New NUS EduRec Academic Advisement system

The National University of Singapore (NUS) has launched a new graduation audit system as part of its Educational Records (EduRec) online portal for students.

It shows students exactly what requirements they need to fulfill in order to complete their degree.

Here is a quick tour, with screenshots! They are taken from my EduRec account.

The goal is to get this to turn into a green "Satisfied".

This is a summary of my student details. The most important ones are Acad. Prog. and Acad. Plans. Under Acad. Prog. it says I am taking a Bachelor of Arts degree and my current level is ARS3. ARS means Arts and to get to level 3, I had to complete at least 80 modular credits' (MC) worth of modules. Under Acad. Plans it lists my major, Communications & New Media, and the fact that I am on the faster "polytechnic track", which means that I should be able to graduate half a year early due to credit exemptions.

This section lists the language proficiency requirements an NUS student must fulfill. In my case, because I am a polytechnic entrant who did not take the A Levels, I had to prove that my command of English was up to par by taking the Qualifying English Test (QET) administered by the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) before starting on the degree course proper. If I had failed, I would have had to take remedial modules during the first couple of semesters. Fortunately, I did not have to suffer this fate because I placed in the highest possible scoring band. The Mother Tongue (MT) and Mother Tongue Bonus Point (MTBP) milestones are not relevant to me. They are for students majoring in language-related subjects like Chinese Language.

The system clearly shows what is needed to fulfill a certain requirement. Here, it is saying that I need to complete 20MC of General Education modules, and I have already taken 16MC with 4 more to go. In NUS, General Education modules are divided into 5 pillars, one of which is Human Cultures. I have fulfilled this pillar by taking GEH1014 and passing it with a grade of A- in Semester 1 of the 2018/19 Academic Year.

Another General Education pillar is Singapore Studies. Unfortunately I have not fulfilled this requirement yet, so the table is blank and under Units it still says 4MC, the equivalent of one module, are needed.

My major stipulates that some essential modules must be completed. The system tells me that there are 12MC of such essential modules and I have done 8. I need 4MC more to fulfill this requirement.

What if I have no idea what module I need to do to fulfill a certain requirement? All I need to do is click View Course List in the table on the previous page and I will be shown a full list of all the modules that go into the specific requirement. Can you guess which module I am lacking in the major essential requirement? Hint: Look for the module that is in this screenshot that is not in the previous one.

Obviously I did not show the entirety of my graduation audit report here as there are so many parts and so many sections. But they all look similar to what I have shown you here: one line telling you how many MCs you need in total, how many you have done, and how many you have left to go; followed by a table showing the relevant modules that fall under that category.

The new system is an upgrade over the previous Graduation and Academic Planning System (GAPS) in which students had to manually classify their modules into the various categories of requirements. Now, everything is done automatically.

But it is still important for students to understand from the very beginning what they need to do in order to graduate, as this will allow them to plan their academic career better and avoid costly mistakes such as forgetting to take a module to meet a certain requirement and having to delay graduation as a result. For a rundown of what goes into an Arts degree at NUS, read my post on Majors, unrestricted electives, and everything in between: How the FASS curriculum works.