This page provides an overview of graduation requirements that apply to all SCU undergraduates. Here you will learn about:
- The Core Curriculum
- additional graduation requirements
- major and minor requirements
- other university policies that may affect graduation planning for students.
The Core Curriculum
The Core at SCU provides a humanistic education that leads toward an informed, ethical engagement with the world. It requires that all students take classes across the curriculum, and encourages students to engage in different perspectives and approaches.
Foundation courses, often completed in their first year, prepare students for college work and ground them in the academic discourse of SCU:
- Critical Thinking and Writing
- Cultures and Ideas
- Math
- Foreign Language
- Religion
Exploration course encourage students to engage with new perspectives, cultures, and methods of inquiry.
Integrations course include Advanced Writing, Experiential Learning for Social Justice and Pathway classes.
Core courses should be distributed throughout a student’s four years.
For all students, Core course can overlap with major and minor requirements. For students in the Leavey School Business and the College of Arts and Sciences, a class must be taken for each core requirement. For students in the School of Engineering, core classes may “double dip” meaning they may complete more than one core requirement with a single course.
Students often use Core requirements to explore majors or minors. Students should not be advised to take all of their Core course as quickly as possible, for example in the first year. Most students benefit from saving Core courses to take as Juniors and Seniors to balance their major requirements and make scheduling a full course load easier. In addition, some core courses may only be taken later, such as Religion, Theology and Culture 3 (Juniors and above) and Advanced Writing (only after CTW 1 and 2.)
Additional University Requirements
The University Bulletin explains university graduation requirements. Besides course requirements, all students must complete a minimum number of units to graduate: 175 for the Leavey School of Business and the College of Arts & Sciences students; 189-195 for the School of Engineering students. To graduate, students must have a minimum 2.0 cumulative GPA, and also a 2.0 GPA in their major(s) and any minor(s). Faculty advisors should pay attention to students’ major GPA, and if students are unable to successfully reach a 2.0 minimum GPA in their major, advisors should counsel students to plan for a different major.
Major and minor checklists list the graduation requirements for all majors and minors. Most major checklists also include information about the core and major classes that fulfill core requirements.
Using Workday to understand how advisees are meeting their requirements Workday provides detailed information about each student’s requirements, based on their declared major(s) and minor(s). The academic progress tab for students highlights student progress on unit requirements, core and major/minor requirements.
Under the Academic Progress tab, Workday lists the student’s major(s) first, including all university and core requirements. Below major requirements, there may be additional lists for Pathway and/or minor(s). If no Pathway is listed, the student has not yet declared their Pathway. Major and Pathway must be declared before reaching junior status. Finally, additional requirements may be listed that reflect specific programs or interests, but need not be fulfilled to graduate, including:
- University Honors program requirements
- LEAD scholars requirements
- Pre-professional requirements such as health professions, pre-law and accounting certificaiton requirements
Using Workday to help students find classes and build a schedule Workday updates the schedule of classes for the upcoming quarter, and enables students to search for open sections by day, time, department and core categories (called “Course Tags” in Workday) Students use Workday to build “saved schedules” to prepare for registration. Students can also find information about account holds that may prevent registration.
Students often benefit from mapping out their course of study using a four-year plan template. A four-year plan helps students identify all of the requirements and map them across quarters. Students can understand what will fit in their time at SCU, and also visualize how classes build on each other, from introductory to advanced to capstone classes. Some departments offer detailed flow charts for when students should complete requirements, while others allow a more flexible plan. Faculty should be familiar with their department norms on when students should complete particular requirements.
