Degree Works offers real-time tracking of all of the requirements needed to complete an Occidental degree.
Degree Works is an online advising tool for both students and their faculty advisers. This page provides information about Degree Works, as well as answering some frequently asked questions.
Degree Works offers several different features that help student navigate their academic experience at Occidental College:
- Degree Audits. The audit functionality allows students and their advisers to instantly see which requirements they have already fulfilled and track their progress toward degree completion. Degree Works audits include an analysis of the all requirements relevant to a given student, including degree, Core, major, and minor requirements.
- What-If Analysis. This feature allows students to quickly see what requirements they would need to fulfill if they were to declare a given major or minor.
- GPA Calculators. Degree Works offers three different GPA calculators to allow students to calculate their GPA based on both existing grades and possible future grades.
Interpreting the Degree Works Audit
The Degree Works dashboard organizes sets of requirements into "blocks"—that is, you will see a block for degree requirements, a block for Core requirements, and additional blocks for any majors or minors that have been declared. Within a block, each requirement is displayed on its own line with an icon indicating that requirement's status:
- A green check mark indicates that the requirement has been fulfilled
- A red open circle indicates that the requirement has not yet been completed
- A half-filled blue circle indicates that requirement will be fulfilled at the end of the semester, pending successful completion of the indicated course.
The "@" Wildcard
Degree Works uses the “@” sign as a wildcard character for both subject codes and course numbers. For example, a requirement labeled "CHEM @" could be fulfilled by any Chemistry course. Likewise, a requirement labeled "CTSJ 3@" can be fulfilled by any 300-level CTSJ course. In some cases, you'll see a requirement listed as "@ @," which indicates that it can be fulfilled by any course in any subject. This is typically used in conjunction with attributes.
Attributes
An attribute is a code assigned to a course to indicate that it fulfills a specific requirement. For example, the attribute "CPUD" is used to indicate that a course fulfills the Core U.S. Diversity requirement. When an attribute is used for a requirement, Degree Works will display a message like "1 Course in @ @ with attribute = CPLS." In this example, the requirement would be fulfilled by a course in any subject with any number, as long as the course has the Core Lab Science (CPLS) attribute.