PLAN Requirements for CompleteDegree Students
Courses are listed in the order we recommend they be taken.
Connect 101, Simmons Connect
3 credits
Highly recommended to be taken in your first term
Simmons Connect is designed to connect you to your new Simmons community, to discipline-specific writing skills and strategies, and to tools and resources to ensure your success at Simmons and in your career post-graduation. This class is required of all Complete Degree students who matriculate without an AA/AS degree and highly recommended for all Complete Degree students.
Leadership 201, Gender and Leadership
4 credits
The study of leadership in American higher education has traditionally centered cis-gendered white men and their socialized masculine behaviors. This course seeks to counteract that by exploring women leaders in the United States, both leaders in history as well as present day to support students’ development of their own leadership identity. The course will identify trends common to cis-gender women leaders as well as the unique and authentic leadership practices that successful cis-gender women leaders have enacted that contributed to the social, economic, political and personal successes they achieved. The course will be gender inclusive where possible, though more scholarship is needed that is inclusive of multiple gender identities.
CDA 201, Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to Public Issues
6 credits
Problem solving, critical thinking skills, and integrative techniques for researching an issue are important for all students to learn no matter their major or their future job aspirations. This course will introduce students to multiple ways of looking at an issue within their chosen discipline; students will gain knowledge to analyze common themes, communicate effectively, and use interdisciplinary perspectives to provide solutions to a potential employee and/or mentor. Students will use techniques from information science and public policy, for example, to formulate and answer questions with quantitative and qualitative techniques while enhancing their academic search skills.
Recommended prerequisite: CNCT 101
Connect 201, Pathways to Career and Leadership
1 credit
Connect 201: Pathways to Career and Leadership focuses on career and life planning. It represents a culmination of a two-course sequence that foregrounds the concepts of metacognition and self-directed learning. The course also focuses on the development of competencies in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the refinement of leadership skills.
3D (Design Across Diverse Disciplines)
Included in Connect 201
For this graduation requirement, students will design and propose a cluster of three courses they have taken and plan to take that addresses a topic, problem, or issue from various disciplinary perspectives. Students will explain the rationale for their selection of these courses, focusing on the intellectual coherence of the courses they have chosen.
The Capstone
4-8 credits
All students will complete a Capstone experience in their major, which will be designed by individual departments. Regardless of discipline, Capstone experiences will address career and graduate school preparation. (One Capstone in a student’s major is required to fulfill PLAN requirements; students with multiple majors may be required to fulfill Capstones in each major, depending on major requirements.)