Entrance to Major

In your advising role, you might work with students who are in pre-major status and need to declare their major. Pre-major students are those who have not yet declared their major, so they are typically first- through fourth-semester students. For example, if a student is intending a Psychology major at Behrend but they are still in their first semester, they will likely be in the BCHSS (Behrend College Humanities & Social Sciences) pre-major. This edition of the Advising Essentials will review what you could discuss with a student regarding entering their major, types of entrance to major requirements, and the logistics of declaring a major in LionPATH.

Entrance to Major Considerations

Students are often excited to declare their major. However, there are a few points students should consider when declaring their major and an advising session is a great place to have that conversation.

Types of Entrance to Major Requirements

Not all majors have the same entrance to major requirements, but there are two broad categories that requirements fall into: academic controls and administrative enrollment controls. Academic controls are designed to ensure a student's academic performance is meeting expectations prior to entering that major. Examples of academic controls include GPA and course requirements. Arts Administration and Biology are majors that have academic controls. Some majors cannot accommodate the number of students who are interested in the major because of physical space or faculty resources. In this case, a college might enforce administrative enrollment controls to help maintain the flow of students entering the major. Mechanical Engineering is the only administratively controlled major at Behrend. A complete listing of administrative enrollment controlled majors across the University can be found in the Bulletin .

Entrance to Major Timeline

Every student's path to declaring their major is different. The timeline of when that could happen is based on their academic record and the major they are considering. The timeline below provides a general overview of what students should be doing each semester to work toward declaring their major.

Using LionPATH to Declare a Major

Students can use LionPATH to declare their major using the "Update Academics" function. This is where they can add concurrent majors, minors, and certificates as well.

As always, the DUS advisers in the ACPC are more than happy to answer any questions or provide additional training on this topic. If you have ideas for future editions of the Advising Essentials, please share them by emailing askacpc@psu.edu . Thank you,

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