TRIO's goal is more than just to help students to succeed academically. We strive to help students learn to be self-sufficient by providing them with a list of resources and advice to consult and return to.
Here students can find our previous Lunch & Learn/workshop presentations, some general advice about navigating college, campus & community resources, and some tech tutorials.
Lunch & Learn Presentations & Materials
Advice for Navigating College
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How to Make Changes to Your Major(s) and Minor(s)
While it may seem daunting, the process of making changes to your field of study is actually pretty simple! Whether that's adding, changing, declaring, or dropping a major or minor, you'll take the same steps across the board.
Before making any changes to your major or minor, you must meet with the Dean, Department Chair or Designee of the academic department or school for the major/minor.
During or after this meeting, students should work with the Dean, Department Chair, or Designee to request these changes. The Dean, Department Chair, or Designee must send an email to the Registrar, with you, the student, cc'd in the email request. Students are also advised to have any of their other academic advisors (such as your TRIO advisor) cc'd in the email as well. Requests may be emailed to graduation@umontana.edu.
Major/Minor/Option changes are effective for the current semester if submitted during the first 15 days of instruction. Otherwise, these changes will be effective for the next semester.
You can also declare more than one major and/or more than one minor. This is common for students who have overlapping fields of study.
Be sure to keep track of your credits on DegreeWorks every semester to ensure you're on the path to graduating with all of your requirements fulfilled! If you need assistance with DegreeWorks, you can always set up an appointment with your TRIO advisor to perform a credit audit.
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How Do I Know What Textbooks I Need?
Your first step should be to visit the . The website can be a bit buggy, so we recommend checking it frequently in the two weeks leading up to the first day of class.
To find your materials, you will need to search by course number and section number (ex. College Writing 1= WRIT 101 01). You can find this by looking at your Student Profile in Cyberbear.
However, the website doesn't always update before the beginning of the semester, and not all professors have their class materials available through the Bookstore. If your class shows as having no materials, we encourage students to reach out to their professor directly through email and to ask about the textbooks they will (or won't) need for the upcoming semester.
Some classes have course materials that are paid for by the course fees you pay as part of your student bill. Others may use free online textbooks. This information is often (but not always) reflected when you enter a class into the Bookstore website.
Lastly, if your professor is not responding and the Bookstore shows no results, many past course syllabi are archived through . It is worth looking at a syllabus for the past 1-3 academic years to see if there are textbooks that are commonly used.
Do not use old syllabi to determine which edition of a textbook you should use. Always check with your professor before buying or renting an older edition.
Free Resources
老虎机攻略 students have access to interlibrary loans through the Mansfield Library. The Library staff can assist with placing an interlibrary loan request. They recommend students do their own research on availability first in order to process requests quickly.
- lets you place a hold on items in the Mansfield Library or in a partner library.
- Use to find any textbooks that may be available for interlibrary loan.
- Tip: Search for textbooks by ISBN#, as you will likely find them faster that way.
The is another fantastic resource, especially for students who need many novels for their classes.
- Library card applications can be completed .
- Valid photo identification and proof of address is required. PoA can be a postmarked envelope, such as a bill.
- If a student has moved into a new residence but has not received mail yet, the Library can mail them a self-addressed postcard. Returning the postcard will give the student full library privileges.
- For students without a current place of residence, they can apply for a limited use library card until their housing situation stabilizes.
Purchasing & Renting
Many students do not know that renting textbooks is an option. Rentals are often for a semester, though some can be extended to an entire academic year.
We highly recommend students rent over purchase when they are given the chance. You don't need to purchase many of your books, especially for 100 and 200 level courses, which will not be used for more than a single class.
If you are assigned a textbook that is of a particular edition (e.g., 5th edition), contact your professors to see if older editions (e.g., 4th edition, 3rd edition) will suffice. Older editions are often less expensive to rent or purchase; however, the information may be outdated compared to newer publications. Always check with your professors beforehand.
The carries some used textbooks, though they tend to be rented out fairly quickly. You can also talk to them in-person about you purchased during the semester or academic year.
