Degree Planner Frequently Asked Questions

I. Degree Planner problem with the GE Area titled "GE ELECT 2nd"

Students following the 2020-2021 Cal Poly Catalog and the 2021-2022 Cal Poly Catalog and adhering to the "Standard GE Template" (as opposed to the "High-Unit GE Template"), please NOTE:

There is a General Education Area requirement titled "GE ELECT" that you will see reflected in your Degree Planner. The GE ELECT area is comprised of two courses: 

1. GE ELECT 1st (one course from GE Area B, Area C, or Area D)
2. GE ELECT 2nd (one course from a GE Area not used to fulfill GE ELECT 1st)

Degree Planner is not recognizing the restriction for the second course (GE ELECT 2nd). Degree Planner is often erroneously planning a double-count course for GE ELECT 2nd with a course from the major requirements. The major requirement course CANNOT be used to fulfill GE ELECT 2nd as it is from the same GE Area that was used to fulfill GE ELECT 1st.

Please disregard Degree Planner warnings and/or messaging for the GE ELECT 2nd requirement, and be sure to manually select a course that is NOT from the same GE Area as the course used to fulfill GE ELECT 1st.

You may want to utilize the Class Search tool in PeopleSoft to help find GE Area courses (Area B, Area C, and Area D).

II. Possible Verification Warning when Degree Planner order does not match Degree Progress Report order

A Verification Warning can occur if the sequence of your planned courses does not match the sequence outlined in your Degree Progress Report.

Degree Planner aligns with your Degree Progress Report, which fills your degree requirements from the top of your report down.

Many courses can fulfill multiple degree requirements. If you plan a course in your Degree Planner that can satisfy your planned degree requirement AND an unfulfilled degree requirement higher in your Degree Progress Report, Degree Planner will alert you via Verification Warning that the course is being used elsewhere (as Degree Planner will want to slot the course in the higher unfulfilled degree requirement to align with your DPR). You can change the chronological sequence of your planned courses to correct the issue.

For best results, plan your courses in your Degree Planner in a chronological order that aligns with the Degree Progress Report sequence. For instance, requirements that appear at the top of the Degree Progress Report should be planned in earlier terms than requirements that appear lower in the DPR.

We are actively working to find a solution to this problem, and we greatly appreciate your patience while we work with our vendor.

III. Challenges with changing "Free Elective - Required" course selection

You may see "Free Elective - Required" boxes in your plan (see "Add a Free Elective course" for more information on the difference between added and required electives)

There is currently only one method to update your course selection for a required Free Elective.

First, select "Edit Course" to the right of the course selection you want to change.

Next, click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the pop-up that appears. Click "Change" to select a new course.

1. Find Degree Planner

Degree Planner is located in the Student Center. In your My Cal Poly Portal, your Student Center will appear on the left-hand side under your "My Apps":

Open the navigation bar on the left-hand side of the Student Center. Degree Planner is located under "Academic Progress":

2. Log into your Degree Planner

Degree Planner is a tool that benefits you. Your accuracy helps you graduate on time as Cal Poly can anticipate your plans and ensure that your academic needs are accommodated.

To ensure that your planned courses are considered in course demand data for the upcoming terms, log in at least once between the end of Add/Drop for the current term and the end of Add/Drop for the next term (excluding summer). The Add/Drop deadline falls on the 8th business day of each term. Check important dates on the Course Demand Login Calendar or the Office of the Registrar's Calendars and Deadlines page.

Failing to log into Degree Planner during a term login window will NOT result in a delayed registration appointment.

3. Add a course to your plan

Degree Planner imports all course requirements directly from your Degree Progress Report. You should not add a course to your plan using the "Add A Free Elective Course (If Needed)" button unless the course is intended as a Free Elective [for possible exceptions, see also "Prepare for an Individualized Change of Major Agreement (ICMA) or undeclared concentration/minor" or "Plan courses for an Individualized Course of Study (ICS)"].

Sometimes you will need to locate a course in your plan in order to move it to a different term. See the next two questions for instructions on finding courses within your plan and for more information about planning Free Electives.

