Advising
Academic advising aims to help you learn how to achieve your academic and professional goals. At the College of Law, you bear the primary responsibility for your own academic planning, which includes planning which courses to take, making timely progress toward the J.D., ensuring all graduation requirements are met, and preparing for the bar exam. The Academic Support Director is the professional staff advisor for law students and is always available to help in academic and professional planning. In addition, it is vital for you to identify one or more faculty or staff members who can mentor you during and after law school.
The College helps facilitate your academic planning by
- preparing advising materials
- holding planning meetings
- facilitating interaction with faculty, J.D. staff, and lawyers
- performing degree audits.
You should consult and become familiar with Part IV of the Catalog & Law Student Handbook (pdf), “Choosing Course of Study,” and Part V, "Course Listings and Descriptions." Also, don't forget the Course and Experience Planning Worksheet (Class of 2012-2013) (Class of 2014) and Course Selection Spreadsheet available from this Advising web page.
Early in the second semester, the College presents the 1L Planning Meeting to introduce 1Ls to basic curriculum planning information including graduation requirements, bar subjects, and practice skills. Attendance is mandatory for all 1Ls. A series of Faculty Open Houses then makes it easy to meet with individual faculty members to plan your law school courses and activities to correspond with your interests and career goals. Meet with several different professors to benefit from a variety of perspectives.
Degree audits help ensure you have met all the requirements for the J.D. degree. You may perform their own informal degree audits at any time by accessing VandalWeb and choosing “Degree Audit Report” under the Student Information / Registration menu. The Dean’s Office also performs a degree audit after the application for degree has been received. Notwithstanding the degree audits provided by the Dean's Office, you remain responsible for ensuring that you have satisfied all requirements for graduation.