 Welcome to the Ohio State University and University Exploration. Now that you have scheduled your orientation, we have some very important information we would like to share with you to help you prepare. University Exploration is an advising unit for students who are not yet admitted into their major. We work with students who might still be exploring majors and also work with students who know what major they want but aren't able to declare yet. For students who are still exploring majors, we can help you through the process of exploring and strategically planning your schedule to work towards your degree. For those of you who may have applied to a competitive major but were admitted to exploration, we will help you work towards completing prerequisites for admission to your desired program. As you prepare for your transition to Ohio State, there are a few things you should do prior to your orientation appointment. First, please make sure you take a close look at your transfer credit report. This will show you how the classes you have taken at previous institutions will transfer to Ohio State. Credits from these courses can transfer a few different ways. The first way a class might transfer is as a direct equivalent. This means that the content of the class at your previous institution is close enough to the content of a class here at Ohio State for you to move on to higher level courses. For example, if you took an introduction to psychology class at your previous institution and it transfers a psych 1100, that means it is a direct equivalent. You would have credit for that specific psych class and would be able to take higher level psych classes at Ohio State. Sometimes we don't know enough about the content of a class to determine if it matches directly with an Ohio State class. These classes transfer as general credit, which shows up as G000. For example, you took a psych class at your previous institution, but we don't know if the content is the same as our psych 1100. You would be awarded psych G000 credit. In order to move on to higher level psych classes, you would need to get the course from your previous institution evaluated by the psych department. In order to do this, you need to submit the syllabus from the class at your previous institution to the transfer credit coordinator for the department here at Ohio State, along with some additional documentation to help them assess the course. See the email we sent you for a link to the transfer credit coordinator list. Another type of transfer credit is special credit. This is credit that we know does not match up directly with any course here at Ohio State. These credits might still be useful towards your degree, but cannot be used to satisfy a prerequisite for a higher course here at Ohio State. These credits are designated as S000. Technical credits are identified as T000 on your transfer credit report. These credits are generally from specialized technical skills based courses. Whether or not you can use the credits to fulfill degree requirements will be determined by your degree granting unit once you move out of university exploration. Finally, you might have some credits that have been deferred. These would be designated as D000. If you have deferred credits, please consult with your advisor on how to determine if those credits can be used at Ohio State. If you have general credits, you want to try and get as many of them evaluated prior to orientation as possible. If you are thinking about a major in the sciences, engineering, or health professions, it is very important that you try to get any math and science general credits evaluated as soon as possible. Again, if you need to do this, you will need a syllabus for the course from your previous institution, and then submit that with your transfer credit report to the transfer credit coordinator for that department. See the email we sent you for the link. If you are currently enrolled in classes, please make sure to bring your current course information with you to orientation. We need to know where you are enrolled and the course numbers for the classes you are taking. If you are currently enrolled in a prerequisite to a course you want to take here at Ohio State, you may not be able to enroll in the Ohio State course until you have completed your current class and received a grade. For example, if you are enrolled in equivalent to our Math 1150 and you want to take Math 1151, your first semester at Ohio State, you will not be able to register for that math class until you have received and submitted your final grade in the Math 1150 equivalent. We know that transferring to a new school can be stressful process sometimes. So if you have further questions, please reach out to our office by emailing exploration at osu.edu.