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Academic Advising

Priscilla Baker

After you have transferred into the Biological Systems Engineering Department, your academic advisor will be Ms. Priscilla Baker. Ms. Baker is here to help you with questions regarding registration, degree progress, planning for co-ops, etc.

Disclaimer

Information on this website is unofficial. University catalogs and other official documents take precedence over the information that is available here. The material presented here is to aid you in planning your academic program to best fit your interests. Ultimately you are responsible for making sure that you fulfill the graduation requirements. We present these aids to help you achieve your goal of a degree in biological systems engineering.

Advising

Multiple Career Pathways are available to assist you with your selection of BSE, engineering topics, and technical electives, depending on your ultimate career interests:

        For Students Graduating in 2015-2017

    

            For Students Graduating in 2018

These pathways are recommendations only to help you plan your courses in the correct order to meet pre-requisites.  These are not degree options.  To receive a B.S. in Biological Systems Engineering, you ultimately must meet the requirements listed on the checksheet for the year in which you will graduate. You may also develop a personalized selection of electives, but be sure to do so with help from your academic advisor, as some courses are only offered once per year and others have multiple, sequential pre-requisites.  

Virginia Tech has a wonderful Career Services Center to help you find internships, co-op positions, and full time employment. The Career Advisors website for help in finding a BSE faculty member involved in a particular field you would like to explore as a potential career area.

Some students have a strong interest in an area outside of the BSE Department that they wish to pursue as a minor or as a second major. To sign up for a minor or major, please see the department offering that program.

The checksheet for all minors can be found at:  https://www.registrar.vt.edu/graduation/checksheets/minors/index.html

Some of the more common minors earned by BSE students are:

Students can double major in any two majors as long as they meet the requirements for both degrees. Please see the Graduation Requirement listings page for checksheets summarizing the requirements for any major at Virginia Tech. If a student meets the requirements for two majors and also earns 30 more credits beyond the credits required for the for the primary major, they can earn a double degree (two separate degrees rather than one degree with both majors listed). Students listing BSE as their primary degree would need 162 credits for a double degree. For more information about degrees and second majors, please see the Registrar’s website.

Most colleges and departments have their own policies for "force-adding" or adding students to sections that do not appear to have open seats. For safety issues, no department is allowed to add more students than the maximum room capacity set by the fire marshal. Departments can only force-add students into the courses that their own department is teaching, so to request a force-add, you must approach the department teaching the course you want to add.

Note that force-adds are NOT performed for convenience, to place you in the same section as a friend, or to switch to a different instructor. It is our goal to keep enrollments in the various sections of a course as balanced as possible to avoid overcrowding and to improve the learning experience of all students in the class. Your request for a specific CRN may be denied if there is space available in other less crowded sections.  The College of Engineering posts a generic force-add form that can be used in the absence of a special form that may be required by department performing the force-add.

If you need to force-add a course in BSE, please follow these instructions:

  • BSE 2484: For safety reasons, no force-adds will be allowed
  • BSE 3494: Class roster is determined by the Ware Lab. Please contact Ware Lab manager (Dewey Spangler, spangler@vt.edu) for more information.
  • All other BSE courses. Please complete this survey.
  • BIOL 1105/1106: BSE majors only: complete the above survey.

Grades & Transfer Credits

Students are awarded transfer credit for courses in which they earn a C or higher. If a student earns a C- or lower, they do not receive transfer credits. (Transfer credits should be taken in the A/F grade mode at the transfer institution due to the C or higher grade requirement.)

Transfer credits earned at other schools do NOT affect the student's Virginia Tech GPA. Students wishing to improve their GPA over the summer while living at home should consider taking online courses from Virginia Tech instead of taking transfer courses.

To find out which courses are being taught online from VT, you may do a search of the our Education Abroad section.

Study abroad courses are evaluated for transfer equivalency the same way as courses from US colleges are evaluated, but you should allow more time to have these courses evaluated. The Dean's Office recommends that you allow a minimum of 3 months for courses to be evaluated after you have submitted the form with complete syllabi for the courses you plan to take.

Depending on the school and country in which you plan to take classes, it may be difficult to obtain sufficient information about the courses before you actually take (or complete) them - some schools do not use syllabi and you will need to bring a copy of your class notes and graded work with you to have the courses evaluated. Please be aware that you are taking these courses at your own risk.

