Using Academics - View Academic Requirements
Introduction
The Academic Requirements report is an interactive tool that allows you to review current and up-to-date details regarding your progress toward degree completion. The Academic Requirements report matches all of your completed and enrolled courses at CSULB and any external coursework and credits from other institutions, including exams (e.g. Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate) and other credits (e.g. military credit), to your current academic program(s) requirements.
Your Academic Requirements Report
The Academic Requirements report can be found in the “other academics” pull-down menu.
- Step 1 Select Academic Requirements, and then click the advance arrow
. This action opens your Academic Requirements report.
Academic Objective and Summary:
- Current Academic Objective box has your official program and plan objectives. Notice that the Requirement (Catalog) Term column displays the catalog requirement year for each of your objectives. These catalog years are the basis of your Academic Requirement Report. The Expected Grad Term will have a notation under Graduation Status of Applied, In Review, etc., if you have filed a Request to Graduate with the Office of Enrollment Services.
- Current Academic Summary box displays the last term you registered, your academic standing, and your Overall and CSULB GPAs.
- Advisor Notes link will appear when your Advisor has posted notes for you to view.
- The Print Report link provides a printer-friendly print capability.
General Information and Icon Legend
The Academic Requirements report is designed to enable you to focus on your progress toward completing your degree as well as provide information to assist your advisor. The features that allow a quick scan of the report include:
- The report’s display expands the unmet degree; while the completed degree are collapsed. You may alter the view by clicking either the collapse all button, or the expand all button.
- Icons are used throughout the report for a quick view of the completion status of degree and the sources of the course credit. A legend is provided to explain the icons.
- The requirements are clearly separated by blue bars. The darker-blue bar signifies a specific requirement. The light-blue bars represent the various areas to complete within a specific requirement.
- For major requirements, a course grid will display all courses needed to satisfy the requirement. These grids display the status of the course requirement indicating if it has been satisfied – complete or in progress, etc. In addition, the course grid will display course requirements that you still need to take to fulfill the requirement.
Academic Requirements Categories
- The Academic Requirements report organizes program requirements by categories.
- YOUR DEGREE AUDIT notifies users of the purpose of this report.
- UNIT REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY - minimum undergraduate degree unit requirements for a bachelor’s degree.
- GPA REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY - Overall and CSULB undergraduate GPA requirements.
- GRADUATION WRITING ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENT (GWAR) – student’s WPE status.
- TRANSFER CREDIT STATUS – “Official” if all coursework received to date has been evaluated; “Unofficial” if any coursework remains to be evaluated.
- GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS - undergraduate General Education (GE) requirements.
- GENERAL EDUCATION SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS - special GE requirements (e.g., Global Issues, Human Diversity in the United States, and Upper Division Capstone courses) required by CSULB.
- ACADEMIC PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS – designates the requirements for a specific academic objective (major(s), minor(s), and certificate(s).
- UNASSIGNED COURSES – successfully completed courses which have not been used to meet specific GE or major/minor/certificate subject requirements.
Interactive Features
View All
There are some course requirements that have more than 10 courses from which to select in order to complete the requirement. For such requirements, you may expand the course list to display the courses allowed.
- Step 1 Click the View All icon
or the button 
to expand the list of courses that may be used to satisfy a specific requirement. Your list will expand to show all courses allowed.
- Step 2 Once you are finished viewing the expanded list, click the Return button.
Course Descriptions
Clicking a course description (i.e. Psychology of Learning link) advances you to the Course Detail page, which displays additional information on the course including enrollment requirements and course description.
View Class Sections
Click the view class sections button to expand the Course Schedule for the course offerings.
Course Schedule
You may view the terms and sections that a specific course is offered.
When you are finished viewing this information, click the Return to link to return to the Academic Requirements report.
Should you wish to check the course availability and add the specific course to your Shopping Cart for enrollment, you may proceed by clicking the Select button.
Shopping Cart
You may add courses to your Shopping Cart by selecting from the Course Schedule.
View Course List
Courses that may be used to satisfy requirements may be included in a list. To view the list, click the View Course List link. This action displays all courses that may apply to the specific requirement.
When you are finished viewing this information, click the Return to link to return to the Academic Requirements report.
Unassigned Courses
Unassigned Courses are courses not assigned to meet specific GE or major/minor/certificate subject requirements. Students are encouraged to contact their Advisors if they believe any of the unassigned courses could satisfy any unmet requirement. Only courses with earned credit will appear in the grid. For a complete list of all courses taken, please refer to your Course History or Unofficial Transcript.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I review my Academic Requirements Report?
