6 Drafting your Educational Plan
Cascadia College COLL101 Team
Welcome!
This guide walks you through creating a draft of your Educational Plan using Navigate360. The Educational Plan is a quarterly map of classes you will take to work toward your educational goals at Cascadia. That may be admission requirements at your transfer school or training program, Associate degree requirements, and/or High School graduation requirements if you are in Running Start.
After completing this module, you will:
- Utilize tools and resources to meet your educational goals
- Draft an Educational Plan to move toward completion of your educational goals.
Looking for Help?
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- You can message your assigned Academic Advisor through Navigate360. To find your advisor, go to Navigate360, click on Resources, then People, click on your Advisor’s name, and finally Mail.
- You can attend a Drop-in Educational Planner workshop in-person or Online. Check the STAQ’s calendar for dates, times, and modalities.
- For a video demo, click on the blue circular badge next to “My Planner”
Step 1: Logging into the Academic Planner
- For this activity, you’ll login to Academic Planner through the desktop version of Navigate360.
- Login to Navigate360 with your Cascadia College username and password.
Hint! This is what you use to login to Canvas and your Cascadia Email - At the top of the screen next to the Navigate360 logo, click over the the “Planner” tab.
- Look at “My Goals” underneath My Planner. If the listed degree is incorrect, please submit the Program Update Form. You can continue working on your Educational Plan even if your degree goal needs to be updated.
Step 2: Adding a Template
Cascadia has created a template for every available degree. Templates list the requirements and electives needed to complete the degree. Adding a template will give you an outline of the classes you need.
- In the Planner Tab, go to the “Planning Tools” panel on the left, click “Add Templates.” You will see a list of all templates.
- A list of templates will appear in the center panel. Templates with a Green Star are programs that match your current academic goal.
- To add a template from the list, click on the “Add to My Templates” button.
- You can also search for a template using the search bar.
- Templates with a Green Star are programs that match your declared program and catalog year.
- If the starred template isn’t your Goal Program, scroll through the options, find the template, and click “Add to my Templates.”
- If you’ve already added a template to your list, it will appear grayed out.
- Once you’ve added templates you’ll see a link to” View Selected Templates.” If you select or deselect a checkbox, the Selected Templates Details will automatically update in the center panel.
- Your selections are saved automatically, so you will see them when you log in again.
Step 3: Adding a Term
- Add the Academic Terms you expect to take classes. In My Academic Plan in the right-side panel, click on the “hamburger” button (three lines). Click on “Add a Term,” and click on terms to add them to your academic plan, include all terms you plan to attend Cascadia. Note: many Associate degrees take up to 8 terms to complete. You can add more terms later, if you need another term for classes.
- In the “Selected Templates” details center pane, there may be some classes marked as “Matched.” These are classes you are currently enrolled in at Cascadia, or classes you have already completed at Cascadia.
- If you have credits from another school, or test scores (AP/IB/Cambridge), these will eventually appear in your “matched” column once they are officially evaluated by Cascadia. Until then, you can mark a requirement as “met,” you can wait to complete this step with your Advisor, if you prefer. Please ask your Advisor if your prior credits and/or test scores might be applied toward your degree at Cascadia.
Step 4: Adding Courses to your Educational Plan
Next, you’ll add classes into future quarters to plan our your educational goals. We recommend that you find your program pathway on Cascadia’s website for additional information on how to plan classes.
This section is broken into two options:
- Option 1: Adding courses using the Planner Template
- Option 2: Manually adding courses (Hint! If you need to take Math95, you’ll need to manually add it).
Each Pathway has slightly different needs. Click on the arrow next to your Pathway for important information.
Business
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- For students in the Business Pathways (including Accounting, Finance, Economics), Academic Advisors recommend that you first plan your math classes, and then Accounting and Economics classes, based on math prerequisites and what quarter each class is offered.
- You can draft your Educational Plan based on the sample schedule on our website.
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
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- For students in the STEM Pathways (including Pre-Medical pathways), Academic Advisors recommend that you first plan your math classes, and then science classes based on their math prerequisites, and the quarter the classes are offered.
- Most STEM students are paired with one of the following Associate degrees at Cascadia: General Biology, Science Track 1, Science Track 2. You can discuss your best option with your Academic Advisor. You can send an email to your Advisor before drafting your Educational Plan if you would like to confirm your best match. You can draft the Associate degree listed in your Planner in Navigate360, and ask follow-up questions later during your Advising meeting.
- You can draft your Educational Plan based on the sample schedule on our website.