4. Determine where a course is planned/Print Path

Because all courses in your declared program of study are imported into Degree Planner, you may want to find where courses exist in your plan in order to move them to different terms. There are two methods to view all courses within your plan:

• Method 1 - Expand All: From your Landing Page, click "Expand All." This function expands all the terms in your plan so you can view all your courses at once.

• Method 2 - Preview Plan: From your Landing Page, click "Preview Plan." This function will create a printable version of your plan that also contains information about your past courses, required General Education courses, unplanned requirements, and requirement options within your major. From the "Preview Plan" view, your plan can be printed, saved as a PDF, or used to search for courses.

• Method 3 - Print Path: From your Landing Page, click "Path Actions." Then, click "Print." This action will produce the same printable format as the Preview Plan function.

5. Remove a course/requirement

You have the ability to remove a course (or requirement) from your plan. This action is not recommended unless you are planning a change of major or have confirmed with an advisor that you no longer plan to take the course.

If the course/requirement that you remove is a prerequisite for other courses in your plan, all affected, unlocked courses will be removed as well from subsequent terms. It may be preferable to leave a course/requirement in your plan if removing it causes problems.

• To remove a course/requirement, click the three dots next to the course and select "Remove":

• A pop-up warning will appear asking you to confirm that you want to remove the course:

• After removing a course, it will be moved to the "Unplanned Requirements" section and automatically locked:

6. Adjust your Expected Graduation Term

Your Expected Graduation Term is assigned after you reach 72% degree completion (78% for Architecture and Landscape Architecture majors). Your progress is visible to you on the Academic Progress Gauge on PolyProfile. Once your Expected Graduation Term is assigned, it is visible to you in Degree Planner:

*NOTE: You are unable to add terms past your assigned Expected Graduation Term. To change your Expected Graduation Term, submit either a Notification of Earlier Expected Graduation Term or a Request to Extend Expected Graduation Term.

7. View Notes and Messages

You may see "Notes" and/or "Messages" icons in your plan. The Messages icon is a blue box with a white lowercase "i," and the Notes icon is a gray piece of paper with the upper right-hand corner folded down. You will need to use different methods to view Notes and Messages:

To view Notes:

1.) Click directly on the Notes icon.

2.) Select the drop-down row that contains the associated Note.

3.) The Note will display once the drop-down row has been selected.

To view Messages:

1.) Open a "Print" view of your plan to see your Messages. The Print view can be accessed from the "Path Actions" drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner of your plan.

2.) Scroll to the bottom of the "Print" view version of your plan to see your Messages. They will be listed under the "Requirement Messages" subheading.

8. Add a Free Elective course

Degree Planner calculates your Free Electives and adds the estimated number of required courses to your plan. The system provides an alert if you will be deficient in total units for graduation (by fewer than 4 units):

Degree Planner is a student planning tool and should not be relied upon for graduation purposes. Check your Degree Progress Report regularly.

There are two types of Free Electives you may see in your plan: Required and Added.

Free Elective - Required

Not all majors require Free Electives. If yours does, you will need to find the course boxes titled "Free Elective - Required" (see "Determine where a course is planned/Print Path" for more information about finding courses within your Degree Planner).

Once found, click "Select Course:"

Free Elective - Added

If you need to add a course not already in your Degree Planner, you can use the "Add A Free Elective Course (If Needed)" option listed within any term. Courses added via this method will appear as "Free Elective - Added." 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Use caution when adding extra Free Electives. Only use the "Add A Free Elective Course (If Needed)" button to add courses that do not satisfy a requirement in your program. Some specific situations warrant adding Free Electives. See also "Prepare for an Individualized Change of Major Agreement (ICMA) or undeclared concentration/minor" or "Plan courses for an Individualized Course of Study (ICS)".

9. Move a course/requirement to a different term

Degree Planner recommends when you should take your courses, but you also have the ability to move courses around to create your ideal schedule. Once a course has been moved, it becomes locked in the new term so Degree Planner cannot automatically shuffle the course out of your preferred term (see "Lock/unlock a course requirement" for more information).

There are four methods to move courses within your plan:

• Method 1 - From your Landing Page, select the course you want to move and drag it to the term in which you wish to take it.

