Distributional Requirements for the Bachelor's Degree
Students are required to take no fewer than two course credits in the humanities and arts, two course credits in the sciences, and two course credits in the social sciences. In addition to completing courses in these disciplinary areas, students must fulfill skills requirements by taking two course credits in quantitative reasoning, two course credits in writing, and courses to further their foreign language proficiency. Depending on their level of accomplishment in foreign languages at matriculation, students may fulfill this last requirement with one, two, or three term courses or by a combination of course work and approved study abroad. Courses that fulfill the distributional requirements are designated in the course listings in chapter IV of Yale College Programs of Study (the YCPS, or “Blue Book,” which will be mailed to you in August) by the abbreviations Hu, Sc, So, QR, WR, and, for the foreign language requirement, L1, L2, L3, L4, or L5. |
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Although some courses carry more than one distributional designation, a single course may be applied to only one distributional requirement. For example, if a course is designated both Hu and So in chapter IV of the YCPS, it may be applied toward either the humanities and arts requirement or the social science requirement, but not both. Similarly, a course designated QR and Sc may be applied toward either the quantitative reasoning requirement or the science requirement, but not both.
Courses taken Credit/D/Fail may not be used to fulfill the distributional requirements. (See this page for information on the Credit/D/Fail option.)
