So today's lesson is going to be learning about how to read your DARS report. So the DARS report stands for Degree Audit Report. This is a computerized report that will show you all the requirements you must meet in order to graduate.
As you move along in your academic journey, so will your DARS. In other words, as you enroll and complete courses, the DARS report will show you what you have satisfied and what you still need to satisfy. Before I begin to teach you this report, I do want to give you a few comments about the DARS report. First, the DARS report is the official report the graduation office uses to determine whether or not you graduate. So it's really important for you to learn this report because as you move along, you'll be assured when you've finished all the requirements that the graduation office will also agree with you.
It's also interactive, meaning if you add a course, it will automatically show on the DARS. If you drop or withdraw from a course, it will disappear from the DARS. The report is divided up into five main requirement areas.
There's going to be the university requirements, there's going to also be general studies requirements, college major requirements, and in your case it's going to be political science or global studies, and finally electives. You can see these on the graph. area here.
A tip would be to please refrain from taking courses in the order of the report. That is to go ahead and look at this report and just go top down. In each term you're most likely going to be taking a mixture of courses that will satisfy different requirement sections.
In other words you may take one class that satisfies the University, another class that may satisfy the General Studies, another class that may satisfy the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and maybe one or two classes that satisfy in your major. Some terms you might go ahead and end up only taking courses in two or three of those sections and that's okay. That is the joy of understanding your DARS as each student may take a different academic journey, yet all of you will reach the graduation upon completing all the requirements indicated on the DARS report.
Now looking at the pie chart above, it allows you to get a snapshot again of those categories that exist and what you will need to complete and what you will complete. It's cool to see when you see more completed sections. However, don't be fooled by these charts. These charts do not include elective credit hours and every student must take electives in order to graduate.
with a minimum of 120 total credit hours. But if you learn the entire report, you'll be assured that you are meeting those elective hours as well. The object of the game is to change all red to green. Once your data report shows all green, you can apply to graduate. You'll also notice that there are some areas that have little X's.
These are sub-requirements. For example, in the Mathematical Studies area, you are, to complete this requirement, you have to complete a Mathematics course and a Computer Statistics Quantitative course. So there's two courses that you must complete. If you complete the Mathematics course, this little sub-requirement will change to a green checkmark, but the red category will still remain until you complete the Computer Statistics Quantitative course. Once you've completed that requirement, both of these will be green check marks, which will trigger the main category, Mathematical Studies, to also a green check mark.
So that's general tips on regards to the DARS report. So let's now get into beginning how to learn how to actually read this DARS report.