WHAT REQUIREMENTS CAN MY TRANSFER COURSES FULFILL?
What requirements a course can fulfill depends on when you took it:
Courses taken before high school graduation:
GE Categories I and III
(No writing credit, no diversity, no equivalence to a USC course. See your department for possible waiver of prerequisites or requirements.) Courses must be taught on a college campus by college faculty to earn credit.
Courses taken after high school graduation but before entering USC:
GE Categories I, II,
III, or V (not IV or VI)
Diversity
Lower division writing requirement (WRIT-130, AKA WRIT-140) (NOT WRIT-340)
Language course credit at the first, second, or third semester level. (The third semester fulfills the language requirement.)
Certain equivalences. The Articulation Office is only authorized to grant a limited number of equivalences. Those available will be shown in Step 3. If you want some other equivalence, see your departmental advisor.
Diversity
Language course credit
Certain equivalences. The Articulation Office is only authorized to grant a limited number of equivalences. Those available will be shown in Step 3. If you want some other equivalence, see your departmental advisor.
NOTE: Step 3 of the online petition process lists all requirements that your course could potentially fulfill based on when it was taken. That doesn't mean that your course would necessarily fulfill those requirements.
DEFINITIONS OF REQUIREMENTS
GE:A transfer course must meet the definition given below in the USC Catalogue in order to earn the relevant GE. It is not necessary that it be similar to a specific USC GE course. A significant majority of the course must meet the criterion in order to fulfill GE.
Category I. Western Cultures and Traditions
Courses in this category introduce students to an area of academic inquiry traditionally perceived to be central to general education. They stress concepts, values, and events in Western history that have shaped contemporary American and European civilization. Courses are distinguished by their historical sweep, which allows students to become aware of the continuing legacies of the past in contemporary culture. Students learn to situate contemporary society in a broad historical context and to think critically about the past and its relationship to the present, while becoming acquainted with the most significant analytic methods by which we attempt to understand the meaning of history. Comparative insights may also be offered with the non-Western cultural traditions studied in Category II.
Category II. Global Cultures and Traditions
Courses in this category introduce students to cultures and civilizations associated with Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Native America, and Russia. Each course examines the distinctive qualities of the cultures studied and seeks to engage and explain those characteristics on their own terms. Students learn to understand the impact of historical development on cultures that interact in the contemporary geopolitical scene and to articulate the role that cultural differences play in those interactions. As a result, they are better prepared to participate actively in an increasingly global cultural and political landscape. Courses in this category are distinguished by their breadth of perspective over a substantial period of time. Comparative insights may also be offered between these cultures and those studied in Category I.
Category III. Scientific Inquiry
In this category, students learn about the process and methods of scientific inquiry, examining the fundamental principles underlying a body of scientific knowledge and how those principles were developed. Students learn to evaluate the soundness of scientific arguments and appreciate how current ideas might change in response to new data. Students engage in scientific inquiry through field experiences or a practical component. A section of laboratory or field experience is required.
Category V. Arts and Letters
In this category students develop their skills for critical analysis through intense engagement with works of literature, philosophy, visual arts, music, and film. The works studied may be associated with a particular country, time period, genre, or theme. Students will learn to use techniques of literary and artistic analysis. At the same time they will become familiar with disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods of argument and persuasion. Intensive reading and writing is demanded in these courses.
Diversity:
At least a third of the course must meet the definition of diversity credit from the USC catalogue:
The diversity requirement is designed to provide undergraduate students with the background knowledge and analytical skills to enable them to understand and respect differences between groups of people and to understand the potential resources and conflicts arising from human differences on the contemporary American and international scene. Students will increasingly need to grapple with issues arising from different dimensions of human diversity such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, language, race, religion, sexual orientation and social class. These dimensions and their social and cultural consequences will have important ramifications for students’ personal, professional and intellectual lives, both for the time they are students and in later life. Students will gain exposure to analytical frameworks within which these issues are to be understood and addressed, including social, political, cultural, ethical and public policy analysis.
Lower Division Writing Requirement (WRIT 130 Same as WRIT 140):
If a school offers two semesters of composition (e.g. Composition 1 and 2), you must take the second course to fulfill the lower division writing requirement. If your TCR shows “Reading and Composition 1” for the writing course you transferred, this generally means it was a first semester course that does not fulfill the requirement. However, at some schools where there is only a one-semester composition course, the course may get credit for WRIT-130. The course must have taught argumentative, rhetorical writing (not creative writing). You will need to supply a syllabus and writing samples from the course. WRIT-340 MUST be taken at USC; it cannot be fulfilled with a transfer course.
Language Requirement
Courses must teach “four skills” (reading, writing, speaking, listening) to fulfill language credit. At a semester school, they must be at least 4 units and meet for 4 hours in person with an instructor; lab hours or online or computer activities cannot be substituted for classroom instruction. At a quarter school, the second course in the sequence gets equivalence to the first semester at USC, and the fifth course fulfills the third-semester language requirement.