While generally aligned with University of Minnesota academic calendars, Consortium for Research Practices planning documents, calendars and milestones are more specifically determined to provide a successful roadmap for each MS-ARP student, regardless of previous degrees earned or experience. 

There are three essential planning documents that guide your work as an MS-ARP student: 

• Progress Plans, which track degree requirement milestones through graduation; 

• Weekly Calendars, which outline week-by-week expectations for each academic term; and

• Work Plans, which help define your research interests and mentorship.

Developing these plans, tracking your progress and making adjustments as needed will be an ongoing aspect of your meetings with advisors, mentors and/or the MS-ARP program director. This section of the handbook describes these document types. 

Progress Plans  

Your MS-ARP Progress Plan is a semester-by-semester schedule for all degree requirements and significant milestones. Your progress plan helps you anticipate when foundational courses transition to more self-directed research work, when you will be making progress on licensure or certification, and which semesters, for example, you will be working with practitioners during your required Research Practices Internship. If you are a concurrent student (e.g., pursuing an M.Arch or Ph.D. along with the MS-ARP), the progress plan will ensure you are advancing both degrees and can help you see when and where the M.Arch (or other) curriculum overlaps with MS-ARP degree requirements. 

Students earn the MS-ARP degree in two or three semesters depending on whether they are pursuing the degree full-time or as a concurrent M.Arch or Ph.D. degree student.  Regardless of your individual circumstances, the MS-ARP program director will help you develop a progress plan that balances your desire for timely graduation with your academic and professional goals. Once you’ve both agreed to the progress plan, you need to confer with the program director before making any degree-planning changes. If you are a concurrent degree student, you will need to regularly communicate your planning with the other degree advisors and/or program director. 

Learn more about progress plans HERE (Planning, Calendars and Milestones // Progress Plans). 

Weekly Calendars 

Your weekly calendar helps organize the various activities that make the MS-ARP degree especially unique: regular check-ins with your faculty advisor and firm mentor, dates for peer review of writing, consortium meetings and research project presentations, professional exam dates and when other key forms or academic deliverables are due, along with some social activities for the student cohort.  The MS-ARP calendar is issued each fall by the program director in a format that you can adapt to your needs and is updated as needed. 

Learn more about weekly calendars HERE (Planning, Calendars and Milestones // Weekly Calendars). 

Research Project Work Plans

MS-ARP students develop detailed work plans for each research project they pursue as part of the degree. The scale, scope and schedule for your research projects need to align with the broader MS-ARP calendar as well as with your overall MS-ARP Progress Plan.  Work plans are initiated within the structure of the academic courses associated with the project (ARCH 5688 for the internship and ARCH 5686 and ARCH 5687 for the final project).  After developing the initial work plan with guidance from your instructor and support from your peers, you will follow a series of reviews, revisions, and approvals:  first with advisors and mentors, and, lastly, with the program director. 

Once you’ve agreed to a research project work plan, you’ll want to confer with the program director before making any significant project-planning changes. 

Learn more about research project work plans HERE (Planning, Calendars and Milestones // Research Project Work Plans).