Academics

Congratulations on making the bold, life-changing decision to attend Virginia Tech! It is an honor to welcome you to the Hokie Nation. Being the first in your family to attend college is phenomenal and should instill great pride within you and your family! Here are some things we think are important for you to know as you embark on your new journey:

• Learn college terms: Please visit our resources page to review a helpful list of college terms that you will need to know
• Establish both academic and personal goals: Identify both academic and personal goals you want to accomplish during your first year of college and develop an action plan to achieve them. Refer to your goals frequently to help you stay on track. Personal goals are critical in supporting academic objectives.
• Begin with the end in mind: Think through your desired outcomes before starting your college journey. Once you have determined your desired outcomes, establish a clear agenda, create opportunities, and set goals that will lead you to those outcomes.
• Map out your degree plan: Each major has its prerequisites and graduation requirements available for review. Once you select a major, plan out each semester with the courses required for your major. Contact an advisor within your department to make sure that you are taking the correct courses.
• Create a weekly plan: There are 168 hours in a week. If you deduct weekends and sleep, you are left with 85 hours per week to allocate. Plan out each day on a weekly basis using a planner (paper or digital calendar). Allocate time for study, class time, extracurricular activities, and self-care (exercise, meditation, etc.).
• Connect with faculty and staff in your department: It is important to introduce yourself and build relationships with both faculty and staff in your department.
• Connect with First-Generation Student Support: We invite you to create community through programs with First-Generation Student Support. Please visit our website to learn about programming that we offer during the fall and spring semesters for first-generation college students.

• Through Student Athlete Academic Support Services, each athletic team is assigned an academic counselor who coordinates academic support efforts for individual team members. Visit the SAASS staff web page to identify your assigned SAASS counselor.
• Visit the Sport Practice Time Blocks web page and locate your team’s practice times. You should avoid those times when making your class schedules with your academic advisors during Orientation.

University Libraries gives you access to thousands of journals, ebooks, books, and periodicals, and you don’t even have to be in the library to use most of them. With just the click of a mouse, you can have scanned copies of materials emailed to you.

Speaking of books, you can get your textbooks (and all kinds of other things) at the on-campus University Bookstore and off-campus Volume Two Bookstore. As an added bonus, whenever you buy anything from them, a portion of the funds goes to the university to be used for student purposes. When you shop there, you support your school. (And you can use your Hokie Passport!)