Degree Progress Guide

As of summer 2023, Degree Works, commonly known as Degree Progress, has a new look and feel. The Responsive Dashboard is the primary user interface for students, advisors, and other users to process and view individual degree audits, run what-if scenarios, and process authorized degree exceptions.

This update was required to mitigate end-of-life support for the Classic dashboard. As part of this change, and for security reasons, customized features previously available are no longer included. These features are the Unofficial Academic History by Term and Unofficial Academic History by Subject and are now replaced with a simplified Class History view.

Additionally, while academic audits will continue to process credit for students taking cross-listed courses, only originating courses will appear in the student view Worksheet. To ease the transition for this change, we have added a link within the Degree Works navigation bar that will open Classfinder in a separate window so that you can search and find cross-listings as needed.

Login to Degree Works with your username and password in one of two ways:

1. Click on the Degree Works tile from the My Apps menu available at login.bowdoin.edu

In the Degree Works student view, the student header will display summary information, including Class Standing, Anticipated Commencement Participation, Major and Minor information, and GPA.

The first block for each student is the “Degree in Bachelor of Arts” Block. This displays an overview of Bowdoin’s degree requirements, including first year writing seminar, divisions, and distributions.

The legend below explains the symbols used in Degree Works to indicate stage of fulfillment. A green check mark indicates a requirement is complete. A blue half circle indicates that a requirement will be complete when a current course or current courses are finished. An empty red circle indicates that the requirement is not complete. A brown exclamation point indicates that the requirement is nearly complete and you should contact your advisor.

Each requirement has its own block:

• First Year Writing Seminar
• Mathematical, Computational, or Statistical Reasoning
• Inquiry in the Natural Sciences
• Exploring Social Differences
• International Perspectives
• Visual and Performance Arts
• Division A
• Division B
• Division C
• Major 1 (required)
• Major 1 Concentration (If major requires)
• Major 2 (optional)
• Major 2 Concentration (If major requires)
• Minor (optional)

In the example below you can see that requirement has been completed in a few ways:

• The green box that says complete next to the block title
• The green check mark next to the requirement
• The course being applied has a grade of D or better

All of these indicate the same thing, that the requirement has been completed.

In the example below you can see that the block has not been completed in a few ways:

• The red box that says Incomplete next to the block title
• The empty red circle next to a requirement

The list of unmet conditions at under the block title

Next is the “In Progress Courses Block” which lists the courses a student is enrolled for a semester which is in progress. These courses may also appear in requirements that they will fulfill once the student successfully completes the course.

Courses worth zero credits (some transfer courses, repeated courses and all failed courses)  will appear in this block. These courses do not meet degree requirements.

Class History is accessed by clicking on the triple dots in the Tools menu at the top right of the page. It is a listing of all the student’s coursework, organized by term:

Bowdoin does not provide unofficial transcripts. To print a degree audit, select the printer icon at the top right of the page and choose the dimensions of the document you’d like to print to. A PDF will be generated for you to print.

If you need an official transcript, please request one via the National Student Clearinghouse.

Clicking “Open PDF” will generate a file that you can print or save. To save, click the download arrow and NOTE that you will have to add “.pdf” to the file name due to a known issue that doesn’t insert the file extension.

What-if audits allow you to process speculative degree audits for a student using their current class history. You can audit a student against the requirements for a different major, minor, or add classes that may be taken in the future to check how they might satisfy requirements for the current major or minor.

To see how a future class will affect the current major requirements, check the “Use current curriculum” check box and add the course Subject and Course Number in the Future Classes area and process.

The future classes will show as “PLANNED” in the what-if audit:

Hint – when processing a what-if audit for a major that requires a concentration, you will have to supply the concentration. We are working on an enhancement that will limit the concentration choices by the major. If you need help with this, we have added a link in the Navigation bar to the Bowdoin Catalog.

Authorized users have the option to search by a student’s ID, first name and last name. To conduct a simple search, enter the students ID in the search field:

For more search options, click on the Advanced Search link. Degree and Class Standing will only allow for one value to be selected. Major, Minor, Concentration, and Class Year (expanded search below curriculum fields) will allow for multiple values to be selected. Multiple selections in the same data item will be an AND. This means that if you choose majors of both Visual Arts and Chemistry, the search results will only return students who have both majors.

Hint –When searching for Second Semester Seniors, the results will include graduated seniors unless you also limit your search by Class Year.

Hint – When searching for a list of students in a selected Major, the results will include students with one departmental major of your search criteria AS WELL AS students with two departmental majors, one of which includes the major of your search criteria. These students will appear in the results with the second departmental major showing. Don’t let this confuse you:

Normally students progress through the degree program on the outlined track, but periodically a student will fulfill one or more requirements for a major or minor with a course outside the stated track. Many of these exceptions come from study away.

In order to apply an exception, the Department Chair or Program Director will submit an electronic Degree Requirement Exception Authorization Form to The Office of the Registrar and the exception will appear in Degree Works within 2-3 weeks.