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Welcome to the Western State Colorado University DegreeWorks Overview Video Tutorial.
In this tutorial, you will learn about how to log-on to your MyWSCU account and access DegreeWorks.
To start, you’re going to want to visit WSCU’s homepage, www.western.edu.
Looking at the top right hand side of the page, locate the Quick Links drop down menu.
Click on the arrow and select Inside WSCU- Students.
Inside WSCU is the landing page just for WSCU students. From here, you can access your Mad Jack Mail (which is WSCU’s official form of
communication to students), Online Course information, personal file access, and MyWSCU.
This page also contains announcements and other pertinent links for students.
For now, we’re going to access MyWSCU. Click on the red MyWSCU banner and you will be directed to the log-in page.
Your username is stu followed by your student ID number (for example, stu123456).
You received a temporary password in the mail from WSCU and we recommend that you change the temporary password to a
personalized password as soon as possible. To do this, please visit www.western.edu/password.
For right now, enter your username and password and click on Login.
You will be brought to the Main Menu on the Personal Information tab. Select the Student tab at the top of the page and then click on
DegreeWorks at the bottom of the Student page.
Your personalized DegreeWorks page will load on your screen. We’ll work from the top of the screen to the bottom, explaining each section
along the way. The very top section, Student View, contains
your name, ID, classification, Advisor, overall GPA, and Academic Standing on the left side and Level, Degree, Catalog Year, Major,
Emphasis, and Minor on the right side. Some sections may be blank right now- for example, your advisor will be assigned when your
registration is complete, that’s why it’s blank. This is an example of a student majoring in Biology with an emphasis in Environmental
Biology & Ecology without a minor. Your major will be listed in this area, and if you are an undeclared student, the Major area will state
Major Not Declared.
The next section contains your test scores, whether ACT, SAT, or both. Test scores are used for Entry-level ability or placement into
Western’s English and Math courses.
The legend shows up next and explains the symbols used in DegreeWorks. A green checkmark indicates a class or requirement is
complete, whereas a red box indicates a class or requirement that is not complete. An asterisk indicates that a class requires a prerequisite
(which is either a certain test score and/or completing another class prior to enrolling in the course with the prerequisite).
The blue square with a togglemark indicates a class or requirement that is almost complete. If you have transferred in any work, a blue T in
parenthesis will show up next to the transfer course.
The next section with a blue bar is for Western’s requirements for your Bachelor of Arts degree.
All students must complete 120 credits in order to graduate from Western, and the credits you are either enrolled in or have completed will be
tallied on this right side of the blue bar. In addition, you will need an overall 2.0 GPA to graduate and you will need to fulfill General
Education requirements as well as Major Requirements. If you have met Entry Level Ability you will have a green checkmark next to
Entry Level Ability Met in this section- that means that you may enroll in college level English and math courses.
The next blue bar section outlines Western’s General Education requirements, which are 35 credits within Essential Skills and Liberal Arts.
Essential Skills consists of ENG 102, our First Year Academic Writing course and COM 202, our Second Year Academic Writing and Inquiry
course as well as a college-level math course. All Essential Skills courses need to be completed with a C- or better.
The next part, Liberal Arts, consists of three areas: Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Arts and Humanities.
You can select which courses you would like to take in order to fulfill each area’s requirements.
For Social Sciences, you need to complete three courses from three different disciplines (or subject areas),
Natural Sciences, you need to complete 8 credits in any area,
and Arts and Humanities has the same requirement as Social Sciences, with three courses coming from three different disciplines.
An example of this in Social Sciences, you can fulfill your Social Science requirement by taking Anthropology 107, ECON 201, or ENVS 100,
but you may not fulfill this requirement by taking all three Geography courses, as you need to take the classes from three different disciplines.
This is the same requirement again for Arts and Humanities, so you may take ART 105, COM 119, and English 150, but you cannot take three
English courses to fulfill your Arts & Humanities requirement.
Natural Sciences is a little bit different, where you just need to complete eight credits, and it can be from any discipline or subject area.
For example, if you want to take all of your courses within Chemistry, you are welcome to do so, or you may mix and match your courses.
The sections below General Education requirements contain information about requirements for your declared major, emphasis,
and/or minor. If your major is incorrect, it can be changed for you during your first semester’s registration.
After that time has passed, to change your major you only need to fill out a Change of Major/Advisor form in the Office of the Registrar.
This concludes the DegreeWorks overview Video Tutorial.