DegreeWorks helps students map college careers
If students log on to their Banner account, click on Student and then Student Records, they’ll find a link to DegreeWorks, a program available to students that helps track progress toward graduation.
DegreeWorks’ program coordinator Jeannie Maughan said the program has been available to students for years, but just this semester a new promotional program has been started to raise awareness and use of DegreeWorks through training sessions available to students.
“We’ve sent out emails to undergraduate and graduate students both and we’ve let the advisors know when training sessions will be so that students can come and get a better idea of what DegreeWorks has to offer,” she said.
The next undergraduate training sessions will be held next week on October 10-12.
Starr Christensen, a senior majoring in English, said she has used the program throughout her time at USU to help her plan out her schedule and classes.
“It can help you plan which classes to take next because it shows you all the classes you need for your degree,” she said. “Then I go into the course catalog and read about how difficult each class is, the time commitment I imagine it would take, the course content, and arrange my schedule accordingly.”
DegreeWorks is a system that organizes credits according to the course requirements for the major of the student, and then displays progress toward graduation in an easy-to-read format.
“It will take your English classes and put them in the little English slot and do a little check mark to show you that you’re done with that,” Christensen said.
It shows a student what grade they earned in a class, the course code and the credits that best fit with the degree, she said. Besides displaying progress toward graduation, it also provides a way to outline a plan for completing the requirements for graduation.
“The fun of it is that DegreeWorks helps me see everything I need so I can rearrange it my own way, plan it my own way,” she said.
When she meets with her academic advisor, she brings her plan with all the classes listed that she wants to take. When they see that she’s prepared and all of the classes fit in with her major, they’re usually really impressed, she said.
“It’s a lot less explaining and work on the academic advisor’s part,” she said. “It helps me understand what my advisor is telling me and decide if that is what I want to be doing.”
Academic advisors for any given major have a certain model for the best way to complete the requirements for a major including the order in which classes should be taken, Christensen said. With DegreeWorks, she can express her desires for her education so that her academic advisor better understands where she wants to go with her schooling.
“It helps me personalize my education plan since my academic advisor doesn’t know exactly what I want,” she said. “Of course I appreciate my advisor’s help, but it gives me more control in my own schedule planning and whole college career planning.”
Students should not go online and expect to have everything charted out for them, Christensen said. Students need to be willing to read everything that’s on DegreeWorks, look in the course catalogue, and review any plans or notes they may have for themselves.
It is best to use as many resources as possible to help you plan everything out including the course catalogue, DegreeWorks, and help from academic advisors, she said.
“Plan to do it yourself,” she said. “I write down everything that I can possibly take and then use DegreeWorks as a reference to see which would be best or which should be next.”
DegreeWorks helped Christensen transition smoothly when she decided to switch majors from Anthropology to English.
“I looked at my DegreeWorks audit to see which classes would transfer,” she said. “I realized that I could use most of the classes I had been using for Anthropology toward a minor in the same degree because of the way DegreeWorks is organized.”
Of course, no college schedule or course planning should be haphazard, Christensen said. You should put a lot of thought into your course schedule regardless, she said.
“People think it’s just for freshman doing their generals,” she said. “No, it can be used for your whole college career.”
– abhendrix@pentaracorp.com