Course Loads

Most courses at UCSC carry 5 quarter credits. The exceptions are described in the sections below. The usual course load for UC Santa Cruz undergraduates is 15 to 19 credits, most often as three 5-credit courses and associated laboratories and sections. After instruction begins, students with a UCSC GPA of 2.50 may enroll in up to 22 credits without special approval and may seek approval for higher loads from their college advising office. Students in their first quarter or with a lower GPA must seek approval from their college advising office for enrollment in more than 19 credits.

College approval is required to carry fewer than 15 credits unless the student is enrolled in the University Part-time Program.

Noncredit Courses

All physical education courses offered by the Athletics and Recreation Department and a few other courses identified in the UCSC General Catalog are noncredit. Noncredit courses do not count toward your 15-quarter credits program of study, and you may enroll in as many noncredit courses as you wish. Be sure to enroll; a record of these courses might be important to you at another institution, and your enrollment is used to justify the program’s financial support.

Workload Credit-Only Courses

Courses offered at UCSC which are preparatory for university-level work count for “workload credit only.” For example, the credits earned in Writing 11 are valid for financial aid purposes and academic standing, but do not count toward a baccalaureate degree. It is important that you officially enroll in these courses, because they affect your academic standing and/or eligibility for financial aid. These “workload credit only” courses are clearly identified as such in the catalog course descriptions.

One (1)-, 2-, and 3-Credit Courses

Some courses carry 1, 2, or 3 credits, because they require less work and meet for fewer hours than 5-credit courses (e.g., special interest seminars, laboratories, music lessons, and individual studies). The UCSC General Catalog shows the credit value for these courses after the course title, e.g., Music 9, Wind Ensemble (2 credits). The Schedule of Classes notes the number of credit hours for the course in the column immediately after the title: MUSC 9-01 Wind Ensemble 2.0.

If you are in the Part-Time Program, you are advised to pay special attention to the number of credits assigned for each course in which you enroll so that you do not exceed the 10-credit enrollment limit. Students in the Part-Time Program are assessed full fees if they enroll in more than 10 credits.

Credit by Petition

Regularly enrolled students may obtain full academic credit for a course by challenging the course. Challenging the course entails passing an examination or completing an appropriate body of work supervised by a regular instructor for the course. The petition for such credit must be approved by the instructor of the course, the chair of the department offering the course (or provost, if it is a course offered by a college), and the provost of the student’s college. Some courses are not considered appropriate for credit by petition.

For foreign language students, credit by petition may not be used by students whose language ability greatly exceeds the course level proposed for challenge. Petitions for credit for levels 4 and 5 cannot be filed in the same quarter. Contact the Language Program, 239 Cowell, 459-2054, for more information.