• Method 2A - From your Landing Page, click the three dots next to the course you want to move and click "Move."

• Method 2B - A pop-up window will appear allowing you to select the term in which you would like to move the course.

• Method 3 - From your Landing Page, find the course you want to move and click "Edit Course." Click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the pop-up window that appears. Finally, click "Move."

• Method 4 - From your Landing Page, open the term that contains the course you want to move. Within the term, click the three dots next to the course you want to move. Finally, click "Move."

• Method 5 - From your Landing Page, open the term that contains the course you want to move. Within the term, select the course you want to move. Once the course details appear, click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the course details. Finally, click "Move."

10. Lock/unlock a course/requirement

Once you move a course/requirement to a new term, it is automatically locked by the system:

A lock prevents the system from moving the course/requirement when your plan refreshes (see next question regarding what triggers a path refresh).

To lock or unlock a course/requirement, simply click on the lock icon. 

Tip: When planning an upcoming term, you can lock courses you intend to keep and move unwanted courses out. Locked courses are preserved unless your final registration contradicts your plan and triggers a refresh.

11. Understand what triggers your plan to refresh

The Notifications Center in the upper right-hand corner will alert you about changes to your plan and summarize the changes after your path refreshes:

A path refresh can be triggered by universal curriculum/course changes or by your personal academic status. The following is a list of factors that can impact your plan:

• Universal course change (prerequisites, term typically offered, etc.)
• Universal curriculum change (requirement update for your catalog and program of study)
• Personal registration update (if actual enrollment deviates from original plan)
• Personal transfer work posts to your Degree Progress Report
• Personal program of study change
• Personal failed course

When any of the above occurs, Degree Planner will automatically refresh your path the next time you log in. This refresh may shuffle the position of the planned courses in your path and move requirements to an earlier or later term.

See previous question regarding how to prevent the system from moving a course out of a desired term (lock) during a subsequent refresh.

12. Choose/change a course within a requirement option

Some requirements contain options and require IMMEDIATE attention in order to ensure the best user experience.

NOTE: If you delay selecting an option, it can cause significant issues:

• Courses dependent on Option courses as prerequisites may display in "Unplanned Requirements" (instead of in the terms of your plan) because the Option contains a prerequisite course for subsequent requirements.
• Courses requiring Option courses as prerequisites may appear out of sequence and before the prerequisites.

If applicable, you will see option choices displayed within an "Option" section on the landing page:

Selecting an option will prompt the system to add the corresponding course choices to terms within your plan (note that you are unable to make course selections here): 

To select a course for an option, you must first find your selected option within your path. Remember that the option is placed within a term after you make your option choice (for instructions on finding requirements within your path, see "Determine where course is planned/Print Path"):

13. Plan General Education requirements

Degree Planner will customize your GE requirement listings and display the appropriate GE Areas that align with your Cal Poly catalog and your major.

GE Areas that are satisfied by required major/support courses should NOT be planned in Degree Planner. Please verify the required GE Areas for your major by reviewing the GE section listed beneath your major in the Cal Poly Catalog.

Follow these steps to plan a GE requirement:

For a GE Requirement, clicking the "Select Course" button will display courses from GE Areas required for your catalog/major:

You are able to sort GE course options by GE Area:

View course details for a course within your GE list to verify the GE details of that course. You can open a course by clicking on the carrot to the left of the course name:

14. Add courses to a summer term

Summer terms are universally set to contain zero (0) units. To move a course to a summer term, start by changing the maximum units for one or more summer terms.

Students can edit the units for a single summer term by clicking the "Max Units" window for that specific term and editing the number of units:

Students can also edit multiple summer terms by using the "Mass Edit Max Units" function:

Next, select "Summer Term" from the Term Type drop-down menu, select specific summer terms from the list that appears in the Term Name section, and update the "Max Units" for all selected summer terms:

*NOTE: Degree Planner will automatically add courses to available summer terms once the Max Units have been increased. See "Move a course/requirement to a different term" for more information about moving courses into summer terms.

15. Add required Topics courses

Topics courses appear in your plan. However, you are unable to specify the exact Topics course you intend to take.

