The intent of this site is to provide information about the data currently used
by the Semester Transition Advising Tool (STAT) software. Please take a look at
the information provided and send feedback with any corrections or additions to
Chris Taylor.
Approach
Graduation requirements for students starting under quarters and finishing
under semesters are governed by two constraints:
Specific courses specified by the program
Credit thresholds for multiple topical categories specified by the program
Course Requirement Specification
Each program specifies a nominal curriculum track for students starting in
AY2021 (Fall 2020), AY2022, and AY2023. These curricular tracks specify one,
two, or three years of quarter courses with the remaining years specified
with semester courses. It is intended that students will follow the applicable
nominal track to the extent that it is possible; however, programs may add
flexibility to these tracks by designating certain class as "Must Have."
If a class is designated as "Must Have," the student must complete it or
suitable alternative(s) in order to graduate. Any class without the "Must
Have" designation is not required to graduate.
Credit Thresholds
To ensure that students obtain a sufficient amount of coursework in areas
relevant to the program, a program may specify additional credit thresholds
for specific content areas. A student must meet all of these credit
counts to meet graduate requirements. For convenience, I'll refer to each
topical area as a credit bucket. The general education requirements
during the transition specify that all students, regardless of program,
must complete a minimum number of semester credits:
4 Social Science
6 Humanities (including an ethics course)
12 Social Science or Humanities (note: these 12 credits include the credits taken to fulfill the previous two requirements)
In additional, a program must specify the total number of semester credits
needed to graduate and may specify additional credit requirements for other
topical areas. For example, the architectural engineering program requires:
31 Math or Science credits
47 Program credits
125 Total credits
Since engineering accreditation requires graduates to have a minimum of 30 semester
credits of math and natural science coursework and 45 semester credits of engineering
coursework, this approach ensures that those requirements are met. The STAT software
tallies the number of credits that each student has completed (or has planned) and
provides a warning if the student's plan does not meet all of these requirements.
As part of this specification, the program must provide a list of all of the
courses (or a set of rules for determining the list) that should be counted
towards a topical bucket.
Plea for Your Help
Several data files have been curated to fully specify the requirements
for each program. It is very likely that there are errors or omissions
in these data files, and I could use your help in finding them. Correcting
these early will provide a more satisfactory experience for PDs and advisors
as they use this tool.
Nominal Transition Plan Checks
Below you will see links to the nominal transition plans. Please look over
all of the transition plans for your program. Here is an example of the
first year of the nominal curriculum track for an accounting major
transitioning to semesters in year 2:
Figure 1: First year of Accounting Transition in Year 2 track
The columns represent the following:
Code — The course code
Must Have — If check, indicates that this course or a specific alternative is required to graduate
Sufficient — Course(s) that could be substituted in place of this course. For example, taking GS-1030H (if the student is in the scholar's honors program) or COM-3001 (if the student didn't complete GS-1001 prior to the transition to semesters). Note, some courses may require multiple courses be used to substitute for the require course. For example, NUR-2001 has a sufficient entry of NU-290 & NU-2810, meaning that if a student were to complete NU-290 but not NU-2810 before switching to semesters, they would need to take NUR-2001, even though some material would be repeated.
Name — The name of the course
Structure — lecture-lab-credits
Prereqs — Any prerequisites. For example, COM-3001 has a prereq of ( COM-1001 | GS-1001 | GS-1001C | GS-1001E | GS-1010H ) & ( COM-2001 | GS-1002 | GS-1002E | GS-1020H ). The | indicates or while the & indicates and, so a student has the prereqs as long as they have completed any one of the courses in the first set of parentheses and any one of the courses in the second parentheses.
Coreqs — Any co-requisites.
In Figure 1,
EL-LabS is an elective. All quarter electives have a prefix of EL and all semester electives have a prefix of ELC. Each program specifies a list of courses (or a set of rules for determining the list) that may be used to meet this elective requirement.
BA-1000, BA-1227, MA-129, and EL-LabS are all shown as not required. If the student does not complete these courses prior to transitioning to semesters, they will not be required to take specific courses to make up for missing these courses; however, they will still need to meet the credit bucket requirements.
Please verify all the information on the tracks, but specifically that:
the correct courses listed in the correct spots
the Must Have column is correct
the Sufficient column is correct and complete
Transition Plans
Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management Department
Figure 1: First year of Accounting Transition in Year 2 track