The only way to guarantee that you will receive the credits you expect is to have your courses pre-approved through a transfer credit request form. A verbal okay from a faculty member is not a guarantee that courses will be equivalent!

The purposes of Policy 91 are to identify at-risk students who are not making sufficient academic progress toward their BSBSE degree and to develop a plan and contract for the remainder of the student’s program of study at Tech. Any Biological Systems Engineering student who does not:

  • maintain an overall GPA of 2.00 or higher, and
  • earn a C- or better in BSE 2004 and pass PHYS 2306, MATH 2224, 2214, after having attempted 72 hours (including transfer, advanced placement, advanced standing, and credit by examination),

will receive an e-mail informing them that they are on "Policy 91" probation.

Students on Policy 91 probation are required to sign a Policy 91 contract at the start of each semester. They may also be required to meet with the Biological Systems Engineering Assistant Department Head for Undergraduate Studies or another member of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee to discuss goals and requirements for the coming semester to ensure that the student makes sufficient progress toward their BSE degree.

The requirements of the Policy 91 contract may include, but are not limited to the following:

  • a minimum overall and/or in-major GPA to be earned during the next semester the student is enrolled;
  • a minimum number of credits counting towards the student’s degree to be passed during the next semester; and,
  • a list of specific courses that must be passed during the next semester.

Failure to meet the conditions of the contract may result in academic suspension. The student will be required to meet with the Assistant Department Head each semester to set new goals until the student reaches both a 2.0 overall and a 2.0 in-major GPA, at which time they will be removed from Policy 91 probation.

The student will have a hold placed on their account if the Policy 91 contract is not signed or if the student does not attend a required Policy 91 meeting by the deadline sent in the notification e-mail. The hold will prevent the student from taking future courses at Virginia Tech. (Transfer courses taken at other schools do not affect a student’s Virginia Tech GPA, so they will not help a student earn their way off Policy 91.)

Policy 91 students are often advised to retake prerequiste courses in which the previous grades were below a C- to help strengthen their background, to make it more likely that they will succeed in later courses. This also can help improve overall and in-major GPAs. If previous grade(s) in a course are all C- or lower, the new grade will average into the GPA as if it were for a different course. (If a C or higher is earned, a course cannot be retaken for a grade - the grade reverts into a P/F grade and can only hurt the student's GPA.)

The graduation requirements to earn a BS in Biological Systems Engineering are:

  • A total of 132 semester credits (does not include credits from the list of checksheet for the year of graduation
  • A minimum overall GPA of 2.0000
  • A minimum in-major GPA of 2.0000 (includes all courses with "BSE" prefix in course number)

Notes

  • Technical electives should be selected from the list of technical electives approved by the Biological Systems Engineering Department.
  • If you take a course that double counts in two different University Curriculum for Liberal Education (CLE) areas, unfulfilled credits must be replaced by free elective credits to reach 132 credits. Courses satisfying Area 6 may NOT be double counted to fulfill another University CLE area.
  • For a list of courses that satisfy the various University CLE areas, please see the instructions to apply for a degree posted on the Registrar's website. If you are not sure when you will graduate, you should take a guess at your graduateion date and modify it later if your plans change. If you would like to be excused from the ceremony, please indicate that you do not plan to attend the ceremony and list the address where you would like to have your diploma mailed.

    If you do not apply for a degree by the posted deadlines, you will not be included in the commencement ceremony. (The deadlines are usually early in the semester that you plan to graduate, but if you apply for a degree earlier, this gives us time to fix errors on your degree audit report so you receive your diploma on time.)

    Degree Audit Report System

    The Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS) is a computer-generated report that matches the requirements of a degree program with a student's completed course work. The audit identifies those graduation requirements that are completed as well as those requirements that still need to be completed. Once a student has applied for a degree (see above), they may generate a DARS report by following the instructions to run a DARS report provided by the Registrar.

