UNO General Degree Requirements

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NOTE: The following information is taken from pages 47-48 of the August 2007 Undergraduate/Graduate Catalog available in PDF format on the UNO web site. (Go to UNO Catalog)

To become eligible for a baccalaureate degree from UNO, a student must fulfill the following General Education Goals mandated by the Board of Regents:

  1. Complete the following courses:
    • English - English 1157, and 1158 or 1159, with a grade of C or better. A passing grade in the English 1158 Proficiency Exam is required for all degrees.
    • Literature - six hours of the study of literature.1
    • Mathematics - six hours at or above the 1000 level. Each student must pass a Math Placement Test in lieu of ACT/SAT.
    • Science - 11 hours, including eight hours of one science (two of them laboratory) and three hours of another. One of the sciences must be Biology and the other one must be Chemistry, Geology, or Physics.
    • Humanities and Arts - six hours; to include three hours to be taken from the departments of Film, Theater and Communication Arts, English2, Fine Arts, Foreign Languages (above the level of 1001 or 1011)2, Music, or Philosophy and three hours to be taken from the depaartments of Fine Arts, Music, or dance or theater-related Film, Theatre and Communication Arts courses.
    • Social Sciences - six hours from Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, or Urban Studies3.
      NOTE: At least six of the hours in Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences must be courses at or above the 2000 level.
    • Computer Literacy - Each student should develop a reasonable competence in those computing techniques most relevant to his/her major program.
      This requirement may be fulfilled by one of the following:
      (i) Successful completion of Computer Science 1000 or other computer science courses of three credits or more.
      (ii) Advanced standing credit for Computer Science 1000, earned by successful completion of an examination administered by the Department of Computer Science.
      (iii) Successful completion of a course or series of courses, within the student's major department, which has been approved by the University Courses and Curricula Committee as fulfilling the computer literacy requirement.
    • Oral Competency ­- Each student should demonstrate competence in the techniques of oral communication relevant to his/her major program.
      This requirement may be fulfilled by one of the following:
      (i) Successful completion of an approved course in the student's major department or college that requires a demonstration of oral competence as a condition of receiving a passing grade in the course.
      (ii) Demonstration of oral competence in an approved course in the student's major department or college that does not require oral competence as a condition of receiving a passing grade. If a student demonstrates oral competency in such a course, an entry shall be made on his/her transcript that oral competency has been demonstrated regardless of the final grade in the course. If a student fails to demonstrate oral competency in the approved course(s) offered by a student's major department or college, the student may take an approved course outside his/her major college as a means of meeting the general degree requirement for oral competency.
  2. Earn a minimum of 120 hours4 including at least 25 percent of the credit hours for the degree through instruction offered by the university and
  3. Achieve a quality point ratio of 2.0 or better in:
    • all work attempted,
    • all work taken at UNO,
    • the college of the major,
    • the major subject, and
    • the semesters containing the last 60 hours of courses (excluding credit earned through Advanced Standing Examinations, Advanced Placement, Armed Services courses, correspondence courses, etc.) offered for the degree.

Since each curriculum has requirements in addition to those listed above, students should consult the appropriate section of the University Catalog to determine such additional requirements and restrictions as may apply to the particular degree program.

All students, including transfer students, must pass the University proficiency exam in composition; it is administered twice each regular semester by the Department of English and as the final examination in English 1158. A transfer student who presents credit in English 1158 from another university must validate that credit by passing the examination within the first two regular semesters of attendance at UNO and may take the examination no more than twice. Failure to pass the exam means that the student forfeits the transfer credit in English 1158 and must enroll in English 1158 in their next regular semester5.

FOOTNOTES:

1 Writing, linguistics, and grammar studies are not considered literature.

2 Any literature course in English or Foreign Languages used to fulfill the literature requirement listed in (b) above shall not count toward the Humanities requirement.

3 Other subjects under the Social Sciences in Areas of Concentration may not count for this General Degree Requirement.

4 No more than one-half the semester hours required for the completion of a degree program may be transferred from a junior college.

5 Enrollment in classifications which do not lead to a degree from UNO will not be counted toward those two semesters. Such classifications currently include AUD, CHAR, EX, MCAH, MCAN, MCBN, MCDS, METR, and MS.