Choosing a career path is not as easy as it sounds. It needs a deeper understanding of what one wants to be when growing up. But people’s minds change over time. What they wanted before might not be the same thing right now. It becomes harder to choose the right course when the time comes. And a person might enroll in the wrong one. However, that is not an enormous problem since people have the liberty to change their career paths. When people pick the wrong course, they can always ask for a course substitution form and change it, avoiding a career path that they might eventually regret.
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What Is a Course Substitution Form?
A course substitution form is an education form that helps in the process of transferring from one course to another. It makes the process less of a hassle and more convenient, both for the student and the one handling the course changing process. The situation was once in a negative light, but the tides are changing over the years. And the decision to changing one’s academic path is facing a brighter outlook.
As much as 80% of students in America switch courses once during their time in college. Also, colleges are recently encouraging students to explore their options since choosing the right career path is not that easy. It entails a lot of exploration and understanding of what wants to do in the future. Nevertheless, people will eventually look at a student holding a course substitution form in a more positive light.
Course Substitution Form: Why the Need to Change Courses
Before summer ends, a student needs to have a final decision about one’s career path already. And as one holds a course enrollment form, dread eats up the student. However, as we said before, it is not a once-and-for-all moment. If students made a wrong decision in choosing a career path, they could freely change their majors. May it be a negative or positive reason, changing courses is relatively common among college students in America, and students do it for a good number of reasons. Below is a list of the frequent reasons why students switch courses:
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Exposure to Different Courses
There are moments when finding the right major feels like love at first sight. Or more like, love at first sit-in. Sometimes, the academic direction you start with is not the final plan that you had in mind. Some college students stumble upon their desired courses while attending one of the classes of their initial major. And once that happens, course switching is likely to happen. It might be that their original career path is not chosen out of their sheer will but decided by an external factor.
A good example is Steve Jobs, who switched courses for experimentation on ideas. He once sat into a calligraphy class and developed a love for the art of lettering. It is that moment where he got his inspiration for Apple’s beautiful typography.
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Financial Depravity
Education is a life goal and a stepping stone that most individuals need to progress in life. Sadly enough, not everyone can afford to pay for a full two-year course. Even the first year is already difficult to manage, as it is that expensive. As per a study in an Atlantic article, the U.S. spends more on college than any other country.
Moreover, the average American spends about $ 30,000 per student, and it is nearly double the average a developed country makes. It was always like that even before the invention of the automobile, where expenses were for the college itself, fancy dorms, classy meals, and the mania for athletic sports. Even now, colleges are still expensive, but that doesn’t mean the students gain more than how much they paid for it.
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Faculty’s Inability to Usher in Innovative Teaching
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, a former president of India, believed that teaching is a profession that shapes a student’s character, caliber, and future. However, if a teacher is not engaging and inspiring, students will not learn anything from them. Some might even change their majors because of the faculty’s inefficiency to shape students. A recurring problem within college universities is that most professors do not innovate their teaching methods. They stay within what they know and what is comfortable for them. But that does not mean that it is entirely their fault.
A study found that most professors want to innovate their methods but opt not to. One reason why teachers do so is because of a lack of time for planning and catering to other responsibilities that need their attention like research. Some professors want to have a promotion by doing more research so they can establish themselves as credible and even have the comfort of financial security. But it is also at the cost of losing the goal of being an effective teacher to impressionable and bright students.
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Lack of Stable Facilities
People always believed that one’s environment is not a factor for how one drives their life. It might hold some truth to some scenarios, but when taken into an academic setting, it presents a severe problem. A study from Penn State University found that there is a growing body of research about how school facilities impact the learning experience of both the student and the teacher.
Classroom size and lighting are some of the factors that affect how teachers and students engage in classroom discussions. The study mentions that inadequate school facilities affect teacher retention, efficiency, and commitment. For students, it affects their health, behavior, engagement, and many more. And this proves to be a significant factor as to why students change their course. But there are repercussions that one must be mindful of.
