University Graduation Requirements

To receive a baccalaureate, a student must satisfy requirements related to credits, grade point average, program of study, and courses. The university maintains some of these requirements in concordance with nationally recognized expectations of academic performance and achievement.Other requirements, such as the Genral Education program, have the additional purpose of identifying those elements which give coherence to an undergraduate education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Through the General Education program, the major courses of study, and the offering of elective courses, the University provides students with both breadth and depth of study. It is the university’s hope that, through these, students will gain an appreciation for the value of learning as a lifelong process.
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that all requirements for graduation are fulfilled in timely fashion. To assist students in this, the Registrar’s Office provides a Degree Progress Report for each student, specifying all the university, college, and major requirements, and indicating whether the student has met the requirement and, if not, what the student must do to meet the requirement. The Report is available online through SPIRE. The Registrar’s Office certifies completion of university requirements and clears students for graduation; undergraduate deans and chief undergraduate advisers authorize this clearance for college and major requirements. The requirements for graduation, and the rationale for curricular requirements, are as follows.

1) A minimum of 120 credits (128-136 for Engineering majors), at least 45 of which must be earned in residence. For this purpose, residence credits are defined as being credits earned for work done while registered on the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts or while enrolled in one of the university’s formal exchange programs. In addition, students generally must complete their final year in residence, residence in this sense meaning continuous enrollment and regular attendance in classes conducted on the Amherst campus.

2) A cumulative average of at least C (2.000) overall and in the major. The official grading system runs from A (4.000) through F (0.0) and includes such options as Incompletes, Withdrawals, Audits, and passes. A Pass/Fail option exists to encourage students to be venturesome in their choice of courses, but there are restrictions on how students may then use these courses.

3) General Education: The reason for having any general education program is to establish areas of learning and knowledge which should be common to all undergraduate programs of study. The faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has stated that an undergraduate’s general education should encompass some reasonable fraction of the totality of human knowledge, insight, and interpretation. The General Education curriculum on this campus enables students to learn how natural scientists, social scientists, humanists, and performing artists think about their disciplines, and how they view their work in relation to both history and contemporary society. All courses in the General Education program strive to stimulate critical or analytic thinking, and to provide contexts for examining the relationship between the individual and society. The capacity for critical thought includes the ability to imagine the consequences of one’s choices, to articulate those consequences, and to increase understanding of one’s relation to the worlds of nature, politics, and work. While acknowledging that these critical and imaginative skills are developed throughout a person’s lifetime, and do not terminate with the completion of any set of courses, the university has determined that roughly one-quarter of the baccalaureate degree program should be devoted to the common General Education curriculum, and has established a set of course requirements in several different areas for this purpose, as described below. Courses which are included in the General Education program are listed in this Guide and in the official online Course Guides with letter designations.

Writing: College Writing (CW) is taken during the freshman year. The Junior Year Writing requirement (which does not carry a letter designation) is completed as part of the requirements for the student’s major.

The Social World: Students must take courses in the curriculum areas of Arts and Literature, Historical Studies, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. The required distribution of six courses in the curriculum areas is as follows: one course in Literature (AL); one course in the Arts (AT) or a second course in Literature; one course in Historical Studies (HS); two courses in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (SB); and one additional course in any of the areas within the Social World (AL, AT, HS, or SB), or an Interdisciplinary (I) or Science Interdisciplinary (SI) course.

Social and Cultural Diversity: Two of the required Social World courses must include the study of diversity in human cultures and societies. One of these must focus on diversity in the United States (identified by including the letter “U” in the designation, i.e., ALU, ATU, HSU or SBU). The other must focus on diversity in global perspective (identified by the letter “G” in the designation, i.e., ALG, ATG, HSG or SBG). A Diversity requirement may also be satisfied by a course bearing only the “U” or “G” designation; this would be in addition to the six required Social World courses.

The Biological and Physical World: Three courses are required, with at least one course in a Biological Science (BS) and at least one course in a Physical Science (PS). Science courses which have a laboratory component are given the additional (L) designation for informational purposes. A laboratory component is not necessary in order to fulfill the requirement.

Basic Math Skills: A student may be exempted from the Basic Math Skills requirement by achieving a sufficiently high score on the Basic Math Skills Exemption Exam. Students not exempted by examination score or transferable credit must take one Basic Math Skills (R1) course.

Analytic Reasoning: All students must take one course designated R2.

Note: Some advanced courses that presuppose knowledge of basic math skills may satisfy the R1 requirement. A list of these courses is available on a link at the bottom of the first page on the Undergraduate Registrar’s Office website. Some of these courses also have an R2 designation and can satisfy both the R1 and R2 requirements.

