UNC part-time, non-degree seeking students pursue different educational paths

According to the 2024-25 UNC Common Data Set, there are currently 32,680 students attending the University. Although most are in full-time degree programs, some are considered nontraditional students.

Melissa Solomon, a senior academic advisor at UNC, wrote in an email to The Daily Tar Heel that there are four main types of students: part-time, full-time, degree-seeking and non-degree-seeking. 

Solomon said that most people attending UNC are full-time degree-seeking undergraduates who started college right after high school. They are considered to be on the traditional path.

Nontraditional students include those who are not seeking degrees and those who may be studying part-time. 

Part-time degree-seeking students usually consist oflocal adults with non-academic commitments, including work or family obligations. At UNC, Solomon said these students can enroll in up to eight credit hours per semester and pursue any major within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Some majors that fall under UNC’s professional schools are only available to full-time undergraduate students. These programs include the business administration major in the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the accelerated bachelor of science in nursing in the UNC School of Nursing.

Unlike traditional students, part-time degree-seekers are admitted year-round and attend an individualized orientation with Solomon, who connects them with campus resources. 

Non-degree seeking students attend UNC for a variety of reasons without the intent to complete a bachelor's or master's program. 

Mia Khatib, a 24-year-old non-degree-seeking student, said that before coming to UNC, she earned a bachelor of science in journalism from Boston University with a background primarily in print and digital journalism. 

Khatib said that when she found herself driving long distances for her job at the Triangle Tribune in Durham, North Carolina, radio became her favorite news source.

“Radio is super quick,” she said. “It kind of gives you the details that you need to go in and see more.” 

While in between jobs and considering UNC as a graduate school, Khatib said she decided to try something new and enroll in MEJO 426: Audio Journalism for Radio and Podcasts at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. 

“I thought it would be really great to kind of integrate myself in the community already and be around professors, be around students, be around the Carolina campus and environment to see if it really was a good fit,” she said.

While Khatib opted for the non-degree path to learn a new type of journalism, other non-traditional students, like UNC student Anna Slayton, take different routes. Slayton said she is pursuing a graduate certificate in geographic information science.

Slayton graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2020 with a degree in environmental science. She said that her pursuit of a graduate certificate is primarily to learn broad skills that she can apply to future jobs. 

Through the program, Slayton is taking three core courses with the UNC Geography Department that include a GIS programming class, a GIS class and a remote-sensing class. Students may also take a few electives offered by different departments.

Both women said there are some downfalls to being nontraditional students, specifically saying it is a lot less guided than traditional student programs are. 

“The whole process was just more independently driven,” Slayton said. 

Slayton also said that she doesn’t have access to some resources that traditional UNC students are automatically granted, like Handshake. 

Khatib said she doesn’t have a OneCard, saying she didn’t receive an introduction to such campus resources that traditional students do. 

Nonetheless, Khatib said she recommends taking such continuing education classes and found it easy to jump back into a university setting because of the support system around her.

“Whether I'm a non-degree student, a full-time student, part-time, it doesn't really matter,” she said. “The professors have been there for me in the way that I feel like they would have been had I been a freshman, had I been a full-time student pursuing a degree.”

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