The Difficulty in Changing Courses
Changing one’s course may present liberating effects, but it also has its baggage that one must deal with too. Sure enough, many had succeeded in changing their major when they deemed the initial one as suffocating, but some have it challenging. As there are various factors why students want to shift courses, there are also reasons why it is hard for some to do so. And here is a list of the most common reasons why it is difficult for some to shift courses:
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It Is Highly Expensive
Money makes America go round. Almost every service has a price in the country. And that is why changing one’s career path is not an easy feat. It might be financially challenging for the less privileged college students to shift to another major. Colleges are already expensive, and if one wants to change his course, the student must then prepare a sizable amount for the processing service fee. In addition, you will need to go back to square one since the country is very strict with its standards, which entails more costs for the new units.
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Previous Grades Carry Over
In high school, the student always starts every year as a new slate. If the student does poorly as a freshman, it is okay since it does not carry over to the next year level. However, college is a different situation. Every academic grade counts. And even if a student shifts courses, his past academic scores travel with him over to the next. It is a dilemma for some students since not all college departments are forgiving. Some are strict with their standards and do not take in shifting students because of their poor performance from their previous course.
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Taking Another Entrance Exam
If the college department is less strict and lenient with the standards, then the chances are that they will allow the student to get in if they undergo another entrance exam. Although this is a better alternative than the previously detailed two challenges, the fact that the student has to take another entrance exam is still an obstacle to his plan to shift to another course.
How to Create a Course Substitution Form
The process might seem convenient since you only need to input what data the student gives you. But creating a course substitution form that will help students get accepted is nerve-wracking. One mistake in the output might cause the student not to get approved. So when creating the document, bear in mind what information must be present. And to help you, here are five simple steps that will make your output become an effective course substitution form.
Step 1: Instructions Need to be Present
When a student wants to change his major, he usually does not know about the process. Save the student the trouble of asking random people about the process by placing all the instructions on the paper. Dedicate a section on the uppermost part of the document for the course changing process. Specify what requirements does the student need to acquire for the course transfer.
Step 2: Personal Information Sections Is a Priority
It is part of the paperwork process that the student must handout his personal information to the new department. The new department can’t make the student’s transfer legal if they do not have the student’s data. And so the next thing you can do is create a section that displays the personal data of the student. The name, age, gender, nationality, contact information, and street address are the essential things that the new department will ask from the student.
Step 3: Include a Section for the Course Change
America is very strict about letting new people into the country. They do background checks of the immigrants before they let them in. And that mindset carries over to other parts such as the American academe. Most college departments do not let anyone in unless they have full knowledge of the college applicant. And it is that reason that you must include a section detailing the student’s plan to shift into a new career path. A small paragraph will be sufficient as long as it states from what course did the student comes from and what career path does he plan to take next.
Step 4: Signatures Are Essential for the Course Change
The transfer is not legal if there are no signatures present from a handful of school authorities. The registrar will not wholly accept the student’s shifting into a new course if there a no affixed approvals from the dean, professor, and chairman. Although some college departments require other signs of approval from other authorities, so do specify the differences on the paper.
Step 5: Clean Up the Whole Output
You will not lose anything if you do a review or an evaluation of your output. At least by doing the output assessment, you can see if there are still any errors left that you need to edit or correct. Mind all of the aspects and the structure of the output. The document needs to look professional and freshly printed. If it has errors on it, some of the faculty might mistake it as trash or a failed output. So polish up your document well!
Opting to change one’s career path is never something to be ashamed of. Many people are slowly rethinking the idea as something positive and beneficial. Moreover, countless American college students have done it because they found it hard to continue a career path they are not passionate about. Nevertheless, the journey is still quite a struggle. Some people still think negatively about the situation. But there is hope that people will eventually see a college student holding a course substitution form as a person who finally knows what he wants in life.
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