Although you used many sources to help you choose courses as you were developing your degree plan, you need to review those sources as you finalize your degree plan.

ESC Undergraduate Area of Study Guidelines

Especially review the ESC Undergraduate Area of Study Guidelines.  Using these guidelines, analyze the contents of your degree to help you finalize.  This type of analysis is akin to doing a reverse outline when you’re writing an essay.  In essay writing, after you create a draft, it’s useful to set the draft aside for a day or two, and then re-read and annotate the draft by writing each main idea in the margin of the draft.  Annotating helps you get a sense of the overall idea or conceptual structure of the essay, and make sure that it’s what you intended.  In the same way, go back to your draft degree plan in DPPlanner.  Annotate the courses in your concentration using the Area of Study Guidelines. If there are both general Area of Study Guidelines and specific concentration guidelines that are applicable to your degree plan, analyze your degree using both.

For example, one of the guidelines for a concentration in human services is

• Knowledge of human behavior: Students should identify and demonstrate an understanding of human behavior within the context of various social, developmental, global, economic, political, biological and/or environmental systems. These studies should cover theory, historical and developmental perspectives.
  • For example, studies could include human development, fire-related human behavior, child development, deviant behavior, stress in families, or cognitive psychology.

Review and annotate your degree plan: write key words from the guidelines for your concentration beside the courses and/or PLAs in your plan.  Your task in finalizing your degree is to ensure that you are addressing all of the guidelines for your area of study.  You can address those guidelines in your own, unique way, but each one has to be addressed.

Another way of analyzing your degree plan in order to finalize it is to create a chart.  You can cut and paste the guidelines into a document and then list the courses or PLAs from your degree plan by each guideline.

Whatever way you choose to analyze your degree plan, know that some type of analysis using the ESC Undergraduate Area of Study Guidelines is crucial.

Other Sources to Review

In the same way that you review your degree plan using the guidelines, also review and annotate your degree plan in some way to ensure that you are addressing the following:

• ESC Learning Goals
• Other Academic Expectations – e.g., knowledge and skills specific to a professional with a degree in your field, graduate school requirements, etc.
• Professional Expectations – e.g., competencies—knowledge and skills—that you will be expected to apply at work, including general workforce competencies and competencies specific to your field