Eight full-time semesters are required for the bachelor's degree at Cornell. Students often ask whether summer school at Cornell counts as a semester of residence if they enroll in 12 credits. The answer is no.
Two courses are required, one each semester of the freshman year. The Writing Program issues a new and complete brochure of its courses each semester. In addition to developing writing skills, the seminars provide an opportunity to explore unusual topics in new (to freshmen) disciplines. Often the writing seminar is the student's only course in a subject not offered in high school. Further, writing seminars are small classes and can help freshmen balance small and large classes in their first year. First-year writing seminars satisfy no distribution or breadth requirements.
The requirement is qualification in two languages or proficiency in one. The range is one to five courses or proficiency demonstrated through examination. Students who wish to take a language exam should contact the relevant department.
Qualification can be achieved in the following ways:
Proficiency is attained in the following manner:
Nine courses are required to fill the distribution requirement.
Most department courses fall completely into one of the categories; others, especially Asian Studies, Africana Studies, Science and Technology Studies, do not. The best way for a student to check which distribution requirement a course satisfies is to look in Courses of Study, which gives a complete list of courses in each group.
Courses in the major may count toward distribution. Consequently, most science majors need to take only the five courses in the humanities and arts/social sciences and history. Majors in the social sciences/history and humanities/arts may count three courses in their major as three of the five required in this category.
Students should also keep in mind the following limitations.
Two courses are generally required to meet the breadth requirement, although some courses satisfy both categories.
Students must complete at least one course that emphasizes an area or people other than the United States, Canada, or Europe. Courses satisfying this requirement are marked with an @ in Courses of Study.
Students must complete at least one course that focuses on a period before the twentieth century. Courses satisfying this requirement are marked with a # in Courses of Study. A single course marked with both symbols may be used to meet both breadth requirements.
Breadth requirements may be satisfied as part of distribution, major, or elective requirements. However, they may not be satisfied with advanced placement or transfer credits (except by transfer students).
Prerequisites for acceptance into a major vary from one department to the next and are described in Courses of Study. The director of undergraduate studies (DUS) in each department can answer questions regarding admission to the major.
Unlike college requirements, the major advisor and the department can make exceptions and modifications to requirements of the major, as long as they maintain the spirit and integrity of the major as established by the department and the college faculty.
Students must complete at least four courses and 15 credits outside the major field, and these cannot be used to fill other requirements except for breadth. This requirement is often overlooked by students and advisors and has caused difficulties at graduation time.
Because the major advisor is in the best position to determine whether courses are outside of, part of, or too closely related to the major field, the advisor verifies this requirement on the application to graduate.
Students who have more than one major may use courses from one major as electives, unless the major advisor decides that the two majors are too closely related to allow this.
First-year writing seminars may satisfy no distribution or breadth requirements. Courses used to meet the elective requirement may satisfy a breadth requirement but no other college requirement. In most other instances, courses taken to meet one college requirement can be used to meet a different class of requirements. For example, a French literature course focusing on pre-twentieth-century writers earns the student proficiency in French; it also meets the temporal breadth requirement and may be counted as a course for distribution in humanities and the arts. If the student were a French literature major, it would count toward that too.
Courses are counted according to the following stipulations:
Students need a total of 120 credits, 100 of which must be taken in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell.
Students who can complete all requirements in fewer than eight semesters and meet the criteria for acceleration (described in Courses of Study) may graduate in six or seven semesters. The college adheres strictly to the published criteria. If a student satisfies them, that student may accelerate. If the student doesn't, even by one credit or course, that student must complete the full residence requirement. (See Part VII, "Petitions, Leaves of Absence, and Academic Actions.")
Students must complete two physical education courses. Those who fail the swim test (a fairly easy test) must take swimming as one of their P.E. courses. These 1-credit P.E. courses do not count toward the 120 credits needed to graduate or toward the 12 credits required for good academic standing in a semester.
For transfer students the requirement is reduced by the number of terms satisfactorily completed before entering Cornell. In other words, a transfer student admitted to the college with one semesterÕs work from another institution will have his or her P.E. requirement reduced to one class; a student admitted as a sophomore is exempt from the P.E. requirement altogether. It does not matter whether the student actually took P.E. at his or her previous school.
Students submit an application to graduate to the senior records clerk in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Advising (172 GSH) during their next to last semester. This allows the student to be informed of unfilled requirements before their last semester.