ESS 613: Late schedule changes policy

Laura Vogt:
Hello, thank you for joining me and the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt, the associate director of marketing and communications in the College of Engineering. Last week I said it was our penultimate episode of the season and I lied. We actually have another episode that we’re slipping in here, but that’s because we have a new update to late schedule change policy and process. I know that’s really exciting. It’s something that’s been being worked on for some time now, so thank you to Sharon Mueller for being here today and helping me and all of our undergrads understand the changes.

Sharon Mueller:
Thank you for having me. I’m sorry to surprise you with this pop-up podcast.

Laura Vogt:
Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the College of Engineering? I know you did it at the beginning of the season, but it’s been a couple of months-

Sharon Mueller:
Yeah, that was a while ago-

Laura Vogt:
… since we had you.

Sharon Mueller:
Yeah. I’m Sharon Mueller and my official title is that I’m the director of advising and policy in Engineering Student Services. I’m basically over all of the advising for engineering student services.

Laura Vogt:
Let’s start at the beginning. What is the new policy and why is it being implemented?

Sharon Mueller:
Yeah, so the new policy is a bit of a departure from our previous policy. Continuing students might recall that we had what we were calling a green petition and a blue petition, and those petitions were being used for students to request late changes to their class schedule, so that could be a late drop, a late ad, a late grading option change. We are now changing that to that every College of Engineering undergrad during their career as a College of Engineering undergraduate will be granted up to two semesters during which they can make changes to their schedule if they’re experiencing some kind of hardship. So this is a little bit of a combination of the previous blue and green petitions, but we are implementing this now because we are noticing that there are a lot of residual impacts from the pandemic that we’re still seeing and we’re still witnessing with our students.

Sharon Mueller:
We wanted to offer a policy that basically says, “Okay, this semester you are having a particularly challenging time. Your life circumstances have been pulling you away from your academics and it’s going to be particularly challenging for you to remain in your current course schedule. If you could drop a course or two that would relieve significant stress for you and would help you manage everything that you’re juggling right now.” We really want to remain flexible with students when they’re having a semester like that. During that semester, once a student requests a late action, which could be a late drop, the action is not automatically approved, but it will go to a committee to be reviewed. The big difference here is that there’s no number limit within that semester because we know sometimes you might think, “Okay. Well, if I can just drop one class, I know I can manage things,” but then your life circumstances become even more challenging and then you’re thinking, “Wow, I think I really do need to drop another class.”

Sharon Mueller:
So we really wanted to focus it on this particular time in your life may be challenging and we want to offer some flexibility to allow you to make some late changes to your class schedule, and you get to do that for up to two semesters while you are an undergraduate in the College of Engineering. I should mention that this two semester limit is really strict, so requests beyond two semesters will not be considered, so we really advise students to use these wisely and to consider, “Can I stick it out or is this so impactful that I need to make a change and I need to make it quickly?”

Sharon Mueller:
I should also mention for the continuing students who have used a green petition in the past or maybe a blue and a green petition in the past that those have no relevance at all to this semester count, so this is a starting over point for everybody. Even students who’ve had late petitions approved in the past, everybody is starting over. From this point on, meaning fall ’22 moving forward, every student will get two semesters regardless of where they are in their progress within the College of Engineering. So whether you’re a first-year student or a senior, everybody gets the benefit of the two semesters. This policy only applies to fall in spring semesters, it does not apply to summer. So if a student is approved to drop something late or make a late change in the summer, we’re not counting that as a semester, that’s just in addition to. Did that seem clear enough?

Laura Vogt:
No, that totally makes sense. I think we’re going to touch on a couple of those points here in more of our questions. I know that you worked with your advisors to come up with what they think potential sticking points or questions that their students might come with. So first off, is this the same as the LNS policy?

Sharon Mueller:
It’s actually not, and I think it could be easy to confuse because L&S, the students in L&S are allowed to drop up to two courses after the deadline and that’s it. So it’s up to two courses during their entire time as an undergrad in L&S, and those go through automatically. Ours is different in that we’re really focused on the semester and not necessarily the number of late actions. Within that semester, there’s no limit to the number of late actions a student can request. It doesn’t mean they’re all going to be approved. Often it’s not in the student’s best interest to say drop four out of five of their classes. It might make more sense for them to withdraw at that point, so there will definitely be some back and forth with the advisor. The committee will have some recommendations that might be beneficial to the student rather than dropping this course or so they’re not automatically approved in engineering, but they’re also not limited by the number of late actions. They’re just limited by the number of semesters within which they can request late actions, if that makes sense.

Laura Vogt:
When you say late action is, are you talking specifically of I’m dropping one class that is one late action?

