Daniel Thomas

Bradley Turnbull
Washburn Experience
September 27, 2016
Academic Plan
For my academic plan, I filled out and felt pretty good about my rough draft. In order to
solidify my academic plan, I had to visit my academic advisor, Professor Vincent-Giles, in the
Criminal Justice department. Prof. Giles was actually very pleased to see that I had my academic
plan already filled out, and filled out correctly. Only a few revisions had to be made. Most of the
revisions were just placement issues. For example, Prof. Giles suggested that I take Chemistry I
and Chemistry II in the same year and not spread them out. Prof. Giles also suggested that I take
classes the last semester of my senior year, this way instead of overwhelming myself to graduate
a semester early, I just take one or two classes my last semester and graduate then. Some
questions I had prepared for my advisor were things like what she recommended I take for my
minor, what I should do placement-wise for some of my courses. I also asked my advisor about
her opinion on my general education courses and whether or not she thought they would be good
fits. Overall, Id say my meeting with my academic advisor was very useful and insightful. I
highly recommend every freshman to build a 4-year academic plan and meet with their advisor
in order to prevent academic stress and create a sense of control over their academic success.
Building an academic plan is a great way to plan out your academic success and make
revisions on the way. Because of my academic plan, I know exactly what classes Ill take at each
semester. Im most looking forward to taking classes like forensic biology, forensic

anthropology, forensic science, applied criminology, and masterpieces of American literature.

However, classes like chemistry I and II, general cell biology, and organic chemistry are going to
be extremely challenging for me. A way I planned for this was scheduling general cell biology as
my only class in the spring semester of my senior year. I also set, for myself, three SMART goals
for my college career, which are maintaining a 3.25 overall GPA, get involved in one more
organization on campus to be more successful in the classroom, and study for more than my
required 10 hours a week for my fraternity. This academic plan will substantially help me in my
college career because now I have a set plan and I know how to follow it and what classes to take
for each semester. I highly recommend that all freshman create and academic plan and go over it
with an academic advisor in order to be more successful in college.