Welcome to the CALS Course Planner!
We are excited that you have chosen North Carolina State University to be your home. This Course Planner tool will help you put together potential classes for a fall schedule that is tailored to your academic experience and interests. Most first semester freshmen in our college will take 15 to 17 credit hours (or 5-6 classes). A credit hour is the number of credits a course is worth; most courses are worth 3 credits without a lab and 4 credits with a lab. Students must take a minimum of 12 hours to be considered full-time (important for a variety of reasons including insurance, financial aid, scholarships, housing, etc.), but the maximum number of credits any student is allowed to take without special permission from the Dean is 18.
The course planner tool will help you pick a combination of classes needed for your major. It is likely that you will have far more than 15 credit hours on your recommended list when you finish. Please do not panic. We are not recommending you take every course on your list during the fall semester; we want you to have multiple options for putting together a full-time schedule in the registration tool. Thinking and planning ahead now will save you time later.
Directions
1. Use your unity id and password to log into the course planning tool.2. Your course planning is personalized based on your major.
3. Answer the questions to compile your recommended course list.
4. Be sure to save your information as you go in case you need to log out and come back to the site later.
5. Print your summary sheet (with course recommendations) at the very end. This will help you put together your fall courses and actually register for classes.
Let's get started! Please click here to log into the course planning tool.
FAQ's
Need help? Start with our Frequently Asked Questions page first. This will be updated as questions come in, so always check this site to see if you can find what you need. If you don't see the answer to a question you have, please email your question and we'll respond as soon as possible.Website for help:
Frequently Asked Questions page
Email for help:
course_planning@ncsu.edu
Additional links for help:
Eight semester curricula display - use this page to see a semester by semester layout of courses for your major
Curricula Requirements - use this page to choose your academic plan and see all courses required for degree completion
MyPack Portal Tutorials - use this page to help you with the enrollment process
Student to student advice:
Scheduling Instructions - use this document for step by step navigation of creating a wish list in MyPack Portal
Scheduling Tips - use this document to put together your schedule (tips and ideas from current students)
What is a 'problem session section' / 'recitation section' / 'laboratory section'? Do I have to take them?
Degree Audit - What is a degree audit? Why is it important? How do I use it?
Disclaimer about Course Planning Tool
We are excited to be able to offer you this tool. Please note that the course recommendations are made based on your personal input into the system. Every response is self-reported and CALS has not validated any information you have entered. 
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