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Academic Year – The part of the year that includes the fall and spring semesters.
Advisor/Major Professor – A professor from the student’s major department who meets and advises the student about courses, supervises the student’s research, and facilitates communication within the major department, to other departments and with the Dean of the Graduate School. Discusses curricular choices and progress toward achieving educational goals, completion of the degree, and graduation.
Audit – A registration status that allows a student (with the approval of the instructor) to enroll in a course without receiving credit.
Catalog – A resource of all academic policies and procedures, college and degree requirements, faculty, and course descriptions.
Cognate – A limited block of courses or hours required outside the unit in which the major is offered.
Concentration – A collection of courses within a major that focuses on a particular subject area. The term concentration describes the nature of the set of courses.
Contact Hours – The number of hours the class meets per week.
Core Courses – A set of courses that all students in a major program are required to take.
Corequisite – Specific conditions, requirements, or courses that must be completed at the same time as another course.
Course – A specific subject studied within a limited period of time. Courses may utilize lecture, discussion, laboratory, seminar, workshop, studio, independent study, internship, or other similar teaching formats to facilitate learning.
Course Load – The total number of credit hours taken in a semester.
Course Number – The three-digit number that identifies a specific course; such as 502, in Registration for Use of Facilities 502.
Course Title – The name of a specific course that indicates subject and content.
Credit – The number of credits/hours assigned to a course is generally based upon the amount of time the class meets each week. For example, a three-credit lecture class meets for approximately three hours per week.
Curriculum – A program of courses that meets the requirements for a degree in a particular field of study.
Degree – Official recognition for completion of a curriculum.
Dismissal – When a student’s academic performance is consistently poor over time and his/her GPA is below 3.0, he/she will no longer be allowed to enroll.
Drop/Add – Changing a student’s course schedule by adding and/or dropping a course or courses.
Electives – Courses selected at a student’s discretion. Electives may be partially restricted (selected from a specified group of courses identified to fulfill a particular requirement) or they may be free electives (selected from any courses for which the student has proper prerequisites).
Final Exams – Tests or exercises given at the end of a term. A schedule for Final Exams is listed in the Timetable each semester.
Grade Point Average (GPA) – A measure of scholastic performance. The GPA is obtained by dividing the number of grade points by the hours of work attempted.
Incomplete – Under extraordinary circumstances and only at the discretion of the instructor, a grade of I (Incomplete) may be assigned to a student whose work is satisfactory but who has not completed a portion of the course. A student is not allowed to graduate with an I on their record.
Independent Study – Academic work completed in consultation with a faculty member outside of the regular course offerings.
Interdisciplinary – Course or program of study involving two or more major areas/departments.
Lab (laboratory) – In labs, students apply lecture material in small-group situations that include experiments, assignments, and projects.
Lecture – Teaching method in which the professor presents information to the students who take notes, ask questions, and have dialogue with the professor.
Major – The principal educational interest of a student as represented by one of the curricula prescribed by the various units at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The major specifies the minimum requirements for a degree.
Minor – An area of interest secondary to the major that is represented by a specified set of hours and/or courses. Differs from a concentration in that a minor is not a subdivision of the major.
Option – The means of designating thesis/non-thesis requirements.
Plagiarism – Using the intellectual property of someone else without giving proper credit. The undocumented use of someone else’s words or ideas in any medium of communication (unless such information is recognized as common knowledge) is a serious offense, subject to disciplinary action that may include failure in a course and/or dismissal from the university.
Prerequisite – Specific conditions, requirements, or classes that must be completed before enrolling in another course.
Registration Restriction(s) – Conditions for enrollment enforced by the Registration System. These restrictions may include one or more of the following – minimum GPA, student level, college, major, concentrations, degree, or a qualification such as teacher licensure.
Satisfactory/No Credit Grading (S/NC) – An alternative to the standard grading system of letter grades.
Section – One of several classes of the same course. In the Timetable, a five-digit code is used to identify each section of each course offered.
Semester or Term – Semester and term are used to identify the formally designated period during which classes are scheduled. Fall semester begins in August and Spring semester begins in January.
Seminar – A form of small group instruction, combining independent research and class discussions, under the guidance of a professor.
Session – A session is an abbreviated period within the full academic term during which classes are offered. For example, some summer courses are offered during the first session of summer term (in June), and others are offered during the second session (in July).
Specialization – A sub-collection of courses within a concentration that focuses on specific subject matter. The term “specialization” describes the nature of the set of courses.
Timetable of Classes – The official schedule of classes produced each semester by the Office of the University Registrar. The most up-to-date information can be found online at https://mytk.utk.edu/.
Tool – A limited block of course or hours required to enhance research or methodological expertise.
Track – A separate route leading to the same degree but with different requirements.
Transcript – The official record of a student’s course work maintained by the Office of the University Registrar.
Withdrawal – Officially dropping all courses for a given term.
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