Virginia Tech - Human Development
User since Fall 2007

While a few human development students find us as freshmen, the vast majority of our undergraduates discover our major through one of our entry level courses or word-of-mouth, so many students come to us as sophomores or even juniors. Because our students have so many different career interests in the human services they are often double majoring or working on a minor. This makes for some complicated decision making as students grapple with pre-requisites, major requirements, and restrictions on when courses are offered. It was for all of these reasons that we jumped at the chance to incorporate BecomeAlum course planning into our curriculum. The BecomeAlum plan of study is actually an assignment in one of our early classes, assuring each student takes ownership of their education. In addition, BecomeAlum provides composite reports of all student plans which helps our Department plan how often and how many sections of classes to offer, an especially valuable tool in times of scarce resources.

Mary Ellen Verdu
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Dept. of Human Development



Virginia Tech - Human Nutrition Foods Exercise
User since Fall 2008

Laurie Bianchi, M.S., undergraduate coordinator in Virginia Tech’s Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise department, considers BecomeAlum “an essential tool” when working with college students. “It is extremely helpful for curriculums that enforce prerequisites and/or have specific semester offerings of classes because the student can see immediately that a planned class can or cannot be taken in a given semester. It also allows the academic advisor to access the student’s plan of study at any time and provide electronic feedback.” Advisors can review the plan and make comments but only the student can alter the plan.

Laurie Bianchi
Undergraduate Coordinator
Dept. of Human Nutrition, Foods, & Exercise