Bachelors Degree Requirements

Today at brunch, Robert and I were discussing degree requirements at various schools.

Robert has taught micro and macroeconomics at two state schools; at one of these schools, every undergraduate was required to complete principles of macroeconomics, which was especially strange because they did not take micro first.

We were very lucky because the general bachelors degree requirements at Rice that every study had to satisfy were so simple:
- Complete at least 120 hours, with 48 of them upper division
- Maintain a 2.0 GPA in your major and 1.67 in all classes combined
- Complete 2 non-credit (3 hour) courses in phys ed
- Complete the course requirements for your major(s)
- Complete 12 hours of "distribution credits" in each of Group 1: humanities, 2: social sciences, and 3: natural sciences in which you do not have your major. For each group, the courses must come from at least two departments.

For example, if you are a major in the social sciences, you were only required to take 12 hours of humanities and 12 hours of natural sciences. These courses could be pretty much anything you wanted in those areas. Robert, for instance, satisfied his humanities requirement with 8 hours of Spanish and 6 hours of "huma" (the interdisciplinary classes designed for non-humanities majors). I satisfied mine with 11 hours of German, 6 hours of English, 3 hours of philosophy, and 3 hours of religious studies.

But the UT and Texas State bachelors degree requirements are much more defined. I understand now why the double major was so popular at Rice but is more rare at the state schools.

UT has a 42-hour undergraduate core curriculum:
- 3 hours of "rhetoric and writing" (specific course)
- 6 hours with "substantial writing component" (select from list)
- 3 hours of English lit (specific course)
- 6 hours of American and Texas government (specific courses) (req'd by state law)
- 6 hours of American history (select from list)
- 3 hours of social science (select from list)
- 3 hours of math (select from list)
- 9 hours of natural science (select from list)
- 3 hours of fine arts (select from list)

Texas State has a 43- to 45-hour core curriculum:
- 6 hours of college writing (specific courses)
- 3 hours of communications (specific course)
- 3 or 4 hours of math (select from list)
- 7 or 8 hours of natural science (select from list)
- 3 hours of fine arts (select from list)
- 3 hours of philosophy (two choices)
- 3 hours of literature (three choices)
- 6 hours of history (specific courses) (req'd by state law)
- 6 hours of government (specific courses) (req'd by state law)
- 3 hours of social science (select from list)
- Plus 9 hours must "writing intensive" courses (but can be from above list)

It was amusing to look at these requirements and see how long it would take me to earn a bachelors degree at one of these schools, even porting over the 120 hours of coursework I already have, because I took no government, history, or fine arts classes at all, and other courses in the subject areas may not match up precisely with their requirements. I looked at the specific requirements for economics and psychology majors and did (basically) satisfy them all. (For one of the schools, the psychology major requires a specific course that was not offered at Rice at the time I was there and thus I did not take it.)

At Texas State, you can choose between a BA or a BBA (Bachelors of Business Administration) in Economics. Being in the business school really limits your options because in addition to meeting the 43 hour core curriculum requirements, you have to satisfy the business school "basic body of knowledge" that is 57 hours (and the econ component you would be taking anyway is only 6 of those hours). For the BBA in Economics, the course planning sheet indicates "Free electives: 12 - 13 semester hours." So four classes are not dictated to you. That's not much!

I did not look at UT but I'm sure their business school has similar requirements, though I do not believe they offer a BBA in Economics specifically.

I also looked at the Managerial Studies major at Rice and due to being a psychology and economics double major, I had taken all of the coursework except for a capstone class and a specific statistics course. We did not have capstone classes back in my day. I'm not sure when this became so popular. (For those who have been out of undergrad as long or longer than I, a capstone course is a final course in your major that often has a project component.)

In other news, I just saw on the Rice website that they will be offering a PhD in management, including a marketing concentration, beginning in fall 2009. I will be targeting a fall 2011 start date for my marketing PhD. They have an encouraging number of consumer psychology and consumer behavior people on their faculty. Hmmm.....Stay tuned.