Confused about UCD GE Requirements and AP Credit

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Davis
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My son will be applying to UCD in Computer Science or CSE for Fall 2016. The GE requirements on the UCD website are very confusing. It appears that a lot of the courses listed under the CSE major requirements will satisfy the GE requirements, but nowhere can I find the number of hours of GE required to graduate. If you just add the Topical Breadth and Core Literacy requirements together (52+35) you get 87 hours! That would require a total of about 230 hours to graduate, which I know is not correct.

Also, UCD pretty clearly states that AP credit cannot be used for GE credit. My son will come into college with 6 AP classes (Calc AB, Calc BC, Macro, Physics 1 and C, and Comp Sci-A). Will these AP credits do him any good at all as a CS/CSE major?

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For GEs, you have to fulfill the topical breadth and core literacy requirements. In order to do this, each class may count towards one topical breadth requirement and one core literacy requirement.

Some actual classes for this quarter as examples:

AAS 18: Intro Caribbean Studies
GEs: AH, SS, WC
Topical breadth: This class can count for either Arts/Humanities or Social Science. You can’t double dip in this category.
Core Literacy: This class counts for world cultures.
Overall: You can apply this class either for AH + WC, or SS + WC. Which one it ends up counting towards depends on what other classes you’ve taken.

ANS 18: Intro Aquaculture
GEs: SE, OL, WE, VL, SL, QL
Topical breadth: This class counts towards science/engineering.
Core literacy: This class can count for one of the following: Oral literacy, writing experience, visual literacy, scientific literacy, or quantitative literacy.
Overall: This class counts for either SE + OL, SE + WE, SE + VL, SE + SL, or SE + QL.

With either CS or CSE, his SE requirement will be done for topical breadth. For core literacies, SL, QL, and VL will all be satisfied within his first two quarters (assuming he starts with ECS 30).

So all he’ll need to worry about for GEs, as long as he completes at least two quarters under either CS or CSE, are the following:

  • The college writing requirement (which will depend on which of the majors he chooses)
  • 20 units in either arts/humanities or social sciences, and 12 in the other topical breadth category
  • 6 units writing experience, either 3 units oral literacy or 3 units additional writing experience, 3 units world cultures, 6 units in either ACGH or domestic diversity (at least 3 have to be in domestic diversity).

So if he chooses his GEs wisely, he can easily knock out most or all of his remaining GEs with as few as 32 additional units. If he chooses them less wisely, it may take another couple classes. Either way, you shouldn’t be hitting much more than around 60 units of classes towards GEs unless you pick your classes pretty badly. And because your major requirements count towards GEs, that only leaves around 30-40 units outside your major for GEs if you choose wisely.

Hopefully that wasn’t too confusing. It definitely takes some time to get the hang of the GE system. I wasn’t completely clear on it until after a couple quarters here.

As far as APs:

  • Calc AB and Calc BC get him out of MAT 21A and MAT 21B, respectively. He’ll need to get up to at least MAT 21C as far as calculus goes, so these are good. He could potentially finish his lower division math requirements his first year depending on which major he chooses and whether he starts off in MAT 21C or chooses one of the lower ones for review.
  • Macro gets him out of ECN 1B. It’s not useful for CS specifically, but if he’s interested in econ electives it will allow him to take some of them quicker.
  • Physics gets him out of PHY 1A. He would need PHY 9A for sure for CSE, and would also need it if he chooses physics instead of chemistry for CS. Still, it gets him exposure to the concepts that will be presented and that will hopefully help him.
  • CS A doesn’t count towards anything. If you meant CS AB, if he got a 4 or a 5 he’d get out of ECS 30. That’s the first CS class that counts towards the major, and it’d be a very good class to get out of the way if possible so he could start in ECS 40 and get to ECS 60 ASAP. So if he has the chance to take CS AB and hasn’t, I would highly recommend taking it. Though even if he doesn’t, having some programming experience will definitely help in ECS 30.

What AP units do do is help with registration times after your first registration, because you have more units. However, I’ve been hearing through the grapevine that they’re planning to stop counting AP units for registration times. I have no idea how true that is.

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@PhantomVirgo Thanks so much for the VERY detailed explanation. One more question. Could you clarify whether Econ counts towards a GE requirement, either with or without AP credit? You mention that AP Macro counts for ECN 1B. Is this a GE class or an elective that counts towards graduation? Or does having that AP Credit just allow you to move up the ECN sequence quicker, if you so desire? It looks like the major requirement for CS is only 103-118 units, so if you add the minimum GE hours you mention above (32) you would need at least 30 more units to graduate. I guess that is where the AP Macro credit could help, right? CSE has a lot less free electives, since the major is 142-151 hours. The minimum 32 hours of GE would pretty much put you at 180 units total. Thanks again for the great explanation. They sure don’t make it clear on the website.

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Econ counts towards GEs only if you take it here. You can’t use AP Econ units towards GEs, but you can use it to go on to the next level on econ if you want.

AP units do count towards graduation units. Your example about AP econ helping when you’ve already completed GEs and major requirements is correct.

Yeah, CSE is more unit-heavy than CS. CS is the one to go for if you want flexibility (a minor, a second major, taking random classes out of interest, etc).

No problem. They really don’t make it clear; it wasn’t really clear even after I went to orientation. I had to talk to a few advisers before I got a decent explanation of how it works.