    You may run a DARS report and notice errors. Listed below are some common errors and what you should if you see this error on your DARS report:

    • Foreign language entrance requirement not met:
      • If you took two years of the SAME foreign language in high school AND you are sure that the Registrar's Office has a copy of your final high school transcripts, an error may have been made and your requirement not checked off. You should contact the Registrar's Office or your academic advisor for help.
      • If you are a transfer student and took 2 years of the same foreign language in high school, you may need to have your high school transcripts sent directly to Virginia Tech. Transfer schools do not forward your high school transcripts to VT.
      • If English is your second language, please contact the Foreign Languages Department in 331 Major Williams to see if they can waive the foreign language course requirement.
    • Required course number change and course is not satisfying the requirement:
      Please contact Dr. Thompson to find out whether a substitution can be made.
    • Course is showing up on the DARS report, but is not satisfying the course requirement:
      This sometimes happens with transfer credits (especially MATH and ENGE courses). Please contact Dr. Thompson.
    • Technical electives are not showing up as technical electives:
      The DARS program only lists the first 15 credits of technical electives it finds. If you do not have 15 credits of technical electives and your course is showing up as a free elective instead of a technical elective, please contact Dr. Thompson.

    If you have errors on your DARS report that are not listed above or if you have any other questions about your DARS report, please contact Dr. Thompson.

Engineering students who are within 12 months of graduating are eligible to take the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam, which is offered multiple times per year. Application instructions for VT students and alumni can be found on the College of Engineering Website under ‘FE Exam Instructions.’

Virginia Tech offers a 2 credit, online, pass/fail review course for the FE exam, ESM4404, Fundamentals of Professional Engineering, which is offered during the spring semester. These credits will NOT count towards your engineering degree, as the course duplicates material you should have learned in other courses.

Passing the FE exam is the first step in becoming a licensed professional engineer. Some employers may require that their engineers become licensed, especially those who work with projects involving public safety. For more information on becoming a professional engineer, please see the NCEES website, which also includes more information about the FE exam.

The FE exam is administered by the Virginia DPOR (Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation) - please see the DPOR website for additional information about the FE exam. Per the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), most states recognize the Engineer in Training (EIT) certificates from other states (which are awarded once you pass the FE exam and graduate from an accredited engineering curriculum).

If you are not sure if you will need to become licensed for your future career, we encourage you to take the FE exam during your senior year. The exam is based on material from your undergraduate courses and BSE students have a very high pass rate (about 90% of our students pass the exam on their first attempt). If you wait until after you graduate to take the FE exam, it is likely that you will need to spend more time studying to prepare for the exam.

If you are planning to graduate and participate in the commencement ceremony, you should do the following:

  • Apply for a degree, preferably by the start of your junior year, but no later than the beginning of the term you plan to graduate (see above).
  • Run a DARS report each semester to be sure that you are on track to graduate. Re-run your DARS report when you get a new class schedule or when you make changes to your current schedule (including changing grading options!). Report any errors to the appropriate contacts (see above).
  • Update your application for degree (see above) if your plans change. Be sure to change the date to the term that you will actually complete your graduation requirements. If you would like to be excused from the ceremony, please indicate that you do not plan to attend the ceremony and list and updated address where you would like to have your diploma mailed.
  • If you are graduating in the spring or summer, check for e-mail from the Dean's Office (Christi Boone) about commencement. Students graduating in the summer have the option of participating in the commencement ceremony in May before they complete their graduation requirements. You will need to purchase a cap and gown at the bookstore.
  • If you are graduating in the fall, you need to buy a cap and gown and show up about 30 minutes before the start of the December commencement ceremony. This ceremony is smaller and less formal and you may not be contacted about the ceremony ahead of time.
  • Information for graduation announcements: Students graduating in Biological Systems Engineering have the degree title as "Bachelor of Science in Biological Systems Engineering." If you complete at least sixty (60) hours at Virginia Tech and meet the following GPA, the distinction noted on your diploma will be as follows:
    • 3.8 or greater overall GPA: Summa Cum Laude
    • 3.6 to 3.7999 overall GPA: Magna Cum Laude
    • 3.4 to 3.5999 overall GPA: Cum Laude

For information about the commencement ceremonies, please see the Commencement Information website. In the Spring, the University holds a ceremony Friday afternoon  in Lane Stadium for all graduates. Graduating seniors sit in the stands and are not individually recognized at this ceremony. The College of Engineering holds its spring commencement ceremony on Saturday in Cassell Coliseum. During the College ceremony, students are called up to the stage individually to receive their diplomas. No tickets are required for either ceremony.

The Commencement website lists details and times for the ceremonies. The College ceremony typically alternates between 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM from year to year.