Interdisciplinary option: A student may substitute up to three interdisciplinary (I) courses for some General Education requirements. No substitutions may be made for College Writing (CW), Basic Math Skills (R1), Biological Science (BS), Physical Science (PS) or Analytic Reasoning (R2). Students may substitute up to three I courses in the other areas subject to the restriction that all students must take at least one course in each of the following areas: Literature (AL), Historical Studies (HS), Social and Behavioral Sciences (SB), Biological Sciences (BS), and Physical Sciences (PS). An Interdisciplinary course that also has a diversity designation (IU or IG) may also satisfy one of the Social and Cultural Diversity requirements.

Note: The Faculty Senate has approved a change to the interdisciplinary option that restricts substitutions for the third science (BS or PS) course to those courses designated “SI” (Science Interdisciplinary).

Only one course in the student’s major department may be counted toward satisfaction of the following General Education requirements: AL, AT, HS, SB, BS, PS, or R2. If the student uses one course in the major department to fulfill one of these requirements, and that course does not have a Diversity designation (is not designated ALD, ATD, HSD, SBD, or ID), the student may use a second course in the major department to fulfill one of the two diversity requirements. At least one diversity requirement must be fulfilled outside the major department.

No General Education requirement will be fulfilled by a course for which a “pass” grade (P) is recorded or which the student elected on a Pass/Fail basis (regardless of whether a grade or a P appears on the transcript).

4) College or School requirements, where applicable. See descriptions in the introductory sections of the Colleges and Schools.

5) A major, constituting intensive or specialized work in a particular department or program, provides depth in an undergraduate education. The number of credits required for a major varies widely, depending on the field of study. Every major requires the successful completion of at least 30 credits in a coherent and extensive set of courses with a particular discipline or focus; many require more. The university now offers 90 majors, including the Bachelor’s Degree with Individual
Concentration (BDIC), a major which the student creates in conjunction with a faculty sponsor. Departmental major requirements may change yearly. Considerable majors information is available in this catalog under major field headings, and details can be requested directly from the specific department on campus.

Various special programs, such as BDIC, University Without Walls, Commonwealth College (formerly the Honors Program), and Continuing & Professional Education offer special variations of the graduation requirements. Commonwealth College in particular offers a number of options to students, including the Commonwealth College Scholar program, and departmental and interdisciplinary honors programs.

University Graduation Requirements
Summary
1. 120 credits

2. A cumulative average of at least 2.000, overall and in the major

3. General Education requirements
a. Writing—2 courses: College Writing and Junior Year Writing course in major department
b. Social World—6 courses, with at least two having a Social and Cultural Diversity component: Literature, Arts or 2nd Literature, Historical Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences (2 courses), and a 6th course from any Social World area
c. Biological and Physical Sciences—3 courses, with at least one in each area
d. Basic Math Skills—1 course, or exemption by exam
e. Analytic Reasoning—1 course
f. Interdisciplinary option—Substitution of up to three Interdisciplinary courses for some requirements, subject to restrictions. No substitution is allowed for CW, R1 or R2, and a student must complete at least one course in each of AL, HS, SB, BS, and PS.

4. College requirements

5. An approved major

Graduation with Honors
Cum laude is awarded to all students graduating with a 3.200 GPA who complete 45 graded credits in residence. Participation in Commonwealth College is not necessary.
All other honors are awarded through Commonwealth College, the honors college of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Commonwealth College cum laude is awarded upon successful completion of Commonwealth College requirements with an overall GPA of 3.200 or higher.
Commonwealth College magna cum laude is awarded upon successful completion of Commonwealth College requirements, with an overall GPA of 3.500 or higher, and grades of B+ or higher on both the student’s capstone experience and a manuscript approved for archiving.
Commonwealth College summa cum laude is awarded upon successful completion of Commonwealth College requirements, with an overall GPA of 3.800 or higher, and grades of A or A- on both the student’s capstone experience and a manuscript approved for archiving.
Departmental Honors is awarded for completion of Comonwealth College requirements with a four-or-more-course focus, including the capstone experience, in an approved Departmental Honors track.
Interdisciplinary Honors is awarded for completion of Commonwealth College requirements with an interdisciplinary study plan. It acknowledges a student’s acquisiton of substantive knowledge and skills in two fields and the synthesis of that learning in the honors capstone experience.
More detailed information on Commonwealth College requirements is located in the Commonwealth College section of this Guide.