Generally, however, we strongly recommend you use other retailers to find textbooks for much cheaper.
offers fairly low rental rates on a variety of textbooks for students with Amazon Prime memberships. Rentals are currently only offered in digital format.
- . Memberships then cost $7.49/month. Students can either verify their status with age (18-24) or with proof of active student status.
- for discounted Amazon Prime memberships at $6.99/month.
rents out eTextbooks for $10.99/month, with a minimum 4 month rental. These may not come with access codes, so you may need to purchase the code separately from your rental.
and are good alternatives for finding textbooks. They offer both rentals and purchases.
has a stock of both textbooks and novels.
and are best for finding novels.
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While we try to compile a ton of scholarships and other opportunities, we can't gather everything out there available to students.
We're more than happy to help guide students to opportunities we already know of, working on applications with students, or encouraging them as they find new, exciting opportunities! However, keep in mind that whatever you want- scholarships, internships, research programs, study abroad, or something else- is something you need to be looking for. And you need to look every semester.
How Do I Start Looking?
It depends on what you're looking for.
- Generally, opportunities like internships and research programs are focused more on your major or academic field, your year in school, and your overall career or academic interests/plans. After all, internships and research programs (for undergraduates) are typically about building professional, field-relevant experience. Start by looking for internships or research opportunities for your major (ex. Sociology), and then widen out to your academic field (ex. Social Sciences)
- Scholarships are a mixed bag with many different factors. Common ones are:
- Merit Scholarships: Awarded based on academic merit, or how well you've done in your studies. This doesn't necessarily mean being a 4.0 GPA student. Many times merit-based scholarships will require minimum GPAs ranging between 3.0 and 3.5. If you're a good student who meets all the eligibility requirements, then you should apply!
- This is especially true of students who excel in areas beyond the classroom. Have you won a prestigious award or received some type of honor? Have you been doing interesting research? Are you highly involved on campus? Have you continued doing well in your studies despite significant disadvantages or other responsibilities like parenting? These are all things to highlight in scholarship applications.
- Need-Based Scholarships: These scholarships are not often awarded based on financial need, but financial need is often a requirement to qualify for the scholarship. These scholarships often require verification or proof of your financial need, usually through a copy of your filed FAFSA or verification from the 老虎机攻略 Financial Aid Office. Don't worry if you need Fin Aid's stamp of approval- that's something your TRIO advisor can help with!
- Demographic Scholarships: Open to students who belong to certain demographics that are considered traditionally underserved and underrepresented in college environments. These may include, but are not limited to: female students, first-generation college students, low-income students, students who are ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ students, students with disabilities, nontraditional students, student parents, and/or rural students.
- Students who identify with more than one demographic are encouraged to look for scholarships that overlap with multiple demographics (ex. scholarships for LGBTQ+ women or scholarships for Native students with disabilities) in addition to opportunities particular to one demographic (ex. scholarships for LGBTQ+ students or scholarships for women). This casts a wider net of scholarships a student may qualify for!
- Merit Scholarships: Awarded based on academic merit, or how well you've done in your studies. This doesn't necessarily mean being a 4.0 GPA student. Many times merit-based scholarships will require minimum GPAs ranging between 3.0 and 3.5. If you're a good student who meets all the eligibility requirements, then you should apply!
- Study abroad funding often falls into the same camp as tuition scholarships, where they're awarded based on academic merit, financial need, diversity, etc.
- However, the most financially generous study abroad scholarships (federally-funded programs) tend to include factors related to your career and academic interests/plans; your ability or interest in speaking/learning another language; and if that language is considered common (Spanish, French, German) or critical (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, etc.)
The best place to start is with you. Who are you? What do you want to do? What are you studying? What interests you? Answering these questions will help guide you through initial searches, and help give us (and you) a better idea of what to start looking at.
Remember to check your academic department's 老虎机攻略 webpages for scholarships awarded based on your academic major.
