Planning Your Degree

Reading: Planning Your Degree

1. Introduction

Planning your degree plan. We’ve been in discussion through email and over the phone over the past few terms, and most of you have a good handle on the courses you’re going to take to meet degree guidelines and requirements. Did you know you planned this without really thinking a lot about what makes up an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree?

Let’s take this time to look and think about what goes into determining which courses we’ve added to your plan and why. We have considered the number of overall credits required, the number of liberal studies credits required (noted with asterisk in the DPplanner), advanced level credits (different than advanced standing), and courses and credits that meet the SUNY GenEd requirements.

Reading: Planning Your Degree

3. Bachelor’s Degrees

What is a Bachelor’s Degree?

At Empire State College, a bachelor’s degree requires 124 credits.  You might choose to pursue a bachelor’s degree for a number of reasons, including:

• to move on to graduate school
• to fulfill requirements of an employer or a profession
• to explore academic topics that are of personal interest
• to acquire new knowledge in areas of potential interest and to fulfill intellectual curiosity

Understanding Degree Parameters for a Bachelor’s Degrees

Every Empire State College bachelor’s degree must fulfill certain requirements:

1. The degree plan must be exactly 124 credits
2. The degree plan can have a maximum of 93 credits brought in from other sources (combination transcript credit from other colleges and credit from prior learning assessment exams, credentials and life experience).
3. The degree plan must have at least 45 advanced-level credits
4. At least 24 of the 45 advanced-level credits must be in the concentration, if the bachelor’s degree has a concentration.
5. SUNY General Education Requirements: your degree plan must include at least 30 credits of general education, spread among seven of ten general education areas.  Two of the seven areas must be Basic Communication and Mathematics; you choose the remaining five general education areas. Refer to SUNY General Education Requirements.

To further understand what’s expected in a bachelor’s degree, read the Student Degree Planning Guide chapter on Degree Types and Requirements. Make sure you understand the following concepts: degree type (A.A., A.S., B.A., B.S., B.P.S), liberal learning credit, lower- and advanced-level credit, concentration and general learning. Make sure you understand these and, if not, please ask a question!

4. A Quick Review: Putting it All Together

Putting the Pieces Together

• Professional Expectations(module 2):  What courses will prepare you for advancement in your career?  If graduate school is in your future, what courses should you include that will prepare you for graduate work in your field?
• Area of Study Guidelines Part I(module 3): Which courses do you need to add to your degree plan to address the Area of Study Guidelines for your concentration?
• Designing your Degree(throughout course): Don’t forget specific requirements for associate or bachelor’s degrees!

Reading: Goals and Contexts

1. Introduction

Goals

One of the most important aspects of planning is to know why you’re planning, toward what end result. The learning activities that deal with Goals and Contexts for your degree are intended to help you consider your goals–the why–in their many aspects:

• do you want to finish something you started 20 years ago?
• do you want to set an example for your younger children, or share the collegiate experience with your older children?
• are you preparing for different experiences in retirement?
• all–or none–or some combination of–the above?

You’ll read articles that will help you think about overall goals and more specific learning goals for your degree.  You’ll read sample rationale essays and degree plans that specifically discuss particular students’ goals.  As you work through this section, you’ll apply your insights to your own situation and consider some choices for your own degree in terms of your specific goals.

Contexts

Because you’re interested in some particular aspect of your job and want to know more about it? The choices you make for your degree depend on the context as well as your goals. You could make very different course choices depending on personal context.

Professional and academic contexts are important to consider, too. You’ll consider those contexts more fully when you deal with the “professional” and “academic” aspects of this course.

2. More Information about Goals

Questions to Think About as you Read:

• What are your overall personal goals? Do you want to use the degree to advance at work? Do you just want to have a college degree because you’ve always felt the lack of one? Do you want to prepare yourself for another career in retirement?
• What are your academic goals? Are there specific things that you always wanted to learn? Do you know that you need to develop skills in writing or math or any particular content area?
• What are your professional goals? Do you want to learn how to better manage and supervise the staff in your nursing unit? Do you want to learn everything college courses can teach you about starting your own business?
• In what contexts are you pursuing the degree? How might the contexts impact your choices?

