In 2017, the Student Affairs Office asked if the Compute Team could help create a web interface for the program of study: your MESM planning guide for the speciality you choose. We hired a sharp programmer, had many meetings with the Student Affairs office and students, and iterated on developing a web application. It is a very custom application for the business rules of the MESM program.
Following is an explanation of the lifecycle of a student using myplan.
The student will login and either create or edit a plan. When creating a plan, you'll choose a speciality and group project vs eco-e. You have the option of setting a focus and/or a 2nd speciality, which you can do at any time. After selecting your speciality, you'll be walked through selecting classes and filling out your schedule. You'll start with your key speciality courses, followed by the required courses in the "buckets". At any point, you can click the checkplan button, which will determine if you are missing any courses. You have the option of entering "exceptions", which we will discuss later.
The Lifecycle of a plan is as follows -
The Student: Draft -> submitted (approved) OR submitted (pending-review)
Once a plan is submitted, the student affairs office will review any pending-review plans and either manually approve or reject.
A student may submit a new plan at anytime.
Lets say you've submitted a plan, it was automatically approved, but now you want to change your schedule. You would select your approved plan, copy it, make changes, run checkplan, then re-submit. Your old plan would move to an "archived status".
Exceptions which trigger a manual review: Exceptions are categories including (waiver , deferment, taking a replacement course, taking a LAFF course, submitting EPE special interest courses).
Exceptions which DO NOT trigger a manual review: adding other UCSB courses, adding notes.