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Requirements & Procedures

Admission Requirements

The University regulations on admissions apply to all entering students. All first-time students and re-entry students enter the Junior Division. Students must be in Upper Division in order to receive a degree. In order to enter the Upper Division of the College, a student must have:

  • completed at least 30 non-developmental hours
  • earned an adjusted 2.0 GPA
  • completed ENGL 101 and 102 or equivalent with a grade of C or better and MATH 100, 102 or 105 with a D or better
  • completed the 100-level Foreign Language requirement
  • any biological or physical science (Chem, Geol or Phys) with a grade of D or better)

Non-Resident Credit

After transfer students are admitted to the University, their transcripts are reviewed by the office of the Dean of Liberal Arts, as well as by the department in which they plan to major. The courses which they have completed elsewhere are individually accepted or rejected as applicable towards a particular degree in the College. As specified by the University "repeat rule," a grade earned in a course taken at UL Lafayette may not be substituted for a grade earned at another institution, nor may a grade earned at another institution be substituted for a grade earned at UL Lafayette.

When students transfer into the College of Liberal Arts from another institution, from another college of the University, or when they transfer from one curriculum to another within the College, they must fulfill the catalog requirements in effect at the time of their transfer.

Minimum Continuing Requirement

See University Regulations on academic status.

Specific Degree Requirements of the College

  1. In addition to fulfilling the general requirements for the degree, a student in the College of Liberal Arts is required to complete a minor of at least eighteen hours in an acceptable subject matter field outside his or her area of concentration. The minor area is supervised by the student's major department and must be selected in consultation with the student's academic advisor. The minor may consist of more than eighteen hours; at least six of these eighteen hours must be at the 300/400 level.
  2. A general University requirement is that, in order to be certified for graduation, students must achieve an overall adjusted grade point average of 2.0. The College imposes one additional requirement: that students achieve grades of "C" or better in those courses in their major presented to fulfill the credit hour requirement in that major.
  3. In order to be eligible to receive a degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, students pursuing the baccalaureate are required to complete in residence at this University at least twelve semester hours in their major area, six of which must be at the 300/400 level.
  4. No more than 42 of the hours required for graduation shall be taken in the major subject and no more than 64 hours shall be taken in the student’s area of specialization.
  5. Superior students may fulfill the basic English requirement in all curricula in several ways. They may receive credit for the CEEB advanced placement program in their high schools; they may qualify for English 115, or they may qualify for an advanced-standing examination. Students with an English score of 28 or above on the ACT will be placed in English 115 and will receive credit automatically for English 101. Students with a score of 32 or higher on the English section and a composite of 28 or higher are eligible to take an advanced-standing examination conducted by the English Department. Those who pass this examination will receive credit automatically for English 101 and 102.
  6. The foreign language should be selected in consultation with the student's academic advisor, and all requirements should be finished prior to the senior year. An advanced placement test is given at the beginning of each semester to students with no college credits in foreign language. On the basis of this test, up to 15 semester hours credit at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette may be earned. Students with two or more years of foreign language study in high school are strongly urged to take advantage of this opportunity to earn university credit and fulfill the language requirement. Students who do not take the advanced placement test before enrolling in a foreign language course will not be eligible to receive this credit later in their college career. Students who do not take the Advanced Placement test in foreign languages should schedule foreign languages according to the recommendations below:
  • Students with two years of a foreign language taken in the freshman and sophomore high school years should register for 101. With the approval of the Modern Languages Department, they may begin at the 201 level.
  • Students with two years of a foreign language taken in the junior and senior high school years should begin at the 201 level. With the approval of the Department of Modern Languages, they may begin at the 101 level.
  • Students with three or four years of high school foreign language should schedule the terminal course 202 or 203. Any deviations must be approved by the Department of Modern Languages.
  1. The successful completion of the highest numbered foreign language course listed in each curriculum is required. Foreign language courses should be taken in successive semesters.
  2. International students may not schedule for credit towards graduation classes in their native language below 311 in French, German and Spanish. The Department of Modern Languages will recommend the placement of international students. With the approval of the advisor, department head and dean, certain courses in English may be substituted for the MODL requirement.
  3. Only 4 credit hours of KNEA may be used towards completing graduation requirements.
  4. Electives (except for free electives) must be chosen in consultation with the student's academic advisor. It should be noted that many of the electives in any curriculum must be chosen at the 300 and 400 levels in order to meet the graduation requirement of 45 hours of upper level courses. The three types of electives are defined below:
  • Advisor approved electives are any credit courses offered at UL Lafayette except those which are prerequisite to, or which contain subject material on a more elementary level than required courses in the student's curriculum.
  • College electives are courses chosen from the course offerings of departments within a specified college.
  • Area electives are courses chosen from the offerings of schools, departments, or specified areas which are defined as follows:
    • Art, dance, and theatre courses or a list approved by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and provided by each department.
    • Communication: CMCN 101, 200, 242, 310; ENGL 223, 325, 326, 355, 360, 365; THEA 261.
    • Humanities: courses in literature, language, history, and philosophy are offered by the Departments of English, Modern Languages, History and Geography and Philosophy. In addition, HUMN courses fall into this category.
    • Mathematics: mathematics and statistics courses offered by the College of Sciences must be elected to fulfill the mathematics requirement. Courses
      designed for students in elementary education or business curricula are not
      acceptable in fulfilling this requirement.
    • Science: courses in biology, chemistry, geology, or physics. Science courses devised for elementary education majors and for secondary education majors in non-scientific curricula are not acceptable as science electives. Mathematics, statistics, and computer science courses may not be used to satisfy the science requirement.
    • Behavioral Sciences: courses from the disciplines of anthropology, criminal justice, economics, geography, political science, psychology, sociology

Special Procedures

Although the academic rules and regulations printed towards the back of this catalog will usually guide students through their academic careers at the University, some of these rules and regulations appear to require amplification. Several significant problem areas are treated below:

  1. The head of the major department is responsible for assigning students to an academic advisor. Students must consult their advisors on all academic matters and are urged to do so frequently.
  2. Students must follow the curriculum plan presented either in the catalog which was current at the time they began the curriculum they wish to complete or in the catalog in force at the time of their graduation (see the time limitation in "12" below). For example, if a student enrolled in the history curriculum in 1992 and then changed to English in 1994, the appropriate catalog to follow is 1993-95, NOT 1991-93.
  3. Re-entry students who have been out of the University for two regular semesters or more must follow the catalog that is current at the time of their re-enrollment.
  4. Any variation from the courses listed in the student's curriculum must be requested in writing by the student's academic advisor and approved in writing by the department head and dean.
  5. If students are required to take a course below the level of the first course in the subject required by their curricula (for example, English 90 or Math 92), they may not apply credit earned in the lower level course towards graduation.
  6. ESOL and developmental or remedial courses must be scheduled each semester until the required sequence is completed.
  7. Students must attain the grade of "C" in English 90, 101, and 102; in MATH 92, and in all ESOL courses in order to progress to the next higher course.
  8. When scheduling a course, students should be sure that they have completed all prerequisites listed under the course description. In order to schedule a course which may be taken for graduate or advanced undergraduate credit (indicated by" G"), students MUST have attained junior standing (i.e., completed at least 60 semester hours, excluding remedial courses, exited junior division).
  9. Students are urged to exercise care when scheduling classes, since changes in their processed schedules may be impossible to make because of closed classes and time conflicts.
  10. Students may drop any class without penalty (i.e., with the grade of W) up until the date specified by the Registrar’s office. After that date, no class may be dropped except in extraordinary cases. Students are cautioned to go through the official procedure when dropping a course in order to avoid receiving a failing grade for non-attendance. This procedure is initiated in the Junior Division for Junior Division students and in the Office of the Dean for Upper Division students.
  11. A student may not schedule more than 20 semester hours in a regular semester or more than 10 semester hours in a summer session without WRITTEN PERMISSION of the dean of the college. After obtaining this permission, a student may schedule the maximum semester hour load allowed by the University: 22 semester hours during a regular semester and 12 semester hours during a summer session. Permission to schedule the maximum semester hour load will in large part depend on the student's cumulative grade point average. (See suggested class loads for various cumulative grade point averages presented in this catalog under "Program of Study".)
  12. Students are responsible for submitting a degree plan to the Office of the Dean during the semester immediately preceding the semester or session in which graduation is expected. The maximal period of time for which the provisions of any catalog may be used in preparing a degree plan is five years. Students who began their degree programs six or more years prior to the date of their anticipated graduation must consult the dean to determine which catalog should be used for preparation of the degree plan. Once the degree plan has been accepted, any change must be requested in writing by the student and approved in writing by the dean, the advisor and the department head on forms obtainable in the Office of the Dean.
  13. The degree plan is not to be considered as a substitute for the application for the degree, which is initiated in the Office of the Registrar. This application is to be processed by the end of the second week of the semester in which the student plans to graduate.
  14. Students in the College of Liberal Arts may not audit courses they must take for credit (ex: Math 105) to fulfill requirements of their degrees.