FAQ

The short answer is yes, you can re-do your DSP under both these conditions.

If you begin to doubt the wisdom of your original placement choice after you've registered, but before classes have begun, feel free to go back and re-do the DSP experience. If you change your selection, remember that you will also need to change your registration. Submitting a new choice via the DSP Experience site is not the same as registering for the course.

If your doubts don't emerge until you are actively taking the class you've chosen, there are a couple things you should keep in mind:

1. You probably shouldn't try to jump into a new placement after about the first week and a half of school as you will be starting from behind in your new class. Ask yourself, 'is it really wise to shop for a new class now or should I commit to doing my best in this one and seeing where it takes me?' In these situations, we recommend talking to your instructor about your concerns and getting some advice about whether you are taking the right class at the right time.
2. If you conclude that you are in the wrong class for you later in the semester, after census (the date after which you officially cannot drop or add classes), you may again want to check in with your instructor to see how you can best make a go of (or salvage) the course you're already in. If this is not feasible, you can and probably should re-DSP to select a new course sequence to begin the next semester. Of course, you are absolutely entitled (encouraged even) to continue in your current placement even if you expect you won't pass it. You can still learn and gain valuable practice for the new semester ahead.

You should consider taking a longer sequence if your honest answers to the DSP survey suggest that a longer sequence would best support your development as a writer, reader, and thinker. What's the point of trying to 'just get through' or 'just survive' an advanced course if what you take away from that experience won't support your future academic adventures? As we said on the DSP homepage, most students benefit from more, not less, writing. Keep in mind: it will waste more time and money to sign up for an advanced course and fail it, than to take a yearlong course in which you thrive, make meaningful extended relationships with your instructor and classmates, earn 3 elective credits, and complete your G.E. writing requirement. Remember that Stretch Composition sequences engage with the same kind of college level work that the one-semester course does. The stretch courses provide more support and more time for students to develop as college writers.

Students who are admitted to CSUSB have successfully met expectations for high school writing. Like most first year students nationwide, incoming CSUSB students take first year composition because writing at the university is different from the writing students do in high school. Think of it this way: writing and thinking are intimately tied as you determine what you will say in a paper, as well as how you will say it, right? If, as you probably expect, the nature of thinking and learning changes as you move from high school to college, then so too will the nature and purposes of writing.

At CSUSB, you will be entering intellectual conversations – about ideas, discoveries, and questions -- already in progress among scholars, researchers, professors, and students. Writing is used as a way of participating in these conversations. As such, university writing is not limited to the five-paragraph essay, the Schaffer essay, the research essay, or the thesis-driven essay. Perhaps the biggest shift you will find is this: the move from argument to inquiry. Yes, academics in some fields do present arguments in their writing. But they all begin with inquiry – by asking questions and considering implications before offering conclusions. This is why first year composition students at CSUSB learn approaches to university writing which may include:

• establishing a meaningful project
• using writing as inquiry
• working closely with other texts
• synthesizing the ideas of others to locate and develop your own
• moving between abstraction and specificity
• distinguishing popular discourses from academic discourses
• evaluating information with respect to its rhetorical and social context.
• revising meaningfully
• editing for rhetorical and stylistic purposes
• developing a vocabulary and strategies for determining how to meet the intellectual and rhetorical demands of different academic contexts for writing.