Excelling in Your Undergraduate Degree

Traditionally, undergraduate education is characterized by a time of individualization, foundation building, and career setting. More recently, college and university experiences have come to offer vogue opportunities for social and intellectual exploration. The ideal undergraduate experience benefits from each of these approaches, carefully balanced to maximize both enjoyment and learning of foundational knowledge and tangible skills. Certain individuals will begin their journey with an inherent sense of direction or unwavering area of interest, while others will explore and engage in multiple domains before finding their passion. Regardless, a thoughtful design of the undergraduate experience makes use of institutional resources, coursework, teaching opportunities, research opportunities, and extracurricular activities. In this chapter, the authors review strategies to gain the most from each of these domains.