Hello and congratulations on your admission. I was in your shoes last year, and very excited and optimistic. Here are some notes that I hope will help you be successful. I wish I had had them when I started.
- Make friends and build alliances early. Non-traditionals need to be proactive on this.
- There are a lot of shared resources floating around that will help you succeed. Find them and share. Ask an upper termer. This is extremely important.
- You will be assigned to small groups for "small group discussions." Use them as an opportunity to make friends and build networks. My group had excellent rapport and worked together non-competitively. Unlike many other small groups that were decimated after mid-terms, all of our members survived to finals. Some groups were pared down to a single member who then had to be reassigned to another group. Some groups seemed to be hobbled by egos that needed to play "I'm smartest" games rather than help each other. Don't let this happen to your group.
- SGU dismisses a lot of students and a lot choose to withdraw rather than risk getting a "dismissed" placed on their records. An upper-termer warned me on the flight to Grenada that my class of 780 would be thinned to about 500. I didn't believe it at the time but it happened. It was awful and heartbreaking. SGU rules make SGU a harsh place to get an education.
- Go back and read points 1 and 2 and 3 again. Good luck.