Sharon Mueller:
Right. Right. So in L&S, the rule is basically you get two late actions, so that’s basically two courses, but in engineering, it’s two semesters worth of late actions. You might only need to take one late action in a semester and that might be enough to relieve you of the stress that you’re dealing with. I want to mention that we know that college is stressful. We expect that our students are going to be stressed at varying points during the semester. What we’re really talking about when we’re talking about personal hardship are things like, “Are you so stressed that you’re not sleeping? Are you so stressed that you’re not eating or that you’re not taking care of yourself? Are you having a serious illness? Are you having some mental health struggles?” We consider all of those things personal hardships. We do ask students when they submit their request, and we’ll talk in a minute about how they would do that, but when they submit their request, we are going to ask them to choose which applies to them.

Sharon Mueller:
We have a few examples of different reasons we might think students may need to take a late action. I already mentioned significant personal hardship, could be serious health or death of a close family member that could impact a student, could be that a student needs to work more now because of some kind of financial loss within the family. It could be that a student is just trying to add research late and didn’t get the code from the department on time, or it could be that they plan to change out of the College of Engineering and no longer plan to take those technical courses and want to change their focus to switch to a different college, so those are just some examples. Then we ask students to explain their situation a little more just so that we can understand what’s going on with them and we can make sure that we are providing resources and support to help them through this semester. Should I talk a little bit about the process, because that’s also different from the green and blue petitions?

Laura Vogt:
Yeah, because it’s replacing the green and blue petitions, right?

Sharon Mueller:
It is. It is. The green and blue petitions were basically Google forms, so students would fill out Google forms. What we’re doing now is it’s an electronic form that students will have access to in their Cal Central dashboard. It’s not there yet. It’s not going to be there until September 15th because the add/drop deadline is the 14th, so it’s actually not even going to appear for students until September 15th. But it’s right there on the dashboard. I think it’s called Late Schedule Change Request, and it’s all in electronic form. It’s a pretty complex form in, for instance, if students are requesting to drop classes, which would result in them going below 12 units, the form is then going to say, “Oh, you’re going below 12 units, we want you to upload a program plan.” So they’re given a link to a program plan, they need to fill that out and upload it as part of their request. Depending on what they’re requesting, they might be triggered to upload something or provide more information and then they hit Submit.

Sharon Mueller:
Once they hit Submit, the form starts routing, it will always route to the student’s ESS advisor. Then all requests are going to be reviewed by a committee, but depending on the situation, the request might be routed elsewhere as well. If students are adding a course late, it will be routed to the instructor to approve. If the student has an F-1 or J-1 Visa and they’re going below 12 units, the form will also be routed to the Berkeley International Office for approval. If the student is an NCAA student athlete, the form will also get routed to the Athletic Study Center for approval. Depending on the request, the routing could go to as many as maybe three people or it could just go to one, but the student will be able to see where the form is being routed. Once it’s submitted, it’s final; however, it’s possible that the advisor could recycle the form back to the student if they need more information. If that were to happen, the student would get an email saying, “Hey, your request needs action,” and then there’ll be a link to the form. They can go in, they can read their advisor notes about what they need to do in order to resubmit the form.

Laura Vogt:
Are you asking students to meet with their advisors before they submit?

Sharon Mueller:
We are not. We’re not asking them. They are absolutely welcome to meet with their advisor, however, if they’re really not sure whether or not they should do this this semester. If they want to talk through their circumstances and determine, “Is this really a hardship that would lead me to use one of my semesters now, would you consider this to be a significant personal hardship?” We know that sometimes once those first midterms roll around, and this can happen particularly with new students who, of course, are used to being stellar students and getting excellent grades and maybe they have a little slip up on their first midterm and maybe the transition is a little more challenging and they don’t get the grade they want, I would say wait it out, hold out, wait it out, get tutoring, come to talk to your advisor, connect with resources and see what you can do to pull yourself out of that. It’s not really intended to be a GPA saver, it’s intended to be a tool that offers relief to someone who is having significant challenges in their personal life.

Laura Vogt:
What are you asking students to do to show what’s happening with their extenuating circumstances?

Sharon Mueller:
Oh, yeah. That’s another big change. With the previous blue petition that we had, which was our extenuating circumstances petition, students actually had to provide documentation of what was going on. We are not requiring any documentation with this form, it’s all self-reported. We’re just asking them to briefly tell us what’s going on to make sure that we’re supporting them and to make sure that we have the information we need to provide to the committee that’s going to review these, but no documentation from an outside source is going to be required. The only exception to that that I’ll mention is if a student indicates that they’re requesting this late change because of DSP, which is the Disabled Students Program, sometimes students have an exacerbation of the symptoms of their disability. We do ask them to upload the letter from DSP, which DSP is happy to provide to them, but other than that, we don’t require any documentation.

