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Degree Planning - What is it about?

Degree planning is a process that allows you to understand your options for completing your degree and to plan ahead. Degree planning can be described as "asking for advice" or getting preapproval to earn specific credits toward your degree before you register and pay for a course, before you begin a course and certainly long before you finish the course. Getting courses/credits preapproved ensures that the credits earned will apply to your Thomas Edison State University degree program and eliminates the possibility of duplicating something you have already completed. Degree planning also involves decisions about what is right for you with regard to choice of courses, choice of programs and other decisions that you will need to make.

This Handbook will explain how you can best work your way through your degree with the assistance of the University's academic advisement team and other staffs. It will help you to understand the options available for you to earn your remaining credits on the way to degree completion. With the help of this Handbook, the University Catalog and the advisement team, you will have a better understanding about your current credits and how they apply to your chosen degree program, the most appropriate degree program for you, your academic preferences, the educational options the University offers and how all of these factors will be interwoven to benefit you.

This degree planning process can be more easily accomplished if you do the following:

  • Carefully review your Academic Evaluation. An explanation of your Academic Evaluation can be found in the section on Understanding your Academic Evaluation. If you have any questions concerning any part of it, at any time, you may contact the advisement office at academicadvising@tesc.edu or call (609) 777-5680.
  • Become familiar with the options offered by Thomas Edison State University to formulate a strategy for degree completion. You will find descriptions of each method in the section on Understanding Methods of Earning Credit, and in other publications as well as on the University website.
  • Design a degree plan and submit it to the Office of Academic Advising or seek assistance if you have any questions about creating a degree plan. Your degree plan includes credits already accepted toward your degree plus the credits that you want to earn.
  • Follow through on your plan, and modify or update it where and when appropriate.