Visit the Office for Experiential Learning & Career Success for assistance finding, applying to, and interviewing for internships and jobs. 老虎机攻略 students and recent alumni (graduated within the past 2 years) can access all of their services for free!
If you're interested in nationally competitive scholarships, contact the Office of External Scholarships & Fellowships to get help with scholarship applications and editing essays. Their office may be in the Davidson Honors College, but you do not have to be a honors college student to work with them. Open to 老虎机攻略 students and 老虎机攻略 alumni.
Lastly, keep an eye on our (frequently updated) Opportunities & Scholarships pages.
Google opportunities, scholarships, and internships. Treat applications like long assignments and chip away at them a little bit each week. Look early, look often, and keep track of what interests you.
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Research Tools
Free search tool for students to search for research and articles, as well as publish their own works.
Particularly useful for humanities and social sciences courses. Access it for free by choosing the "Find my institution" option, and then typing "The 老虎机攻略, Missoula" in the search bar.
This page provides suggested research platforms based on course subject covering STEM, social science, and humanities courses. These range from Accounting to Counseling to Wildlife Biology.
老虎机攻略's internal catalogue of research, creative scholarship, and other academic resources.
Citation Resources
offers free, updated guides on citation formatting and styles. These guides frequently have examples that students can view to see how citations should look within a paper.
generates appropriate citation format based on either MLA (9), APA (7), or Chicago citation styles, as well as the type of resource being used (Book, Anthology, Periodical, etc.). Note that, when copying and pasting from the citation generator, the citation's font and size may have to be changed after pasting.
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College Discounts
Enrolled college students can take advantage of many discount/package deals.
Begins with a 6-month free trial. Membership then cost $7.49/month
Premium is free for 3 months, then costs $5.99/month
First 3 months are free, then costs $7.99/month
Updates student discount lists. Features discounts including car insurance (for students <25 years old) and phone plans.
Dedicated exclusively to finding and promoting student discount deals.
老虎机攻略 students can also use their student IDs at a variety of places around Missoula to get available discounts.
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Students are often confused about what classes they need to take. Thankfully, there's a much easier, quicker way for students to access that information directly themselves.
DegreeWorks is a program that lets students see what classes they have to complete to graduate and how much progress they're making in completing all of those requirements. DegreeWorks will also allow you to see what classes fulfill a particular requirement. This is true of courses required for major(s), minor(s), and general education requirements (gen eds).
You can access DegreeWorks by logging into Cyberbear and selecting Student Services. It will then be available under the Academic Records menu.
Aside from a few exceptions, like your Introductory Writing requirement (e.g.,WRIT 101/201), students can often satisfy general education requirements by picking from a wide variety of classes.
For example: Theatre History I (THTR 330H), BIOB 210N (Communicating Biology), Ways of Knowing (HONR 121L), and Science Writing (325) all fulfill the same general education requirement (Writing Across the Curriculum) for the 2024-2025 academic year.
However, students need to pick their courses carefully. The requirements that a class satisfies may change from year-to-year. Be sure to look at these courses in DegreeWorks to see what they fulfill. Always schedule an appointment with your TRIO advisor to get help with registering for classes.
Also, keep an eye out for courses that can be "double dipped". These are courses that can satisfy more than one of your general education requirements and lead you to complete these requirements (and your degree) faster. .
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Why Do I Need to File My FAFSA So Soon? Can't I Wait?
Filing your FAFSA as soon as possible every year gives you the best chance at receiving all of the federal financial aid you qualify for.
The FAFSA will not wait for you. More than 17 million students fill out the FAFSA to receive federal financial aid every single year. Aid, especially free aid like Pell Grants, is distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. You may qualify for a full Pell Grant ($7k+), but waiting until May or June to file your FAFSA makes it more likely you'll get a smaller award ($~3k).
If you need help filing your FAFSA, TRIO students should contact their TRIO advisor to set up an appointment. They are more than happy to sit down with you and help!
You can also reach out to the Financial Education Center on campus to set up an appointment to get assistance with filing your FAFSA.