Laura Vogt:
Is there a way for students to request this if they don’t have what might be an expected extenuating circumstance or something that’s not on the list?

Sharon Mueller:
In those cases, I would encourage them to talk to their advisor. Sometimes students think, “Well, yeah, things are hard, but I don’t know that it’s at the level of significant hardship.” I really encourage students to talk to their advisors because that they might be under the impression that what they’re dealing with is what every student is dealing with, and maybe it’s not. Our advisors have a lot of experience advising students and have a pretty good sense of what normal stress looks like versus more debilitating stress. Even if you think, “Oh, my situation doesn’t fit tidily into any of these boxes,” that’s okay. Please make an appointment with your ESS advisor and talk it through.

Laura Vogt:
Now, you had said once you submit this, that it’s set in stone, this is what you’re doing. Does that include if somebody says, “Nevermind, I’ve changed my mind?”

Sharon Mueller:
Yes, I’m afraid no takesies backsies on these, you can’t take it back. Once you hit Submit, it’s done. It’s final. It’s going to go through the routing process. There’s no changing of your mind, which is why we really encourage students who are on the fence or not quite sure, just meet with your advisor and talk it through whether or not you should go through with this.

Laura Vogt:
Now, what happens if a student does this and ends up needing an extra semester? Is that possible?

Sharon Mueller:
Part of a stipulations of this new policy is that students have to certify when they fill out the form that they will still graduate within the allotted timeframe. So that means that students who were admitted as first-year students have eight semesters to graduate and transfer students have five semesters to graduate. That’s why we do ask students to upload a program plan if their requested actions would drop them below 12 units, because we want to make sure that they can still reasonably complete their degree within the allotted timeframe. If they’re struggling with that, then they really need to talk to their ESS advisor. It might be the case that we would recommend that they withdraw from the semester instead, because if they withdraw, that doesn’t count as one of their semesters at Berkeley. Even if they got to the 10th week of classes and withdraw, it does not count as one of their enrolled semesters for their time to degree. If there is a concern about being able to finish on time, they should really talk to their ESS advisor before submitting the request.

Laura Vogt:
That’s also why you were saying that they should talk to their advisor if they were thinking of using it to drop all of their classes.

Sharon Mueller:
Right, because if you need to drop all of your classes, you actually don’t use this form. There’s another form on the Cal Central dashboard, which is a withdrawal request form. So if a student decides they just need to drop everything, then they would use the withdrawal request instead of the late schedule change request.

Laura Vogt:
If a student’s request is denied, does that count as them using it one of their two semesters?

Sharon Mueller:
Oh, good question. It does not, no. The only time it would count is if it’s approved and if a student needs multiple approvers, like the instructor and the NDSS, everyone has to approve. So it will only count as one of your semesters if the request is fully approved and goes through.

Laura Vogt:
Is there any opportunities for students that have already exhausted that two semesters?

Sharon Mueller:
There isn’t, no. We’re going to be very strict about the two semesters. So I’m afraid what’s going to happen with that is if you are having a third semester where you’re having some significant personal hardship, you’ll be advised to either continue or withdraw; withdraw, which means drop all of your classes.

Laura Vogt:
What happens if the students are doing a late drop class specifically because of DSP, is that still using this form?

Sharon Mueller:
It is. It’s still using this form and it still counts as one of their two semesters.

Laura Vogt:
I know we talked about this a little, but what do you really think that students should not use this petition for?

Sharon Mueller:
Yeah. I really, really want to impress upon students that this is a privilege and they should really treat it something that they really need to use it when they need it. You never know what’s going to happen in the future. If you decide to use the form because let’s say you got a C on your first midterm and that’s really bothering you, and you don’t want a C in that class and you’re concerned you’re not going to be able to pull the grade up, that’s something every student deals with. We wouldn’t consider that a personal hardship. Transition to college is something that every student deals with. It’s just how are you responding to that? If that C has put you in a complete tailspin and you’re not eating and you’re not sleeping and you’re going to seek out counseling because it’s been really difficult for you to cope with that, well then I think it probably is a personal hardship.

Sharon Mueller:
That is something that we expect students will experience at some point as an undergrad, that they’re going to have some tests scores or some project grades that are disappointing to them and that is part of college. It can become very detrimental to students when they’re having a really difficult time coping with that, and we want to know those things because we want to make sure we’re connecting them with counseling services, with tutoring if that could be helpful to them. That’s why we really want to know what’s going on. I really encourage students, if you get a C on that first midterm, come and talk to your advisor. Come and find out all of the resources that we have to help you get a better score next time, but that is something we expect will happen with most students and usually would not be considered a hardship.

