Photo: Canva.com

Dear incoming Asian Center students,

Congratulations and welcome to the UP Asian Center! As part of our/your preparations for the coming semester and academic year, we have compiled a few things-to-know-and-do for new students. We hope this helps ease your transition in this new stage of your education/professional development. Please click on each tab to view/close content. 

 

01 Read The Student Corner

Less than two months before registration, please find time to go through the entire Student Corner to familiarize yourself with the policies of the UP Asian Center and the university on course work, enlistment, accessing online resources, calendar, accessing platforms and software, etc. 
 
Although you are urged to go through each tab of the Student Corner, at this early stage, please focus on the following: "Registration," "Residency," "Remote Learning," CRS and DILNET tabs, and "Courses, Tracks" tabs. 
 
The “Courses and Tracks” tab includes policies and procedures related to coursework, such as dropping, grade completion, residency, and prerequisites. Please do not enlist in courses if you have not yet passed the pre-requisite courses. The Remote Learning tab covers online resources for research, research ethics, and applications and platforms for coursework, etc.
 
You do not necessarily need to memorize all the information, at least you'll know where to look if and when you need the information.  The Student Corner was designed to centralize much information in one page to help students access the information they need when they need it. 

Lastly, please revisit the “Site Updates” by September and before pre-enlistment (to be announced in due course) to identify any new policies/changes. The Student Corner will be constantly updated to reflect new university policies as they come.

02 Take Core Courses First

If you are an Asian Studies (AS) major, you can only take AS 210 after you have taken both AS 201 and AS 201A. So you must take these two courses on your first semester in the program, and take AS 210 and AS 299 in the next.

For PS Majors, your first semester in the program: PS 201 or PS 219 and PS 202. Second semester could be PS 201 or PS 219 and PS 299. Either way, please finish the core courses first. Please refer to the Student Corner or the Asian Center catalog for the Program of Study and Course Descriptions.

03 Take Six Units. For Now.

New students, especially if full-time employees, are advised just to take six units first (core courses above) so they can first get a feel for graduate-level education and help determine how they are to go about balancing work and school.

If you are a full-time student, you may opt to enroll in more than six units: mainly electives at this point, but please consult first the Program of Study in the Student Corner, and clear this up with your Program Adviser first.

Having said this, please keep in mind the Maximum Residency Rule of five (5) years. Please see Residency tab of the Student Corner for details. 

04 Know Your Program Adviser. Read The Program of Study.

As explained in the Student Corner, please know who your program adviser is, and what his/her role is in your program. Communicate with him/her as necessary even this early to discuss any special changes/departures from the POS. If you are taking your core courses as advised above, you need not communicate with your program adviser. 

 

05 View Flowcharts and Download the Catalog

View flowcharts of the following as an overview, but kindly refer to the Student Corner for rules and details.

• Registration Flowchart 1 (Simple)

• Registration Flowchart 2 (Detailed)

• Registration Guide with Screenshots

• Online Post-Advising

• Generating Payment Slip and Encoding Payment Details

• Dropping a Course

• Filing for Leave of Absence

• Filing for Change of Matriculation

• Filing for Residency 

Please also download the Asian Center catalog.

The catalog also contains the Program of Study and Course List and Descriptions. This information, along with the flowcharts, are also available in and linked from the Student Corner/Asian Center website, but you may want to keep the catalog and the flowcharts handy for offline access. 

06 Read the UPD Diliman Glossary and Acronyms

If you took your undergrad outside UP Diliman, please feel free to consult the UPD Glossary so you can be familiar with the terms/concepts in many UPD memos, which assume this kind of background information. Even graduates from UPD are still advised to review the document.

You may also wish to read the abbreviations for degree programs, colleges, and a few academic terminologies. Another document that deserves a passing glance is the organizational chart/administrative structure of UP Diliman. The 2020 Freshie Kit may also be useful, since it contains a list of UP Diliman Academic Units and their contact information (as of August/September 2020).

07 Download the Academic Calendar

Please download the Academic Calendar for AY 2021–2022, and keep it handy. Also, always consult the “Events” tab of the CRS home page for additional deadlines/dates. 

08 Go Over University Rules and Policies

There are too many to mention here, but these involved academic integrity, data privacy, and IT policy, which covers your use of UP’s online platforms. Policies and rules do not have a separate tab in the Student Corner, but have been integrated accordingly in the relevant tabs. For instance, data privacy matters are included in Remote Learning and Courses and Tracks tabs.

09 Make Sure You Have Your CRS Credentials

If you submitted the requirement for your University Admission Slip, you should have already received this. If not yet, please contact the Office of the College Secretary.

10 Complete Any CRS Transaction

Be sure to complete or cancel any transaction initiated in CRS as soon as possible/applicable. Never let anything there be unfinished, and don't let it carry over to the next semester, which will result in accountabilities/deficiency that can affect your registration next semester.

We are sure you have a lot of questions, but we hope the Student Corner can answer (most of) them and help you get acquainted by the time classes start around mid-September. If you have any questions, please email the Office of the College Secretary (acsec.upd@up.edu.ph) and cc: asiancenter@up.edu.ph. This will improve, and help identify any gap in, the Student Corner. 

The UP Asian Center offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. The Center offers a Ph.D.  program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. The Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website. For other news and upcoming events at the Asian Center, click here.