The term academic career refers to a grouping of all academic work undertaken by a student grouped into a single student record. For the University of Missouri, these groupings are undergraduate career, graduate career, careers for each professional school (law, medicine, nursing, etc.) and a continuing education career (to track CEUs).

An area of study, e.g., majors and minors, within an academic program. An academic plan is the combination of degree objective and specific area of study. Academic plans may be majors, minors or certificates, such as economics-BS, economics-BA, economics-PhD, communication studies-Minor.