3. Sample Rationale Essay Section: Goals and Contexts

Student 1

Degree: Bachelor of Science
Registered Area: Business, Managment and Economics
Concentration: Business Administration

I am currently attending Empire State College to obtain an associate’s and bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. While contemplating returning to school, I was running a business from my home and carrying on all the tasks of the business by myself. However, with this venture I found there to be some errors in my ways. I never had a formal background in business and did not know how to effectively manage the money flow. The accounting aspect for me was horrible. Also while attempting to be professional in all business aspects, I had contracts for every sale I had with other individuals. However, I never realized how many legal clauses there are. When dealing with the general public it is very important to understand the laws and how to express your legal rights in a contract. I never thought very much about legal clauses until I had an incident with a customer who had issues and decided to try to sue me for more than the cat’s monetary worth in court. If I did not have a well written legal and binding contract, I could have suffered a great loss to such a small business.

When I do achieve my bachelor’s degree from Empire State College, I will be opening up my own cattery again. However, I will hopefully be able to change a lot of the more technical business aspects (such as accounting and contracts). While attending school, I hope to gain further knowledge on my writing skills of legal documentation, broaden my outlook on what laws there are and learn how to effectively manage the cash flow of the business.

I would like to further strengthen my writing and communication skills with others as most of my clientele is from the internet. When speaking to a prospective customer on the telephone, it is very important to sound well educated and professional as most of my customers I never meet. With my further education, I hope to discover my hidden talents like I have found in my writing. I would like to learn more about how to help me manage my time and my employees’ time schedules. As a business owner, I must have the potential to effectively manage employees and the daily life of my business which is what I hope to achieve from my degree.
I would like to own my own cattery within the next five years and possibly obtain a much larger base than I had before with employees that work for me. My degrees will help me obtain my professional goals as I will be able to utilize my writing, accounting and managerial skills to better my own business.
Student 2

Degree: Bachelor of Arts
Registered Area: Community and Human Services
Concentration: Human Services

Goals and Contexts
I am returning to college after a long break. I began school directly out of high school with the idea that I would become an accountant. This first attempt was less than successful. I later returned to school and through self assessment determined that the appropriate field for me was social work. I began working on a major in social work in a Michigan Community College system at Davenport College and Grand Rapids Community College and at Edison College in Florida. I later transferred to Florida Gulf Coast University College. It was at the Florida Gulf Coast University that I earned my Associates of Arts in Social Work. I graduated while nine months pregnant with my first son. It took me about three years to return to college. I enrolled in a University that did not offer a B.S. in Social Work rather in Human Services. It was there that I began to pursue my degree in Human Services. I completed many service hours in the field working in a homeless shelter, a teen shelter, and doing outreach work with Lutheran Family Services of SW Florida. As I began upper level courses I also bought a business. The business later suffered a hurricane and I was ultimately forced to postpone my education yet another time. I eventually moved to where I began work with adults diagnosed with developmental disabilities. I recently resigned from my position in order to stay home with my second baby and complete my degree. I want my boys to understand the importance of education. I believe that through me they can learn that it is obtainable and the importance of completing what was started. I also will get self gratification in knowing that I will be fulfilling my dream and returning to the world all the kindness and support that was bestowed onto me as a child. My childhood was text book dysfunctional; I have been faced with making decisions that were not always the best for my well being and yet coming out on top as a mature, healthy, and happy individual. I am completely committed to applying all my personal experience in combination to my education and doing all that I can in my profession.

At this point I am taking one day at a time. I want to complete my B.S. degree in Community and Human Services with a concentration in Human Services. I plan on taking some time to work in the field and gain professional experience in applying what I have learned. My ultimate goal however is to complete a Masters Program in Social Work and later become a licensed Social Worker with my own private practice.

Discussion: Goals & Contexts for Your Degree

• Where are you academically? professionally?
• Where do you want to be?
• What are your personal goals?
• Why are you pursuing your degree?

Consider your goals carefully.  Your discussion here can possibly be used as a start toward your rationale essay section on goals.

Written Assignment 1: Goals and Contexts

Write about Goals and Contexts for your Rationale Essay

• What are your personal, academic, and professional goals?
• What is the context in which you’re pursuing your degree?

After considering these questions, as well as reading through the Planning your Degree reading assignment, and the  Goals and Contexts reading assignment, write the section of your rationale essay on goals and contexts.

Use the questions in the Ed Planning Resources section on Writing about Goals to help you think and write. You should write approximately 1/2 page (minimum) to 2 pages (maximum) on goals and contexts. Length of this section is not as important as type and specificity of information.

Be sure to state what type of degree you’re pursuing, (Associate’s or Bachelor’s) along with the area of study, and concentration title (if applicable).