Destination USA

I believe you’ll agree that the most important thing after getting into the college of your dreams, is actually graduating from it.

In order to do this, you’ll have to fulfill several requirements, depending on the college and its type.

First of all, you should know that some colleges admit you directly in the major of your choice. Others will make you take a general curriculum as well as some required classes in order for you to apply (usually in the beginning or the end of the sophomore year) to get into the major.

But, no matter the case, you’ll always have the following:
- a required curriculum,
- a “required” amount/type of classes you should take

The first part, which is the core of your major, you must take and achieve the best grades you can in it, especially if you are to actually apply to that major, instead of being directly admitted to it as more specialized schools do.

The second part is just one which fulfills the credits you need for graduation. For undergrad studies, you’ll generally need about 120-130 credits. This one will however be quite customizable, especially for some more liberal majors.
If you are in an engineering college, you will usually be limited to quite technical courses, and usually just a couple of really “whatever” electives.
If you are in an Arts & Sciences college, you’ll usually have many more electives to choose, and all kinds of. But you’ll usually also have a required “randomness”. In other words, you’ll have requirements such as: “you should take at least one history course, at least one physical science course, at least one language course, at least 10 credits in …”. But as long as you comply with them, you’ll be able to take whatever you want.

The undergrad studies usually last 4 years, or 8 semesters. Sometimes, you can graduate earlier, or a bit later. This depends entirely upon your college system. Students will then usually take about 16-18 credits each semester. More than 18 credits is considered a heavy workload. More than 20 - a very heavy one. 12 credits will usually be the bare minimum for you to be considered as a full-time student. Less than this will usually lead to exclusion, except if there is some special program, or reason for it.

Many students will take summer courses in order to complete their studies faster, or to be able to double or dual major. Those courses might be taken at your college, or at another one, if this other one is recognized by yours, and the credits can be transferred. Watch out for two things here. First, make sure to first ask your college to authorize you to take courses at this other one. Second, most colleges have a limited amount of credits you can take at other places; past this amount, those will only be “extra” credits which will not serve for your graduation, but might just help you to double major, or to get a minor.

If you follow carefully your requirements, and make sure to take every class from your core, you should carelessly (apart from the work) graduate.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under Etudes de "Undergrad"/ Undergraduate studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.