*NOTE: Please disregard a warning message after "Verify Path" saying "You chose a course that satisfies one or more requirements, not just the one you were intending to satisfy."

16. Adjust the number of units in a term

Degree Planner is universally programmed to plan a maximum of 16 units for all regular terms (fall, winter, and spring). Summer terms are universally programmed to plan a maximum of 0 units.

To change the number of maximum units:

• Go to the desired term and click on the green pencil icon in the "Max Units" window:

• Adjust the units to match your desired total.
• "Save" your new maximum unit total:

To adjust the units for multiple terms, click "Mass Edit Max Units" on your Landing Page:

Select the terms you would like to adjust. Adjust the units to match your desired totals and click "Update Selected." The new maximum units for the term you selected will appear in the column "New Max Units." If you are satisfied with your changes, click "Save Changes":

17. Prevent Degree Planner from adding more courses to a term

Degree Planner is universally programmed to plan a maximum of 16 units for all regular terms (fall, winter, and spring). Summer terms are universally programmed to plan a maximum of 0 units.

If you do not want Degree Planner to add more courses to a specific term, you should lock the courses you want in that term (see "Lock/unlock a course/requirement") and adjust the maximum units to the exact total units you will complete for the term (see "Adjust the number of units in a term").

If your maximum units do not match the exact total units you have planned, Degree Planner will continue to add unlocked courses/requirements until the unit maximum has been reached.

In the example below, Degree Planner does not know how many units the GE Area D requirement is because a specific course has not been selected. As a result, Degree Planner added the GE Area D requirement box to this term because only 19 total units have been planned for a term with maximum 20 units.

After changing the maximum units to match the total units planned, the excess course is removed from this term.

PLEASE NOTE: Total units in a term may exceed maximum units if too many courses/requirements are locked in that term.

18. Plan a course in a term when the system determines the course is not offered

Departments forecast when courses will be offered. The data is stored in Degree Planner and enforced by the system (Degree Planner will warn you if you are planning a course in a term it is not typically offered).

View course details to check when a course is offered. To find course details:

1. Click on the "Select Course" option on your landing page, or open the term, and click the "Select a course" option.
2. Click on the carrot to the left of the course name to open the course details.

The terms typically offered are visible under the "Offered" subheading:

*NOTE: Sometimes departments offer courses during different terms than they intended. If you are certain that a course will be offered in a term that contradicts the offered information, you can move the course to your desired term and lock it (see "Lock/unlock courses"). When you move the course, Degree Planner will still warn you that the course is not typically offered in that term.

19. Designate a different last term in your plan

There are a number of factors that can delay the last term in your plan, including:

• Too few units/courses planned in previous terms
• Courses toward the end of your plan are only offered in certain terms
• Transfer work has not been processed
• Wrong Expected Graduation Term (see next question)

You may need to check whether the above variables are impacting your plan.

20. Understand how terms are assigned in your plan

Degree Planner automatically displays five years of terms in your plan. This will often result in a plan that extends past your intended graduation term. Please note that courses are typically only planned for the number of terms that coincide with your flowchart, although there are exceptions. Once you are assigned an Expected Graduation Term (EGT), your plan will only extend until your EGT.

21. Alert Cal Poly if you will not attend a term

Complete the Cal Poly Undergraduate Informal Time Off form. For questions or support, contact a Retention Specialist at retention@calpoly.edu.

Adjust your term units to zero (0) to signal that you will be away (see next question regarding study abroad/transfer courses).

• Go to the desired term and click on the green pencil icon in the "Max Units" window:

• Set the maximum number of units for the term to zero (0).
• "Save" your new maximum unit total:

If you intend to be absent for a year, click on the "Mass Edit Max Units" button at the top of your landing page:

Within the Mass Edit Max Units window, select the terms you are going to be absent and set the "Max Units" to zero (0). Click "Update Selected" to change the maximum unit totals for those terms to zero (0):

22. Start planning as an admitted transfer student

Your transfer records will need to be processed before you attend your first term at Cal Poly. Once your transfer transcripts have been thoroughly reviewed, you will receive an email from the Evaluations Unit of the Office of the Registrar (evaluations@calpoly.edu) indicating that your transcript evaluation is complete and your Degree Progress Report (DPR) is ready to be viewed.

