For New Students

Welcome to the Liberal Arts Japanese Option! I am Tomonori Nagano and I serve as the program director of the Japanese Option at LaGuardia Community College. We welcome you in our program and are looking forward to meeting you in class or during extracurricular events.

Here are a few steps to start your academic careers at LaGuardia Community College.

  1. Activate your LaGuardia e-mail address
    Your official LaGuardia e-mail address (firstname.lastname@live.lagcc.cuny.edu) is where we send you important information regarding your student life at the College as well as the communication platform for you and your professors. It is important that you activate your student email and check it frequently. Access your student email through My LaGuardia (http://my.laguardia.edu) and download the Outlook mobile app for easy access right on your phone.

  2. Sign up for classes
    Your ultimate responsibility as a student is to sign up classes on time. It sounds easy, but, in reality, you may have some difficulty in finding right (required) classes that fit your work/private schedule. Also, you may see various “stops” for course registration (such as advising stop, Bursar’s stop, immunization stop etc), which you must resolve before the course registration. Contact relevant offices (usually, Advisement office, Bursar’s office, and Registrar’s office) to remove your stops.

    LaGuardia follows a quarterly academic calendar (i.e., 4 semesters a year), which is somewhat different from the other CUNY campuses that follow the ternary academic calendar (i.e., 3 semesters a year). LaGuardia’s semesters roughly follow this pattern.

    • Fall Session I: the first week of September to the third week of December
    • Fall Session II: the first week of January to the third week of February
    • Spring Session I: the first week of March to the second week of June
    • Spring Session II: the third week of June to the second week of August

    In general, we encourage everyone to start course registration process early. Below is a rough schedule for course registration for each semester.

    • Late-February: Spring classes will be closed. Classes with low enrollment might be canceled. You should keep an eye on the enrollment of your classes and have a backup plan, if necessary.
    • Mid-April: Fall schedule (both Fall Session I and Fall Session II) becomes available on CUNYFirst.
    • June: Fall schedule (both Fall Session I and Fall Session II) becomes available on CUNYFirst. Fall registration begins.
    • Late-August: Fall classes will be closed. Classes with low enrollment might be canceled. You should keep an eye on the enrollment of your classes and have a backup plan, if necessary.
    • November: Spring schedule (both Spring Session I and Spring Session II) becomes available on CUNYFirst. Spring registration begins.

  3. Read the welcome information sheet for the Japanese Option student
    Download this one-page information sheet for new Japanese Option students. This document gives you an overview of the program and the program requirement and you will be referring to it a lot during the first year. Also, visit the Japanese Option page at https://t-nagano.com/projects/JapaneseProgram/ .

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  4. Connect with the Japan Studies faculty and fellow students in the Japanese Option
    Follow us on our social media platforms and connect with other students in our program. We plan a lot of events during the semester and we are looking forward to meeting with you.

  5. Reach out to the program director and the Japan Studies faculty
    If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the program director (Tomonori Nagano; see the contact information at the bottom of this page) and your Japan studies faculty members. We are always available to give you advice and assist your academic journey at LaGuardia.