DMACC Student Handbook: Academic Information

Terminology

Articulation: The movement of academic credits from one college to another.

Audit: To attend a class without receiving credit.

College Preparatory: Courses designed to aid students whose educational background requires additional strengthening to achieve success in regular college-level courses. These courses do not transfer or apply to a student’s program of study.

Core: Those courses that constitute the body of traditional liberal arts curriculum in the first two years of a baccalaureate degree. Generally, these courses have universal transfer status among receiving institutions.

Corequisite: A course that must be taken concurrently with another course.

Course Description: Statements identifying the contents of a course. Course descriptions are found in the college catalog and online.

Cross Enrollment: Under a special agreement, DMACC students may enroll in a class at Drake, Grand View or Iowa State. Students must have earned 12 semester hours at DMACC and be a current, full-time student in good standing. The credits earned while on the crossenrollment plan will be added to the DMACC transcript. Not available summer term.

Degrees: A title conferred by a college or university upon completion of a particular program of academic work. Some typical college degrees are Associate in Arts (AA), Associate in Science (AS), Associate in Applied Science (AAS), Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BS).

Drop/Add: After completing registration, students may change their schedules by “adding and/or dropping” classes. Students may add a class during the first week of classes and drop a class up to the end of the tenth week of the term for a full semester class. The drop period is prorated for classes with a duration less than the full term

Elective: Courses students choose to take outside of the core requirements. Depending on the number of elective courses required, electives may cover a variety of subject areas or concentrate on one major area.

Full-time Student: Students who take a minimum of 12 credit hours during the fall and spring terms and 8 hours during the summer.

Part-time Student: To be classified as part-time, students carry from 1 through 11 credit hours during the fall and spring terms. During the summer term, 1 to 7 credit hours is considered part-time.

Prerequisite: A skill, course or other criterion necessary for students to succeed in a course.

Semester Credit Hour: A unit of measurement used to determine approximately how many hours students are required to spend in class each week, and how many units will be accumulated toward graduation.

Term or Semester: An enrollment period (15 weeks in the fall and spring sessions and 10 weeks in the summer).

Transfer: Student movement from one college to another.