Please WAIT until you receive this notification from Evaluations to begin using your Degree Planner. If you view your Degree Planner before your transfer records have been thoroughly evaluated, you may see inaccuracies in your plan.

23. Plan for study abroad or transfer courses

If you anticipate that a requirement will be met by a study abroad course or future transfer course, plan the corresponding Cal Poly course in Degree Planner. Plan the course in the term you will study abroad or take the transfer course.

If you would like, you can leave a note in Degree Planner to remind yourself that you will be fulfilling the requirement outside of Cal Poly.

24. Prepare for an Individualized Change of Major Agreement (ICMA) or undeclared concentration/minor

Only your currently declared program of study (major/concentration/minor) will be visible in your plan (see next question about planning your declared minor).

There is no way to change your major, add a concentration, or add a minor within Degree Planner. It pulls data directly from your Degree Progress Report (DPR), so until your paperwork has been approved and processed, Degree Planner will not contain your desired major’s/concentration’s/minor’s requirements. Degree Planner will automatically update once your DPR is updated. 

If your major requires a concentration and you have not yet declared one, you will see a block of Concentration Courses in "Unplanned Requirements." Seeing your Concentration Courses in "Unplanned Requirements" should serve as a reminder that you must declare your concentration.

Please do not attempt to move the box into your plan.

We strongly recommend meeting regularly with an advisor to discuss which courses you should take. After confirming your plans with an advisor, you can utilize Degree Planner to have a visual idea of your new path while you wait for your desired major/concentration/minor to update:

1. Plan courses from your current program of study that you still need to take.
2. If you plan to change your major/concentration/minor, you should remove the courses you do not plan to take. For more information on how to do this, please see “Remove a course/requirement.”
3. Add courses from your desired plan that do not currently exist in your Degree Planner by using the “Add A Free Elective Course (If Needed)” button. These “free electives” should be thought of as placeholders until your Degree Planner updates to your new major/concentration/minor.
4. Save a copy of your plans (see “Determine where a course is planned/Print Path”). When your Degree Planner updates, your plans will undergo a reset.
5. After your Degree Planner updates, if there are remaining “free elective” placeholders in your plan, you will need to delete them. When major requirements appear twice in your plan (one being from the system and the other being a “free elective”), the duplication causes errors in Degree Planner, thus the placeholders must be deleted.

25. Plan your declared minor

Only major/concentration requirements are added to terms in your Degree Planner. Minor course requirements will appear in "Unplanned Requirements":

Once your minor is declared, move all minor courses/requirements out of "Unplanned Requirements" and place them in your desired terms (see "Move a course/requirement to a different term").

26. Plan your double major

Both of your majors will display in your plan title. However, only the primary major path courses/requirements will be automatically generated in your plan. Use the "Add A Free Elective Course (If Needed)" option within terms to add courses for your non-primary major.

27. Prepare for your switch to a Blended degree program

Blended students are not currently provided access to Degree Planner. In order to preserve your plan before you are locked out (when you transition to graduate student standing), you may want to print a copy of your plan (see "Determine where a course is planned/Print Path").

28. Plan courses for an Individualized Course of Study (ICS)

Nonspecific ICS course requirements appear within terms in your plan.

You will see a "Select Course" button beside each requirement:

However, you are unable to plan courses for your ICS and will see this message after choosing "Select Course":

There is also a note explaining each ICS requirement: 

Selecting "Notes" will open this message:

Conclusion: You do not need to plan ICS courses. As your ICS courses are processed and display in the ICS section of your Degree Progress Report, those corresponding placeholder requirements will vanish from your plan.

29. Plan a course if a prerequisite is not met

Degree Planner enforces prerequisites based on requirement lines in the Degree Progress Report (DPR). You can progress to a subsequent requirement (versus course) once it is met. Therefore, once a substitution is fully processed and the requirement is met, Degree Planner will plan subsequent requirements that are dependent on that requirement prerequisite.

You will need to obtain a permission number when you register for a course without completing the prerequisite course.

