Academic Planning 101

Using this worksheet, start with noting your course preferences for the HDS major

• HDS Curriculum Planning Worksheet

Start choosing classes you would like to use to fulfill your preferred HDS Major: 

• Human Developmental Sciences Bachelor of Arts
• Human Developmental Sciences Bachelor of Science
• Human Developmental Sciences Bachelor of Science with a Specialization in Equity and Diversity
• Human Developmental Sciences Bachelor of Science with a Specialization in Healthy Aging

For each of the major requirements, review the course options in each category. Note your top three course choice preferences on the worksheet for fulfilling each requirement (for those major categories that provide a list of options). 

Double check if your choices can also fulfill general education classes for your college. Lower division choices (numbered 1-99) can usually overlap between major and college, with some limitations (Muir Students, I'm talking about you). You will use these ranked course preferences for later steps in building your plan.

Obviously, if there's only one choice for a specific major requirement, that will be the class you take. 

• There are 19 courses required for the BA (7 lower division, 12 upper division)
• There are 21 courses required for the BS (8 lower division, 13 upper division)

Note: each class can only fulfill ONE major requirement.  If a class appears in more than one area, you can choose where it applies, but it only counts once in the major.

For coursework you have already completed, this worksheet can be used as a progress check for prospective majors to track completed classes in the right hand column. Note that current HDS majors should compare this worksheet to their current degree audit (<--please run a fresh one) to double check that their major classes are counting as they believe they should.  Please contact us if you see discrepancies.

Next, Review the HDS Annual Course Offerings for classes offered this year in the HDS major. https://hdsciences.ucsd.edu/courses/course-offerings/index.html   

Depending what year you are in, you should focus on completing your HDS coursework in this order (for students on a normal 4-year track. Students on an accelerated track would compress this timeline):

Make a copy of a blank Academic Planning worksheet to begin laying down remaining coursework based on what you noted is offered from your preferred courses for this year.  

Are there any requirements recommended to be completed this year, but the course you wanted to take for that requirement is not being offered? Consider the 2nd option you listed on your course planning worksheet instead.  Otherwise, remember that your plan is flexible--if you'd like to move around a few classes and postpone a requirement until later in order to take your top preferred class, you can. 

For later academic years: Under the course titles for each HDS class, we note which quarter it is typically offered.  For non-HDS classes, you can compare grids from prior years to see which classes are offered consistently from year-to-year, and which terms. Classes like BICD 100 and PSYC 101 are offered every quarter.  Specialized topics are usually only offered once  a year.

If it feels too daunting to start your plan with a blank worksheet, we do also have pre-filled plans you can start with that are very basic, and just lays out HDS classes by category, which you can then customize by removing the requirements you ahve already completed and customzing the remaining ones with your preferred course.  Note that these pre-filled templates only list HDS major coursework, and do not incorporate your college GEs

• Generic HDS 4-year plan (<-click link to make a copy).
  Includes all 21 courses for the BS major (or 19 for the BA), spread out over 4 years
  
  
• Generic HDS 2-year plan (for transfers and late starters) (<-click link to make a copy).
  Includes all upper division classes, and 3 lower division classes--assuming that some lower division courses (4 for the BA, 5 for the BS) were already completed prior.  If you need to complete more lower division courses than that, please add them to the plan.
  
  
• Generic accelerated HDS 3-year plan (<-click link to make a copy).
  For those of you starting UCSD as first years and trying to graduate in 3 years due to a lot of AP and CC courses taken in high school.  Includes all 21 courses for the BS major (or 19 for the BA) and you just need to remove those you have already received credit for before customizing
  
  
• Template HDS Pre-med academic plan (<-click link to make a copy).
  Special note: If you are pre-med/pre-health, you can use our pre-filled 4-year Pre-Med HDS academic plan worksheet to get started. If you are not specifically pre-med, but are planning PA, Physical Therapy, Nursing, etc. remove whatever coursework on the template plan in red that is not needed if your pre-health career preparation doesn't specifically require it (or you already took it). For example: If your pre-health career doesn't require Organic Chemistry, you can remove the Chem 40 series.

Regardless of whether you use a blank plan, or a pre-filled one, at the top right corner of this worksheet, make sure you consider any units that you transferred in, and enter those units inside the Transfer Units box. This includes community college units, as well as IB units, AP units, and A-Level units.