Amber Slusser wasn’t sure what she would major in when she arrived at Kansas University as a freshman..

Luckily for the Wichita native – and thousands of other KU students – the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center was there to help. After meeting with advisers at the center and spending her first semester exploring different options, Slusser picked elementary education as her future career.

“(The center) has been really helpful for me,” she said. “They really told me what classes I need to take in order to get out in time.”

Exploring different majors was not uncommon during a student’s first couple of years at KU, said Tammara Durham, director of the advising center.

An undecided student should ask for help from the many services available at KU, Durham said. Classes and advising at the advising center and University Career Services are some of the options available for students undecided about a major.

After doing her research, Slusser decided she would transfer from KU after her sophomore year. Her major, elementary education, is a five-year degree at KU and Slusser wants to get out of college in four years. She is, however, taking general education classes that will transfer to the new school, she said.

Students can avoid declaring a major until they have completed 90 credit hours. At that time, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will put a hold on a student’s enrollment if a major is not declared, Durham said.

“A lot of it depends on if the student is coming in with any college hours,” Durham said. “That does affect how much wiggle room they have with that exploration time.”

To finish school in four years, a student needs to complete 15 to 16 credit hours a semester. That number can decrease if the student takes summer classes. It takes a minimum of 124 credits to graduate, Durham said.

Tammara Durham, director of the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center, recommends 14 to 16 credit hours for incoming freshmen. The center helps students decide on majors.

The advising center recommends an incoming freshman take between 14 and 16 hours in his or her first semester at KU.

“For the first semester, it’s better to err on the side of fewer hours,” Durham said. “It’s just a totally different atmosphere for most students. A lot of adjustment happens in that first semester.”

About 95 percent of new students attend new student orientation during the summer, Durham said. The culmination of the two-day orientation is enrollment, when students meet with advisers and pick their classes for the upcoming fall semester.

Four schools – the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the schools of Architecture and Urban Design, Engineering and Fine Arts – accept freshmen. The other professional schools require students to take prerequisite classes.

It can be tricky, Durham said, when a student is vacillating between majors – especially if one of those majors is in a professional school and the other is in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – because the general education requirements are often different.

If this happens, advisers work to try to keep the student on track for both potential majors, Durham said.

If a student wants to change majors within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, he or she needs to fill out paperwork. If a student wants to change schools, he or she needs to fill out a change of school form and make sure to meet all the new school’s admission requirements, Durham said.

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