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LAS Student Handbook
- Admission to LAS
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- Degree Requirements
- Course Guidelines
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Special Credit Options and Restrictions
Electives | Ineligible Courses | Additional Special Credit Options
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences allows for several ways of satisfying requirements toward graduation that fall outside of the standard curricula. Certain guidelines govern the choice of courses and use of credit hours, and they must be observed.
Electives
One of the special features of LAS programs is that most majors allow you the opportunity to take a wide variety of courses. You can use these electives to prepare for professional study, to complement the liberal arts component of your program, to prepare for business and career opportunities, or to explore additional areas of interest.
In addition to all the courses you use to meet the minimum specific graduation requirements of the college, you may use as electives:
- any course sponsored by a unit in the college;
- any course in a unit sponsoring a major in the college (i.e., art—excluding applied art courses—computer science, economics, finance, music—excluding applied music courses—and physics); and
- up to 24 hours of courses offered by departments and schools in other colleges on campus (e.g., accountancy, business administration, engineering, applied art courses, and applied music courses).
You may also apply up to 4 hours of basic physical activity courses toward the total hours required for graduation. Professional physical education courses and 199 courses carrying 2 or more hours of credit may be applied to the total hours required, up to a maximum of 24 hours of elective courses from colleges other than LAS.
Courses that Do Not Count Toward a Degree in LAS
The following courses or combination of courses do not fulfill requirements toward graduation in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
- Repeated courses
- More than 24 hours of elective courses taken outside LAS
- More than 4 hours of religious foundation courses
- More than 24 hours of aviation courses (courses accepted for credit as free electives must be from the Pilot Training Curriculum)
- More than 4 hours of basic kinesiology courses (numbered 100–110)
- More than 6 hours of ROTC courses (courses must be from the approved list)
- More than 12 hours of calculus and analytic geometry
- More than 12 hours of basic physics
- More than 11 hours of 100-level life science courses toward a major in the School of Integrative Biology or School of Molecular and Cellular Biology
- More than 9 hours of basic rhetoric (including Rhetoric 102, 103, 104, 105, 108; English as a Second Language 113, 114, 115; Speech Communication 111, 112)
- More than 10 hours of second-year non-primary language proficiency
- First- and second-semester non-primary language proficiency
- More than 18 total combined hours of independent study courses (usually numbered 290 through 294) and undergraduate open seminars (199 courses)
- More than 12 hours of 199 courses (excluding discovery courses)
- Algebra (Mathematics 012 or equivalent) for students beginning June 1989 or later
- More than 12 hours of LAS 110
- CHEM 101, if taken before Fall 2004 (unless approved for credit by a dean)
Additional Special Credit Options
The college has several additional ways of satisfying your degree requirements. Discuss any that interest you with your advisor to verify that you qualify.