Liberal Studies Substitutions

​Transfer Students

1. Transfer students are required to complete the Liberal Studies Program including the specific designations within the domain requirements.
2. DePaul University accepts the Illinois Articulation Initiative General Education Core Curriculum (I.A.I. G.E.C.C.).  Consult the Transfer Credit, Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI) policy for specific information as to how this applies to your DePaul liberal studies requirements.
3. Transfer courses should be applied to the most appropriate learning domain. Courses should be applied based on the articulation agreements and on the guidelines outlined on the Liberal Studies website,
4. All transfer students who completed less than 30 quarter hours of transfer work will complete the first-year program (including Discover/Explore Chicago and Focal Point Seminar).
5. Students who enter with 30 or more quarter hours may not take Discover Chicago/Explore Chicago or Focal Point courses. They should complete two domain electives outside their area of specialization.
6. All transfer students must satisfy the writing requirement as they do under the current program--either with transfer credit or course work completed at DePaul. Placement in those courses is determined by the placement process.  All transfer students may be exempted from the placement process and admitted directly into WRD 103 if they have an ACT Reading score of 20 or higher AND ACT English score of 24 or higher, or SAT Verbal score at or above 600. All other transfer students must participate in the writing placement process to determine their placement.
1. If a transfer student places into WRD 101 and/or WRD 102, and has transferred in the equivalent of WRD 103 (and not WRD 104), the student will complete WRD 101 and/or WRD 102 followed by WRD104.
2. Transfer students who enter DePaul with earned credit for WRD 104 need not participate in the on-line Writing Placement Process. They can satisfy the second writing course requirement by taking any one of the following expository writing courses: 
   WRD 103          Composition and Rhetoric I
   WRD 206          Introduction to Professional Writing
   WRD 300          Composition and Style
   WRD 301          Writing in the Professions
    
   Permission to substitute an open elective for the second writing course may be granted based on a review of documentation showing superior achievement and/or professional experience in advanced, expository writing.  For more information, please contact the First-Year Writing Program Office.
3. Transfer students who met first-year writing requirements at their previous institution through coursework other than equivalents of WRD 103 and WRD 104 may petition their college offices for a waiver or substitution of this requirement. The petition should include a course description and, if possible, a syllabus. Petitions will be sent to the Associate Director of First Year Writing who will review them on a case-by-case basis and make a recommendation to the appropriate associate dean. Based on information from the course description and syllabus, a determination will be made as to whether the student a) should take WRD 103 and/or WRD 104, b) should substitute an upper-level writing course from an approved list for WRD 103 and/or  WRD 104, or c) have part or all of the requirement waived entirely. LSP domain credit may be given for the content area of the course, where appropriate.
7. All transfer students need to satisfy the quantitative reasoning and technological literacy (QRTL) (LSP 120 and LSP 121) requirement, with this exception: students whose program of study requires calculus or discrete mathematics are exempt from the QRTL requirement.
8. The seminar on multiculturalism in the United States requirement is required of all students unless they have completed the I.A.I general education core.
9. Transfer students are required to complete the junior year experiential learning requirement, which can be met through approved study abroad, domestic study, service-learning, or internship courses, or an individual or group research project involving extensive field work or work in the laboratory (see the Liberal Studies website). DePaul does not usually award credit for internships or cooperative learning courses taken at another college or university. In rare cases a student may petition the Chair of the Experiential Learning committee for a waiver of this policy. The student must make the case that the course meets the Experiential Learning guidelines. At the time they transfer to DePaul, students having participated in a full-year or term-long study abroad program through an accredited institution, consisting of no less than ten weeks abroad and no less than 12 credits abroad, and having received grades of no less than a "C" in these courses, may use one of them to fulfill the Junior Year Experiential Learning Requirement for Liberal Studies.
10. Transfer students are required to complete the senior Liberal Studies Capstone requirement. This requirement cannot be substituted or waived.
11. Accumulation of additional credit in general education type transfer courses: Students transferring courses from semester institutions receive 1.5-quarter hours for each semester hour earned. As these courses are applied to DePaul's programs, where courses traditionally earn 4 quarter hours, the additional transferred hours tend to add up. In addition, students sometimes take more courses that would normally qualify for a particular domain than DePaul requires in that domain (e.g. the student took four Self, Society and the Modern World types of courses, and we only require three). Therefore the Liberal Studies Council authorizes applying these excess hours accumulated in courses that would normally "fit" into one of the learning domains to meet the requirement of domain electives (which take the place of Discover/Explore Chicago and Focal Point); Self, Society and the Modern World; Arts and Literature; Scientific Inquiry (not lab); Philosophical Inquiry; Understanding the Past; or Religious Dimensions--at most, one course requirement per domain may be fulfilled this way. Furthermore, students must complete at least one course (transfer or DePaul) per domain.
1. Excess hours will be applied to domain electives (granted to transfer students who enter with 30 or more credit hours in lieu of Discover/Explore Chicago and the Focal Point Seminar) before specific domain courses.
2. Transfer students combining excess hours with the Modern Language Option may do so as long as they complete at least one course (transfer or DePaul) per domain.

All DePaul Students who Participate in the Liberal Studies Program

There are a number of general Liberal Studies program guidelines that pertain to all DePaul undergraduate students (except for SNL).

1. Students cannot double count classes in their major and Liberal Studies. Exception: students who are doing a minor or double major can count courses from the minor or second major for Liberal Studies credit.
2. Because seminar courses in multiculturalism in the U.S. are listed as LSP 200, students can take a class offered by a faculty member from their major field department to fulfill the multicultural seminar.
3. Students can take a class offered from their major to fulfill the junior year experiential learning requirement. If this course is applied to the major, students will then complete an additional domain elective or the third class of the modern language option can apply if the students are pursuing the MLO.
4. The senior Liberal Studies Capstone course is offered through the student's major field of study. Students must receive a grade of C- or better.  For College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and College of Science and Health students: If the capstone is listed as a requirement within the student's major, the student will then complete an open elective in place of the capstone.
5. For various reasons students may ask for course substitutions within the Liberal Studies program.  Students requesting a substitution must write a letter to the associate dean of their home college explaining why the substitution should be granted.