New Students: Making Your Way Through CPCS

The CPCS curriculum is designed as a four-year curriculum - just like at other colleges. Each competency is worth the equivalent of 3 credits, to complete your degree you complete 40 competencies worth the equivalent of 120 credits. If a student (with no transfer credit) completes 5 competencies per semester, she will graduate in 4 years. But because CPCS offers different learning options, students move through the CPCS curriculum at very different paces and in very different ways, and that's okay! That's one of the real benefits to the CPCS system.

To help you find your way through CPCS, you will develop what is called a "Learning Plan." The Learning Plan will map out the requirements and options you need to complete your degree, it will help you track your progress as you work on and complete competencies. It will be the guide you and your advisor follow as you move through the CPCS curriculum.

At first you will work with a paper learning plan. Before the end of your first semester, you'll learn how to set up an Electronic Learning Plan. This will be the vehicle you will use to register for competencies and it will track your progress as you work on demonstrating them.

The Learning Plan is more than just a list of requirements. It should represent your plan for learning. As you work to create the document called a learning plan, you will be deciding what you want to learn, what goals you have for yourself, how you learn best.. Answering these questions will help you find different pathways through the curriculum and the College.

Competency Statements

Every competency in the CPCS curriculum is defined in a competency statement. The general purpose of Competency Statements is to provide what the College refers to as transparency. That is, each statement should spell out clearly and precisely - transparently - exactly what a student needs to do to complete that particular competency. A competency statement tells the student what learning she is specifically expected to demonstrate, and it tells the evaluator of her competency specifically what to assess.

The first part is the Rationale. This explains the competency's reason for being in the curriculum, why it is important to the College's mission and why we think it is an important skill or knowledge for a CPCS graduate to have.

This is followed by the Competency itself, the particular skill or body of knowledge it involves.

What come next are the Criteria for that competency. These spell out what you must do to demonstrate that competency.

Following the Criteria are the Standards. The Standards spell out how the Criteria must be met.

The final part of a Competency Statement is Examples of Demonstration. The Examples of Demonstration are intended to suggest different ways in which you can show - demonstrate - that you have developed the particular set of skills or knowledge that that competency involves.

As you are making decisions about what competencies to work on and how to do them, you should get in the habit of reading the competency statements that you are considering. They will provide you with a better understanding of what will be required of you and also some ideas about how to approach the competency. All of the competency statements are linked in the Student Support Web Page via either the COMPETENCY STATEMENTS link or THE RED BOOK: Handbook of the College of Public & Community Service. Think of the Competency Statements link as a short cut to the competencies. The Red Book link, as a handbook, is not a shortcut, but it gives the student context for what part of the curriculum the competency statement is in, and how it relates to the CPCS requirements. ( See :Sample Competency Statement "Participation in Government", at the end of this guide)