Making the Most Out of Your Wesleyan Experience: Selecting Courses

In consultation with your faculty advisors, you are encouraged to select challenging courses that will expand and enrich your educational experiences and help you achieve your personal goals.

WESMaps: Your Guide to the Curriculum 

The most efficient and effective means of developing an academic plan is through WESMaps and the Electronic Portfolio. During orientation, you are taught how to use these two tools to develop a coherent program of study and to register for courses online.

WESMaps is a Web-based view of the curriculum. This system provides information about the courses offered each semester. Each course entry includes a description, class schedule, prerequisites, general education designations, and the instructor's name. The organization of WESMaps provides a multifaceted approach to the curriculum that allows you to identify courses that have interrelated themes across departments and programs. Information about courses can be obtained by departments, programs, or the instructor's name.

WESMaps is the best way for you to identify those courses whose content, assigned capabilities, general expectations, and focus are of interest to you. Post the courses that you identify in your WesPortal so that your faculty advisor can assess them before meeting with you to discuss your goals for the semester and develop an academic plan.

  • WesPortal: It's All About You and Much More

    As a Wesleyan student, you have your own personal WesPortal on the Web. It includes pages of academic information and plenty of space for you to add files, documents, and additional information. It also gives access to e-mail and provides some other tools like a personal calendar. Because it is Web-based, your WesPortal is available to you anywhere in the world. From the Wesleyan University home page at www.wesleyan.edu, click on WesPortal Sign-In at the top right corner of the page. It will bring you to the switchboard. Type in your Wesleyan e-mail username and password, and click Enter WesPortal— and you're in.

    WesPortal is central to the advising process at Wesleyan. It was created to facilitate communication between you and your advisor and to give advisors the tools and information to most effectively advise you. It offers resources for you to find and explore your own interests and skills so you can get the most out of your time at Wesleyan. It is also the tool you will use for accessing online pre-registration and advisor authorization when you are signing up for classes. Here are some guidelines on how to use the E-Portfolio to get the most out of your meetings with advisors and everything that the Wesleyan curriculum has to offer.

  • Course Registration at Wesleyan

    Pre-Registration

    Continuing and non-resident study students participate in pre-registration during April and November.  First-time students and students returning from leaves participate in January and August, just prior to the start of the new semester.  Students make their course selection using the pre-registration (on-line) system and may adjust their course schedule during the in-semester drop/add period.  For more information about pre-registration, please click here.

    Drop/Add

    Drop/Add opens on the first day of classes each semester and is ten days in length.  The drop/add system allows students to submit drop/add requests on-line.  Instructors accept drop/add requests electronically and drop students who do not attend the first class meeting.  Advisors are able to review and approve drop/adds electronically.  An e-mail notification system informs students, faculty and advisors of daily drop/add activity.  For more information about Drop/Add, please click here.

  • How and When to Withdraw from a Course

    You may decide to terminate your registration in a course for any number of reasons, such as illness, family emergency, or an inability to fulfill the requirements for the course. To drop a course after the drop/add period, complete a drop/add form and obtain the signatures of the instructor for the course, your faculty advisor, and your class dean. Students have until a week before the last day of classes to determine whether they need to withdraw from a course. If you withdraw from a course, you will receive a W, which will be recorded on your transcript.

    Please refer to the Office of the Registrar website and click on Academic Calendar for the current withdrawal deadlines http://www.wesleyan.edu/registrar/. A student who has compelling reasons to withdraw from a course after the deadline may submit a petition to the Operational Committee through his or her class dean.

  • Degree Requirements
    It is your responsibility as a student to apprise yourself of the degree requirements of the University.  These regulations can be found at http://www.wesleyan.edu/registrar/