<p>I'm looking at the requirements for a degree from L&S. Here are a couple things that have confused me:</p>
<p>1) It says I need a three-credit physical course (in the science category). Does that mean physics or physical education? I'm guessing it means physics, and if it does what other courses would satisfy that other than physics? I've scraped by in math and want nothing to do with physics. That was my idiot question.</p>
<p>2) Under Humanities/Literature it's got in parentheses "H,L,X,Z" and under Social Science it says "S,W,Y,Z". What do these letters mean? I suppose this could also be an idiot question, depending on the answer. I just haven't been able to find these answers on their website, so I came here. My guess is that the letters are course departments that would satisfy the requirements, but that doesn't help much.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Hi. If you're looking at the degree requirements worksheet, then no, it doesn't give much information. You might want to get hold of an undergraduate catalog (the big, thick red book outlining degree requirements) and read through the relevant sections in that. The next best thing is to look at the timetable itself - each class is marked, in the "geBLC" column, with the requirements it fulfills.</p>
<p>You can find the timetable directly from the university homepage (<a href="http://www.wisc.edu)%5B/url%5D">www.wisc.edu)</a>. It's in the fourth section from the top, "Academics." Next year's timetable isn't available yet, but you can get a pretty good idea of what is offered in the fall semester by clicking on the copy for fall 2005-2006. </p>
<p>Once there you could click on either "pdf timetable" or the web version - however, for now just click on the fourth blue line from the top, "Search Timetable." This is a tool that allows you to identify courses that meet a particular degree requirement. To answer your question about physical sciences: scroll down to the "BREADTH" category and check the box for Physical Science, then hit the Enter key. The next screen is a list of all the courses that satisfy the "P" requirement. As you can see, there are many more departments than just physics. Many of the folks who strongly dislike mathematics end up in introductory courses in geology, astronomy, or atmosphere & weather. Students who <em>very</em> strongly dislike mathematics often take the combined set of courses Astronomy 103/113 because it fulfills both Physical Science requirements (P) and Part B of the Quantitative requirement (designated in the timetable by the lowercase "r"). </p>
<p>From that screen, click the blue highlighted "geBLC" column label for one of the departments. It links to a list of the letters you named above, with explanations of what each represents. H stands for a class that can only be classified as a humanities field, while X and Z are classes that could either be classified as humanities or natural science/social science, respectively. L stands for humanities classes that specifically focus on literature. So basically, you need at least twelve credits of humanities classes, and at least three of those credits have to be in literature.</p>