your degree.

Academic Progress Reports. Academic progress reports are provided for first semester freshmen whose academic progress was reported as "unsatisfactory" in one or more courses at the end of the 7^th week of classes. We hope you don’t get one of these! However if you are doing poorly in a specific course or several courses here are some resources to assist you: Please refer to the section on Tutors/Academic Assistance

Advising.  Last but not least, get advising help if you need it.  You can contact Kathy Grunewald (nutrition) who has an appointment sign-up sheet on her office door (143C) or can quickly reached at her email address: grunew@ksu.edu.  You can also call her at the office (532-0171) or at home (539-7070).  You can also contact your Kinesiology advisor or check who your Kinesiology advisor is in the KIN main office (532-6765, Natatorium 1A).

Written and maintained by:  Kathy Grunewald, Ph.D., R.D.
Department of  Human Nutrition, KSU
Created:  May 20, 1999
Last Modified:  May 27, 2008