Laura Vogt:
I don’t know if this matters, we could cut the question if we need to, but does it affect students that are doing study abroad?

Sharon Mueller:
So for study abroad, they don’t even follow our policies. They just follow the policies of the university where they’re studying, which could differ significantly from ours.

Laura Vogt:
Then my last question for you is, what’s the deadline of being able to submit this form?

Sharon Mueller:
Oh, yes. That’s a really goo question.

Laura Vogt:
So you’re saying it’s not available until the 15th, but is it-

Sharon Mueller:
It is not available until the 15th because the add/drop deadline is the 14th, and so this form will be available to students between September 15th and December 2nd. December 2nd is the last day of classes and it’s the Friday before our RRR Week. So this form will be available to students until 11:59 PM on December 2nd, although I shutter when I say that because I really implore students not to submit it late on December 2nd, just in case there’s some technical issue. I would prefer that students, if they get to the end of their classes and they are thinking of submitting this form, that they do it well before Friday, December 2nd, just in case there are issues or your internet goes out or something like that, because once 11:59 passes it’s gone and there is no other option at that point.

Laura Vogt:
I think we would both want to reiterate to everyone that if you’re questioning whether this form is correct for you or this is the decision that you need to make, who do we want them to talk to?

Sharon Mueller:
Yes. We want them to talk to their ESS advisor and they can make an appointment with their ESS advisor on our coesandbox.berkeley.edu/students page. There’s a blue box right there that says, Make an ESS Advising Appointment that will automatically set them up with an appointment with their assigned advisor. Yes, definitely use your ESS advisor as a sounding board, as a resource before you submit the form, because it is irreversible. Once you submit it, you can’t take it back. If you have any questions or you’re just not sure if you should submit this form, definitely come and talk to your ESS advisor about it. Can I mention one more thing about the form that I forgot to mention? I wanted to mention that in the College of Engineering, we have an additional deadline that no other college has for their students, and that is Friday of the fifth week of classes, which this semester is September 23rd.

Sharon Mueller:
That is the deadline for students to change grading options in non-major technical courses. What that means is technical courses that cannot fulfill any requirement for their major. So for students taking an extra technical course just for fun, it can’t do anything for their major, they do have the option of taking it pass/no pass, but they have to decide by Friday, September 23rd. If they miss that deadline, they will have to use a late action to request that change. What is a little bit tricky is they can’t actually use this particular form between weeks five and weeks 10 because we’re the only college that has that early deadline, so they need to talk to their ESS advisor. We’re going to have an internal Google form that they’re going to use for that, and then the ESS advisor will submit the petition through the system.

Laura Vogt:
If a student submits this form and then decides to completely withdraw for the semester, does it still count against their semesters

Sharon Mueller:
If they submit the form, yes, and it was approved and I could see that happening that perhaps a student thinks, “Well, I’m just going to drop one class and then I think things will be manageable,” but then four weeks later they say, “Actually, you know what? I just need to withdraw.” If that first drop went through and was approved, yes, this does count as one of your semesters, even if you end up withdrawing and in other words, dropping all of your classes, but it will count as one of your semesters once you’ve submitted the form.

Laura Vogt:
If one of the students does the internal Google form because they wanted to change their grade to pass/no pass for those-

Sharon Mueller:
Yeah, like in tech course-

Laura Vogt:
… non-degree technical-

Sharon Mueller:
Uh-huh.

Laura Vogt:
If they did that and then a few weeks later ended up dropping a different course, that’s also part of the one semester, right?

Sharon Mueller:
That’s right. Yeah. Even though it’s a slightly different process just because in engineering we have this extra deadline, that is still within their first semester of requests.

Laura Vogt:
It’s a lot of changes, but I think they’re good changes.

Sharon Mueller:
Yeah, I think so too. I’m excited about it. I think in the past with our blue petition, it could add a lot of additional stress to students to try to pull together documentation. Sometimes they were down to the wire trying to get documentation and we’re really hoping that without their documentation requirement, it’ll make the process more smooth for students who are already struggling with other things in their lives.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much for giving us all this info. Is there anything else that we wanted to add or that we, one more time?

Sharon Mueller:
No, you know what? I will just restate the policy one more time. The new policy is that College of Engineering undergraduates will be able to request late changes to their schedule for up to two semesters during their time as an undergrad. Within those two semesters, there’s no limit to how many late schedule changes they can request. Doesn’t mean they’re all going to be approved, but they can request as many as they want if they choose to have that be one of their semesters.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much for being here today.

Sharon Mueller:
You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Laura Vogt:
Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I look forward to podcasting with you next week. Bye.

Sharon Mueller:
Bye-bye.