Your Academic Requirements report is current as of the time you access it online. Since any change to your academic record, such as dropping or adding a course, changing your major, or repeating a course, could affect your Academic Requirements Report, we encourage you to review it whenever you make registration changes. You should also check your Report after grades have been posted, and in preparation for advising and registration appointments.
What if I repeat a course?
If you have repeated any courses and they have been graded, your Academic Requirements report and Course History will reflect the impact. In the Repeat Code column, you can review how the repeated courses impact your GPA - whether the posted grades are or are not included in your GPA and in units earned. Your unofficial transcript also reflects these repeat adjustments.
What if I’m thinking about changing my major or adding a minor?
Before you meet with your advisor to discuss a change of major, add a minor, etc., we encourage you to utilize the “What-If Report” from your Student Center pull-down menu. This feature allows you to create a simulated Academic Requirements report for a different plan (major and/or minor), or a different subplan (major concentration, emphasis, or specialization), helping you to determine what impact a change in plan may have on your academic career.
The simulated Academic Requirements report will analyze your course history (CSULB and external) and provide a summary of your progress toward a different major or minor.
Running a What-If Report
- To create a report using a different GE Requirement Term, change the Requirement Term in the Career Scenario section.
- To change the Program (major and/or minor), make your selections from the Program Scenario section. Your scenario may include up to three separate programs (majors and/or minors). Use the pull-down menu to designate the area of study, plan term, concentration (if appropriate), and subplan term.
- Click the Submit button.
How will a specific course affect my progress to degree?
In addition to creating a simulated Academic Requirements Report, you may also simulate how courses in which you have not yet enrolled would apply toward your current academic program. You can search for possible courses in a given subject and then analyze how they may impact your progress to degree.
- Click the browse course catalog button to search for courses. You can search by the first letter of the course title or the course number.
- Expand the subject code (e.g., “HSC-Health Science”) by clicking the expand arrow button . You can then select from a list of specific course numbers or GE categories.
- To view the course description, click the Course Title link.
- Click the select button to choose a course.
A simulated Academic Requirements Report will appear with the selected course incorporated.
What-if courses will be identified by the “What-if Course” icon.
Where Can I Go for Help?
For General Education Issues
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If your Academic Requirements report indicates you did not receive General Education credit for a transfer course that you believe meets a GE requirement, do the following:
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Review your Transfer Credit Report, and review it to determine whether the transfer course in question has been posted to your record.
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If the course is not included on your Transfer Credit Report and you are certain that your transfer institution has sent your transcript to CSULB Enrollment Services, immediately inform Enrollment Services of the situation by submitting a Problem Resolution Worksheet. Enrollment Services will research the status of your transcript and respond to you.
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If the course is included on your Transfer Credit Report but with no GE credit, check with your transfer institution (e.g., that school’s Schedule of Classes) to confirm that the course in question is GE certified for the term in which you were enrolled. Alternatively, you can check the web site ASSIST.org to determine whether your transfer course is certified for GE credit. (ASSIST is an on-line student-transfer information system that shows how course credits earned at one public California college or university can be applied when transferred to another.)
If the information from your transfer institution or from ASSIST indicates that your transfer course is, in fact, GE certified, please inform Enrollment Services by submitting a Problem Resolution Worksheet.
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If a General Education Certification that you submitted from a transfer college does not appear on your Academic Requirements Report, use the Problem Resolution Worksheet to report the problem to Enrollment Services.
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If you want to know whether a certain CSULB course meets a GE requirement, check the "General Education Courses" section of the Schedule of Classes. The course must be on the list for the semester in which you enroll. The Schedule of Classes is available on-line.
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If your Academic Requirements Report shows that you still need courses in some GE areas, but you do not know what to take, check the list of GE courses by category in the Schedule of Classes. The Schedule of Classes is available on-line. For further help, consult with an adviser at the University Center for Undergraduate Advising.
Other Degree-Requirement Issues
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If you believe that degree requirements appearing on your Academic Requirements Report are different from those requirements for your catalog year as described in the Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog, see your major adviser. If there is an error that your adviser cannot resolve, submit a "Problem Resolution Worksheet" to Enrollment Services.
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If you have filed a Request to Graduate, the section of the report relating to your major may not yet reflect all of the adjustments made by your adviser via the Adviser Request System. Enrollment Services will send you an e-mail message once all adjustments approved by your adviser have been made. After those adjustments have been made, if you still believe that a course substitution, exception, or waiver is missing from your Academic Requirements Report or is incorrect, or that a transfer course should have been used to meet a degree requirement, or that your catalog year is incorrect, consult with your major adviser. If there is still a problem that the adviser cannot resolve, submit a "Problem Resolution Worksheet" to Enrollment Services.