Please try to keep in mind that, while your development as a whole person is always important, the university offers a extraordinary opportunity for intellectual growth that is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate elsewhere. You should keep in mind at all times that someone is paying for your education and that time not devoted to that end is wasted money. Many students have a job to provide income while in college. Ask yourself whether you do the job to ensure yourself the best university experience, or whether you work primarily to pay for your automobile, your stereo, or some other item that is not indispensable. Time to study, to read, think, converse, and grow intellectually is the most valuable asset you can have at WVU. If you do not agree with these statements, it may be worth questioning whether you are in the right place at this time in your life. There are many alternatives and opportunities for learning in a lifetime.

Students are responsible for keeping track of their academic performance and for taking steps to improve. If you find yourself struggling, you need to assess the reasons for the problem. The most common reasons for poor performance at WVU are insufficient study time and a lack of background preparation in the subjects offered in the core curriculum and your major. Obviously, the two are linked. If you have a weak background in physical geography for example, you will need to compensate for this by devoting extra study time to courses like Introduction to Physical Geography, Weather and Climate, or Geomorphology.

The old rule of thumb, to study two hours per week for every hour of class time, remains most valuable. For example, for each three-credit class, you should plan to spend six hours a week reading, outlining material, and reviewing and editing notes. Writing papers, preparing other assignments, and studying for exams would require additional time on top of the routine six hours per week. Students with weak backgrounds may need to study more than this. If you writing skills are not well developed, you need to ask professors for additional feedback on your papers and perhaps to begin using the University Writing Center, which is open daily.

Help is available for most academic problems students face, including those which are rooted in non-academic matters such as health and personal difficulties. Your advisor or other faculty members of the Department of Geology and Geography will be happy to direct you to resources and people who may be able to help you get on top of your troubles. Most members of the faculty are more than willing to discuss your work with you and suggest ways it might improve, but you must take the initial step of recognizing your situation for what it is and ask for assistance.

As stated in the Undergraduate Catalog, you must complete 128 credit hours in order to graduate. Since most students complete this course work over eight semesters, the normal course load is five courses (15 credits) per semester. Remember the ‘rule of thumb’ and you will quickly calculate that you need to set aside 45 hours a week outside time spent in class for your primary study. That is 60 hours per week over the entire 15 weeks of the semester reserved for study. It is no light burden of effort that you commit yourself to when you register for classes. You take on considerable responsibilities and they should not be taken on lightly. (But even allowing for 7 hours sleep a night, you will still have 59 hours of the week remaining for eating, working for income, in recreation or relaxing.)

There are a number of reasons why someone might depart from the normal pace of five courses per semester. For example, students who take intensive language courses sometimes enroll in only four subjects at a time. Some people take classes during the summer session and others enter WVU with advanced standing; under certain circumstances, these situations can enable you to reduce the load carried during the academic year. On the other hand, some students try to finish their degree program in less than four years by combining full course loads or overloads with summer studies.

If you are interested in departing from the normal load of five courses during one or more semesters, you should discuss the matter with your academic advisor. Please note that you must have written permission from a dean to enroll for more than 18 credit hours. Please also note that first- and second- year students are granted permission to take overloads only in exceptional circumstances.

Also, you should check with your advisor before enrolling for fewer than five three-credit courses to make sure that you understand the impact this will have on your progress towards completing your degree.

Grades at West Virginia University are awarded on a five-point scale from A (4.0) to F (0). Please see the Undergraduate Catalog for the numerical value of grades recorded by the registrar.

Awarding grades is the responsibility and prerogative of members of the faculty. Grades reflect the professional judgement of faulty members about the intellectual quality of your work in their classes. Although students tend to focus on the amount of time they devote to a course, professors ultimately judge achievement rather than effort. What counts is the quality of your thought, argument and knowledge of the subject to which the course is devoted.

Most professors outline the requirements for each course and the method of reckoning the final grade on the syllabus distributed at the beginning of the semester. If you have any questions, you should raise them at the outset. You are also responsible for meeting the timetable for submitting papers and other assignments and taking midterms and final examinations. Although many faculty members will grant extensions to students with compelling reasons who request them in advance, no professor is obligated to accept late or incomplete work. Faculty members also reserve the right to mark down papers or other assignments that are submitted late. Students ignore these facts at their peril. One of the golden rules of undergraduate life is to do your academic work thoroughly and to complete it on time. All of your other commitments (to extracurricular activities, volunteer projects, internships and part-time work) must be tailored with this responsibility in mind.

Quality grades (A through F) awarded by professors at the end of the exam period are presumed to be final. A request to change a quality grade after the end of the exam period may be made only under the following circumstances: a) the professor recognizes that he/she miscalculated the final grade according to the guidelines explained in the course syllabus; or b) the professor argues that he/she was mistaken in the original assessment of one or more assignments completed by the student in the course of the semester. The faculty member, the department chair and the Dean must approve all requests for grade changes. Please note that the Dean will not approve requests for changes in quality grades based on extra assignments or rewrites of earlier assignments completed after the end of the exam period.

The decision to initiate withdrawal form a class should be the result of careful reflection and consultation with the faculty member teaching the course and your advisor. There are many reasons why you might consider withdrawing from a class. You might find yourself overburdened with work from your other classes or find a certain subject particularly difficult or unrewarding. You might fall ill in the course of the semester and be advised that is best to lighten your load in the interest of making a good recovery. In deciding whether or not to initiate a withdrawal, you should consider the overall impact of this decision on your academic record. A couple of withdrawals in the course of an entire college career will not compromise your credentials with graduate schools or potential employers, nor will a case in which illness or a family emergency forces you to withdraw from a full semester of study. A pattern of withdrawals, however, suggests reluctance or inability to carry through with a full-time program of study and is the cause of legitimate concern.

If you consider the possibility of withdrawing from a course, you should know that you must be enrolled in at least four-three credit hour courses in order to maintain the status to a full-time student. Maintaining full-time status is important for international students as well for recipients of certain types of financial aid.

Students are expected to complete all the assignments for each course by the date of the final examination even in the cases which professors have granted extensions for work due earlier in the semester. Incompletes (I grades) are granted in cases of illness and other grave situations which prevent students from finishing their work on time or (rarely) at the request of the professor. Incompletes are not intended to allow students to escape the consequences of poor time management or confused priorities in the course of the semester (see Grades, above).

If you think you have grounds for requesting an incomplete grade, you must receive permission from the faculty member teaching the course no later than the last day of class. Outstanding work for incompletes must be finished in time for the professor to submit the final grade to the Dean’s Office by the deadline for the next regular semester. Please note that if you make arrangements with a professor to complete your work after the end of the semester without obtaining formal approval, the registrar will automatically enter a grade of F for the course.

Adapted for West Virginia University, Geography Program from the "Undergraduate Academic Program" Georgetown University, 1997 pp. 18-21.