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Selection of an Academic Major

The selection of an academic major is perhaps the most important college decision you will make.  For this reason, Columbus State is committed to providing students with sound academic advising.  The University Parallel Program, offered through the Arts and Sciences Division, is primarily designed to allow students to begin their baccalaureate major while pursuing an Associate of Arts (AA) or Associate of Science (AS) degree.  The curriculum guides allow you to parallel a university curriculum for the first two years of a baccalaureate major, while satisfying the AA or AS degree requirements.  A curriculum guide is essentially a road map, guiding you through the necessary courses for a particular baccalaureate major offered by a university.  Although you cannot declare a major within the AA or AS degree at Columbus State, you are encouraged to develop a curricular emphasis within your program.  The curriculum guides can also serve to help student deciding between various baccalaureate majors. 

Each curriculum guide shows the courses that are generally required in the first two years of the baccalaureate major as well as the related courses and the general associate degree requirements.  It is important for the student to work carefully with academic advisors both at Columbus State and at their intended transfer institution.  Baccalaureate requirements vary between universities.  However, by careful selection of courses, the curriculum guides can serve as a framework for making decisions.  In addition, a philosophy major, for example, may have greater flexibility in which courses he or she takes than a chemistry major would.  The curriculum guides and the general AA and AS degree requirements are designed to be flexible.  For the student who is truly unsure about which courses to select, the curriculum guides can make these choices easier.

Very few beginning college students would place into Calculus and Analytic Geometry I (Math 151).  Therefore, it may be necessary for a chemistry student, for example, to take one or more math courses to reach this level.  Yet these prerequisites will not generally count toward the degree requirements of a chemistry major.  That seems unfair, but realize that for a chemistry major to graduate with a bachelor's degree in four academic years, he or she must generally begin with calculus.

If you satisfy a course's prerequisites, you may take that course in quarters other than the order shown on the guide.  Also, each guide is reasonable balanced in terms of both credit hours and course distribution.  They are ideal in the sense that they assume a student is enrolled full-time continuously for six quarter.  This is not possible for many students trying to balance work and family life.  However, if you use the guide as a model, you will make steady progress toward your degree.

Finally, if a guide recommends a particular general education course or sequence in the social sciences, humanities, mathematics, or natural sciences, you are free to choose alternate courses or sequences, provided they satisfy the AA or AS degree requirements, or,  for those not seeking an associate degree, the requirements of the intended transfer institution. If its wise to ask for advice from a college advisor when you are unsure.

University Parallel Guides