One way to help your student stay on track to graduate on time is by monitoring their degree audit. And the best time to start doing that is on day one, not when they’re college seniors.
What is a Degree Audit?
Degree audits are tools available for college students to help them see both what’s ahead and what’s behind them. The focus is to make sure they are on track to complete their degree requirements. The ideal degree audit contains information on the number of credits required to graduate, the number of credits your student has already earned, and how far they have to go. In addition, a good degree audit identifies required general education courses, and should help students make wise course selections into the future.
Your student’s degree audit is a road map to help them plan their journey through college. And while degree audits are a service provided by their universities, they are really extra guidance to your student who should be performing their own degree audits on a regular basis. The official degree audit provided by their university’s registrar is simply the official document. But there’s no reason your student should wait for someone else to start the auditing process.
They’ve Got to Have Options
The roadmap analogy is an apt one. In the days when many more of us used road maps, drivers could choose different routes to their destination. There wasn’t a one size fits all approach to driving. Drivers could also choose to change their destination, using the road map to plan their new route. The degree audit works the same way. If your student is thinking of changing their major in their sophomore year, they can use the degree audit process to see how they might get to their new “destination.” If that new major contains difficult challenges, such as some required courses that are only offered during a single semester, they might choose not to change their majors.
On the other hand, exploring their options as early as possible lets students know when they need to take a detour. For example, if a student withdraws from or fails a required course that is only offered during the fall semester, they should consider how else they might complete that course. Two options are to attend summer school or a winter session course to get back on track and still complete their degree on time. A degree audit is invaluable in cases like these.
Whose Job Is It Really?
An interesting thing about degree audits is that while the online tools are relatively new, people have been using the degree audit structure for decades. That’s how I handled my course selections while in college, and that wasn’t yesterday!
My makeshift degree audit back in the 1970s was a chart of my degree requirements, including general education, and for both my major and two minors. The reason I created this document was because I was worried that, having chosen my major and minors in my sophomore year instead of my freshman year, I wouldn’t graduate on time. I was right.
My informal audit told me I wouldn’t be able to complete both my major and two minors in eight semesters. That’s why I took summer courses between my sophomore and junior years of college, one in Psychology, and two in English. And because of this, I finished on time, ready for graduate school.
A Way to Develop a Relationship
A good degree adult should also create a conversation between your student and their advisor, and provide a way for them to develop a positive relationship. Ideally, students shouldn’t see their advisors only once per term. Instead, they should work to cultivate an active relationship with them. And if their first advisor won’t do that, they should ask for another one who will. That’s part of the “adulting” on campus we all want our students to do.
But Beware
Many, if not most, colleges and universities offer electronic versions of their degree audits. But before your student relies on that service as their only guide document, have them pause. Some of the platforms may have difficulty with some aspect of a school’s curriculum. A college where I worked for several years had a degree audit function included within their student portal. While mostly accurate, one member of the registrar’s staff also verified each student’s degree completion during their last semester—by hand. The college didn’t trust their own degree audit function without human verification because variations in the curriculum could throw the system off. An example of this is how students may complete the foreign language requirement. This is neither an indictment of their curriculum nor of the tools, but the college’s decision to be as accurate as possible for its students.
Your student should do the same thing for themselves, and challenge the automated system when they believe it is inaccurate.
A good degree audit is an invaluable tool. Make sure your student has one in their toolkit.