It is possible to remove a required prerequisite course from your plan if you know it will be substituted (see "Remove Course"). However, removing a course can result in problems with planning subsequent courses, so it may not be the most favorable option.

30. Plan a course that satisfies multiple requirements

Sometimes you will want to plan a course to satisfy multiple requirements for graduation (GE/Major/Minor). GE courses that are officially required within your major will be anticipated by Degree Planner and handled appropriately (duplicate requirements will be removed from your plan). However, you will need to anticipate unofficial situations where a course may meet multiple requirements and, therefore, appear as a duplicate in your plan.

In the event that you will use a course for multiple requirements, you should plan the course once. If the course is needed as a prerequisite for your major, you should choose to plan the major course. The other duplicate requirements that contain that course should be moved to "Unplanned Requirements."

To move a requirement to "Unplanned Requirements," find the requirement you wish to remove, select the three dots, and choose "Remove":

The system will caution you that there could be unintended consequences. For instance, if the removed course is a prerequisite for subsequent courses, multiple planned courses may move. This is the warning:

The duplicate requirement will then be locked in "Unplanned Requirements":

31. Plan a repeat course

If you previously failed or withdrew from a course, find the course/requirement within your plan (see "Determine where a course is planned/Print Path") and select the exact course you took previously for the same requirement.

If you passed a course but wish to retake it for a better grade, add the course as a Free Elective in Degree Planner (see "Add a Free Elective course"). Please speak with your advisor to learn more about Cal Poly's Grade Forgiveness Policy before retaking a course.

If you may not pass a current course and want to plan it in a future term, add the future course as a Free Elective during the interim before grades post. If you do not pass, you must then add the course under the proper requirement and delete the course you previously added as a Free Elective. If you pass, delete the Free Elective course you added.

32. Plan an HNRS (honors) course to satisfy a degree requirement

Degree Planner defaults to add non-honors courses to your plan. If you intend to take the corresponding HNRS course to satisfy a requirement, leave the regular course in Degree Planner to prevent issues. Once you prepare to enroll using Schedule Builder, you can delete the regular course and manually add the corresponding HNRS course to your schedule for that term. First-year students are registered into HNRS 161 and HNRS 162 during block enrollment and can disregard planning for both courses.

33. Reset path

The "Reset" Path Action clears all previous planning activity.

To reset your path, click on "Path Actions" in the upper right-hand corner of your landing page and select "Reset":

*NOTE: Any previously selected courses will be lost and will require your attention.

34. View course details

Check the prerequisites, term typically offered, and general description of a course by reviewing the course details:

1. Click on the "Select Course" option on your landing page, or open the term, and click the "Select a course" option.
2. Click on the carrot to the left of the course name to open the course details:

*NOTE: For issues regarding term typically offered, see also "Plan a course in a term when the system determines the course is not offered."

35. Verify path

Use the "Verify" Path Action to check your path at the end of your planning session. This process runs your planned courses against your Degree Progress Report (DPR) to determine where courses align with requirements while verifying that nothing has been duplicated:

*NOTE: "Verify Path" does not run your planned courses against all degree requirements (GWR, USCP, residency requirements, etc.). You must review your Degree Progress Report regularly.

36. Use a supported browser

Please use Chrome or Mozilla Firefox to access Degree Planner. Using supported browsers will prevent potential performance issues.

37. Remove excess courses from the current term during the enrollment window

After enrollment, your enrolled courses will display with a green symbol to the right of the course name:

If you are content with your schedule and want to eliminate extra non-enrolled courses that appear in your plan, you can reduce the "max units for the term" to push extra courses to a subsequent term.

38. Determine why multiple major requirements are appearing in the "Unplanned Requirements" column

Some requirements in your plan may contain options and require IMMEDIATE attention in order to ensure the best user experience:

If you delay selecting an option, requirements may display in the "Unplanned Requirements" section because an option contains a prerequisite course which is required for subsequent requirements. For more information about selecting options, see "Choose/change a course within a requirement option."

Courses may also move to Unplanned if you remove a prerequisite course from your plan using the "Remove Course" button. For more information about removing a course, see "Remove a course/requirement."