- Click on your Program and click on the “Courses” for a sample Educational Plan.
- If you are interested in our new Bachelor of Science in Computer Science you can use this sample Educational Plan to draft your first two years. Please contact BS-CS Advisor Erika Miller (EMiller@cascadia.edu) for more information about this new program.
Communication, Creative Arts & Design
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- The Associate in Integrated Studies is the general recommendation for the Area of Interest for Communication, Creative Arts & Design
- You can draft your Educational Plan based on the sample schedule on our website
Social Sciences, Human Services, & Education
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- The Associate in Integrated Studies is the general recommendation for the Area of Interest for Social Sciences, Human Services, & Education
- You can draft your Educational Plan based on the sample schedule on our website
Earth Sciences, Sustainability & Environmental Studies
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- The Associate in Integrated Studies is the general recommendation for the Area of Interest for Sustainability & Environmental Studies
- If you’re interested in Earth Sciences, your Associate degree goal is based on your specific Pathway. Use the Programs page on our website to identify a specific Pathway.
- You can draft your Educational Plan based on the sample schedule on our website
Important Reminders
- Adding courses to your Academic Plan does not mean that you’ve scheduled or registered for those courses.
- If you’re a Running Start student make sure to plan out your high school classes and save at least 1 high school graduation requirement (not an elective) for Fall or Winter Quarter of your High School senior year at Cascadia.
- If you would like to participate in a Study Abroad program, keep that quarter empty for now, your Advisor will help you plan. View upcoming programs on our website at this link.
- The screen shots in the instructions are general, and may be different as you actually go through the process.
- Remember: you can attend a drop-in Educational Planner session in person or online. Check this course’s calendar for dates.
Option 1: Adding courses using the Planner Template
- The “Selected Template(s) Details” pane outlines the Course Map recommendations for your selected academic goal.
- To see what courses fulfill the template slot’s requirements, click the arrow next to a slot to expand.
- To add a course to your academic plan, click on the check box next to the course you want to add and click “Add to Term,” then select the term from the dropdown that opens. You can also add multiple courses to a single term.
Option 2: Manually Adding Courses to your Plan
Reminder: If you placed below College level in Math or English, search for it within the catalog and add it manually. The Math Placement Chart can help you identify the order of math classes that you need to take. Contact your advisor if you have any questions about this process!
Video Instructions [36 seconds]
Written Instructions
A course that is not listed in the template can be added to your plan for searching the Course Catalog.
- In the “Planning Tools” pane, expand the Course Catalog option by clicking the arrow. Then click on “Search for Courses.”
- A search page with various filters appears in the center panel.
- We suggest you use the Subject filter, and not the Keyword filter (image marked 1 and 2 below).
- When searching for more than one attribute (for example course code and keyword), the search looks for courses that meet ALL of the attributes, not ANY of the attributes. If you try a search and end up with no results, try removing one or more attributes to expand your search.
- After searching, results appear. You can add results to a term by checking the box next to a course (3) and clicking the “Add to Term” button (4), before or after choosing a term (5).
- We suggest you use the Subject filter, and not the Keyword filter (image marked 1 and 2 below).
Step 5: Making an Appointment with your Advisor
Your Educational Plan automatically saves as you create it. Your Academic Advisor will be able to view. Remember, your Educational Plan is a draft; map it out to the best of your ability. It’s okay if it’s not perfect! Make a list of questions you want to ask your advisor during your appointment.
You did it! Now it’s time to meet with your advisor. The instructions below show you how to make an appointment with your advisor using Navigate360:
- Log into Navigate360 with your student network email (@student.cascadia.edu).
- Click on Appointments from the left column of the Navigate360 homepage. This is the third option.
- In the center appointment screen, click on My Team, and click on your Academic Advisor from the list of Success Team members.
- In the New Appointment screen, select Coll101/STAQ Advising from the Service Drop down.
- Pick a Date
- Click on the blue Find Available Time button.
- Fill in the following 3 sections:
- Meeting modality (in Kodiak Corner or via Zoom), some Advisors only work remotely, so Zoom will be the only option.
- Pick a time that works for you. You can meet either in the Kodiak Corner in CC1 or on Zoom.
- Day and time (days with dots show availability).
- Review your appointment details and confirm!
- You can add comments or specific questions you want to discuss.
- Opt-in for a text/email reminder 🙂
Congratulations! You’ve completed your Educational Plan draft and made your Advising Appointment. You’re all done with the STAQ and Educational Plan. You don’t need to go back to the STAQ to complete any other work.