Who will assist you with course registration?
For most students, Mr. Jody Patrick (patrick.216@osu.edu), from the Office of Distance Education and eLearning, will be your academic advisor while at Ohio State. Jody will assist you with selecting and registering for courses, and making any schedule adjustments throughout the term. During your first semester, you cannot add courses to your schedule on your own; an academic advisor must do it for you.
Typically exchange students majoring in the fields of Psychology, Sociology, and Political Science will be assigned an advisor in their major department in addition to Jody Patrick. If you are majoring in one of those fields, e-mail the exchange program specialist Caroline Omolesky (omolesky.2@osu.edu), to be put in contact with this additional academic advisor.
How many credit hours must you take?
You must enroll in at least 12 credit hours to maintain J-1 status, and it is recommended to take no more than 15. That is approximately 4 – 5 classes.
Be aware that federal immigration regulations specify that no more than 3 online (“distance learning”) credit hours can count towards full time enrollment. In other words, you must take at least 9 in-person credit hours. If you see a course listed as “hybrid delivery” it means it is partially online, partially in-person, and this counts towards your in-person credit hours.
How can you search for courses?
Ohio State’s course catalog information is found on this page of the Registrar’s website, and this site hosts an additional class search tool. Be sure to filter by the semester in which you will be enrolling.
Syllabi are usually not publicly available online. If you wish to view the syllabus for a course, e-mail the course instructor or the department in which the class is offered.
You do not have to take courses just in your major field of study, unless your home university requires it. You are recommended to register for at least one course outside your field–for example, a class you might not have the opportunity to take at home.
What courses are available to you?
Ohio State has many “colleges” that cover different disciplines. Our Student Exchange Agreements with your home universities are always on behalf of a specific college, so you are expected to register for courses primarily within that college. Most student exchange agreements are through our College of Arts & Sciences, so that is where most of you will take your courses, unless the agreement with your school happens to be through the College of Engineering, College of Education, or other college.
If you wish to take courses outside of Arts & Sciences, for example within the Fisher College of Business, that enrollment is sometimes possible, but not guaranteed— it will depend on space availability and whether you can get instructor permission for any given class.
Before you can register. . .
There are two items you must complete through Buckeyelink before you can enroll in classes.
The first is the Community Enrollment Question, which requires you to inform the university of whether you have ever been convicted of a felony. Visit Buckeyelink, and click on the second link that says “Applicant Center.” Log in (using your “last name.#” as your username, and whatever you set as your password) and click the “Accept/Decline” link in the Admissions section. After you accept you should be able to proceed to the “Community Enrollment Question.”
The second is the Financial Responsibility Statement, which requires you to confirm that you agree to pay any charges on your student account associated with being an Ohio State student. For exchange students this doesn’t include tuition, but does include non-academic fees. To complete the FRS, go to Buckeyelink, and under “My To-Do List” you will see a link for “Financial Responsibility Statement.” You will have to log in, then you can check the appropriate box to complete the requirement.
What is the process to register?
After you are accepted, once you have identified courses you want to take, and completed the tasks above, e-mail Jody Patrick (Patrick.216@osu.edu), or other assigned academic advisor, to introduce yourself, giving your name, your major at your home university, and attaching your course enrollment request form (you will be sent this form via e-mail shortly after admission), listing what classes you wish to take. Jody may request that you e-mail the instructor for a course directly to request permission to enroll. Instructors may also request a copy of your transcript.
When should you finalize your schedule?
You should aim to have a full course load (12 credit hours minimum) on your schedule prior to arrival on campus. If you make minor adjustments after you arrive, that is fine, as long as you maintain full time enrollment.
Classes for Autumn Semester 2020 begin on Tuesday, August 25; you must have a full time course load by that date. The last day to add a course without instructor’s written permission is the end of the first week of classes, Friday, August 28, 2020. The last date to drop a course without receiving a “W” (for “withdrew”) on your transcript is the fourth Friday of the semester. Further detail from the Registrar’s office on “important dates” for adding and dropping courses can be found on this page of the Registrar’s website.