Plan of Work
Students must complete their Plan of Work (POW) by no later than 12 months after entry.
pow due dates
Instructions for completing the online POW
The POW is your and your advisor’s plan of courses you have taken and plan to take to obtain your degree. When you first log into your POW through MyPack Portal > Student Self Service > Academic Records > Graduate Plan of Work, you will be able to use one of the templates based on whether you are a Master’s or PhD student. Choose the one that fits your current situation. If you do not know which one to choose, refer to the guidelines or contact the Graduate Office. The templates list the requirements you will need to complete your POW.
Next to each requirement you will see a Select button. Click on it and it will take you to the Course Search screen. You can search the Course Catalog and you will see only the courses permitted to fulfill that requirement, but you can also search your Graduate Transcript for the courses. If you decide to take courses from your transcript it will only let you pick from select courses. If you took a course from another department and it DOES NOT appear on the list, contact the Graduate Office to allow those additional courses.
Finish selecting your courses until you complete the POW. Make sure you save your work as you go along. If you mistakenly “submit” the POW, you will automatically receive a message telling you what is missing and the system will not let you complete the submission. This error message safeguards the correct completion. With each save, the system will automatically add up the credit hours, which you can see in the upper right-hand corner under Total Units. That will help you keep track of whether or not you are inputting sufficient hours. When you get to the last row and you find that you still don’t have enough hours, you can click the Add Row button on the bottom left and keep inputting graded courses or research until you reach or surpass the minimum credit hours for your particular plan. It is okay to go beyond the minimum hours, but it is not okay to be under. Once you are done, save your work and click on the “committee” tab in the top tabs.
Add the number of committee members required for your particular POW. There is no template for this section to allow you more flexibility. Just follow the instructions in the Graduate Student Training and Operations Manual for adding your committee. Keep in mind that for the PhD you’ll need at least three committee members apart from your advisor to form your four-person committee. For Master’s, you’ll need at least two committee members apart from your advisor to form your three-person committee. Indicate the type (or role) of the members you add based on your particular POW. Chemistry faculty should always appear as chemistry faculty even if other department classifications appear along their name. If a faculty member from another department will serve as your minor representative, indicate that. If you have a co-major, indicate the co-major representative. If a faculty member from another department will also serve as your GSR, indicate they are the outside representative.
Once you’ve added your committee members, save your work and you should be sent back to the POW main page. If not, just use the tabs to navigate back so you can double check your POW.
After submitting your POW, your committee will receive email invitations to formally serve and to approve the POW. Please note that you should still first approach faculty members by email or in person to request that they serve on your committee. The on-line submission is only for documenting everyone’s approval.