School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts (SSHA) Requirements
All students in SSHA, regardless of major, are expected to meet the minimum requirements for a degree.
General Education Requirements [44 units]
Each SSHA student is required to complete the following list of general education courses. Courses must be selected from the approved general education list, found on ssha-advising.ucmerced.edu or MyAudit.
Lower-Division UC Merced General Education Requirements
- CORE 001: The World at Home [4 units]
- WRI 010: College Reading and Composition [4 units]
- Mathematical/quantitative Reasoning course [4 units]
Lower-Division SSHA General Education Requirements
- