Starting this semester, new students will have an easier time transferring courses to APU thanks to the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum and CSU Breadth proposals, passed Dec. 22.
New transfer students are now eligible to have APU GE requirements completed as long as either the IGETC or CSU Breadth programs are fulfilled.
“The goal is to enhance our transfer-friendly initiatives,” said Dr. Vicky Bowden, vice provost for undergraduate programs.
According to the University of California admissions website, IGETC is a series of courses that California community college students may complete to satisfy the lower-division breadth/general education requirements for the UC and California State University systems.
CSU Mentor’s website states that the CSU GE-Breadth requirement is a lower-division, 39 semester-unit program with specified courses in the areas such as English language, critical thinking, arts and humanities, social sciences and scientific inquiry.
“We do the same thing as UC schools do; we don’t accept partial packages,” Bowden said. “But if you’re three units short, we go one by one through each class to see how your classes match up with our GE program and we go from there.”
Students will still be required to complete the requisite number of biblical studies and upper-division elective courses upon admission to APU, in addition to meeting the IGETC or CSU Breadth requirements.
According to Bowden, APU accepted the IGETC in previous years but added classes. Now, the new proposal has shifted to a more inclusive and straightforward agreement.
“We accept the IGETC and CSU Breadth without additional caveats to meet our GE requirements,” Bowden said. “However, we still have a focus on meeting upper-division writing, Senior Seminar and God’s Word requirements.”
SGA Academic Senator and senior political science major Alexandra Leininger was also a proponent of these new projects as she reviewed and discussed it along with the General Education Council at the university.
“I felt it was a good policy to help transfer students have a more successful transition into the university,” Leininger said. “Not only does this proposal help students, but it also makes the university more competitive with state schools.”
For more information on specific components such as units and transferable courses for both IGETC and CSU Breadth, visit admission.universityofcalifornia/transfer/.