Outlining the Academic Structure of an Institution
Before entering any data in the Academic Advisement pages, carefully outline the academic advisement structure of your institution. Think carefully about how the institution is structured, what degrees are offered, the requirements for those degrees, and how course lists are organized (for example, a statistics course list might consist of math courses as well as social science statistics or biological science courses, transfer equivalents, and test equivalents).
Important! Establish the academic advisement structure of your institution before entering any data on the academic advisement pages. Careful planning will save time and energy.
Outline your academic advisement structure as follows:
List all institutions.
List all careers associated with each institution.
List all programs of study associated with each career.
List all plans associated with each program.
List any related sub-plans for each plan.
Describe the requirements (and details) of each career, program, plan, and sub-plan in your institution. Begin at the highest level, which is your institution. Work down to the career, program, plan, and sub-plan levels. Next to each requirement description, list specific details about each. (This information will be very useful when setting up detail lines and course lists on the academic advisement pages.)
Try to make your academic structure as complete as possible. The following table is an abbreviated example of this exercise. The table contains the institution, career, program, plan, sub-plan, general requirement description, and specific details about each requirement for each numbered line in the table.
|
Row |
Institution |
Career |
Program |
Plan |
Subplan |
General Requirement Description |
Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
Must see advisor at least once. |
Satisfy milestone of advisor meeting. |
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|
2 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
Take the English Placement test. |
Pass test with grade of C or better. |
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|
3 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
Satisfy unit/GPA minimum. |
Complete 120 units with a cumulative GPA of 2.000 in those units. |
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|
4 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
Take one diversity course if student began college after 1993. |
Share class with general education requirements. |
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|
5 |
PSUNV |
GRAD |
Complete graduate unit/GPA requirements. |
Complete a minimum of 36 units from 500-, 600-, and 700-classes with a cumulative GPA of 2.700. |
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|
6 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
FAS |
Take a minimum of 56 units outside of the major. |
Take a maximum of 56 units from the derived list of all courses used if plan is Art. |
||
|
7 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
LAS |
HIST |
ARTHIST |
Complete three art history classes. |
Use course list of all art history courses. Allow sharing with General Education requirements. Limit sharing to one course. |
|
8 |
PSUNV |
UGRD |
LAS |
HIST |
EUHIST |
Complete three European history classes. |
Use course list of all European history courses. Allow sharing with General Education requirements. Limit sharing to one course. |
|
9 |
PSUNV |
GRAD |
GLAS |
EDMA |
Declare a sub-plan. |
Point to list of appropriate sub-plans. |
|
|
10 |
PSUNV |
GRAD |
GLAS |
EDMA |
TEACH |
Take 12 courses from ED500-course list. |
Point to appropriate course list. |
In row 1, list any requirements that apply to all students at your institution, regardless of career. There probably will not be many, but there might be a few general requirements that pertain to all students. For example, at PSUNV, all students must meet with their advisor (at least once) and pass the English Placement test during their first year.
In rows 3 and 4, requirements that apply to all students in one particular career (for example, undergraduate) are listed. In row 5, a requirement that applies to all graduate students is listed. In row 6, a requirement that applies to Fine Arts undergraduates is listed. In row 7, a student with a plan of History and a sub-plan of Art History must take three art history courses. In row 8, a similar requirement applies to European History students. In rows 9 and 10, requirements for a Masters of Art in Education are outlined.
When outlining your requirements for the various careers, programs, plans, and sub-plans at your institution, be sure to address the following issues:
Is there a minimum unit, course, GPA, or partition value?
Can courses taken on a non-graded basis be used to satisfy this requirement?
Is transfer work allowed? Or must all course work be taken in residence?
Can courses be shared between requirements?
Do any programs or plans require that a plan or sub-plan be declared?
Can wildcard course lists or derived course lists be used?
Remember to create course lists in order to satisfy requirements. For example, you can create one course list that points to all graduate courses. Then set up each plan in your institution so that it points to this course list. Reuse and intersect that list with all courses in the specified plan.