College of Arts and Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder

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General Graduation Requirements

Arts and sciences students must fulfill the following requirements for graduation:

1. Pass a total of 120 hours.
2. Maintain a 2.00 (C) grade point average in all University of Colorado work and a 2.00 (C) in all major course work attempted. (Some majors may require a higher minimum grade point average.)
3. Pass 45 credit hours of upper-division work (courses numbered in the 3000s and 4000s).
4. Arts and Sciences students must complete a minimum of 45 credit hours in University of Colorado courses on the Boulder campus. Of these 45 credits, a minimum of 30 credits must be in arts and sciences upper-division credit hours completed as a matriculated student in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at least 12 of these upper-division hours must be in the major. A maximum of 6 credit hours taken at other University of Colorado campuses (CU-Denver and CU-Colorado Springs) can be counted toward the minimum 45 credits required on the Boulder campus. Courses taken while on CU-Boulder study abroad programs, through CU-Boulder continuing education, or CU-Boulder correspondence courses are considered to be in residence.
5. For the bachelor of arts degree, students must complete a minimum of 75 hours outside their major department. Students who complete designated departmental honors courses in their major department and/or in honors thesis credit can reduce the 75 hours required outside the major department by a corresponding number of credits, up to a maximum of 6.
6. For the bachelor of fine arts degree, students must complete a minimum of 53 credit hours outside of their major.
7. Complete a major. Students are subject to the major requirements in force when they declare the major. See the sections Majors and Other Areas of Interest and Minimum Major Requirements in this chapter.
8. Complete the general education (college core curriculum) and MAPS requirements with the following limitations:
   • Although a single course may be listed in more than one core area, a student may use it to meet only one area requirement.
   • Neither independent study nor pass/fail courses may be used to meet MAPS deficiencies, core requirements, minor requirements, or the minimum major requirements.
   • A single course may be used to meet both MAPS and core requirements as long as the course is applicable to both requirements. For example, a student admitted with a MAPS deficiency in English composition may take WRTG 1150, First-Year Writing and Rhetoric, to satisfy both the MAPS requirement and the core curriculum lower-division written communication requirement.

This policy only applies to college level course work (University of Colorado or accepted transfer credit). If a student is exempt from a given core area, this does not exempt the student from fulfilling a MAPS deficiency in that area.

Note: A description of the College of Arts and Sciences MAPS requirements can be found here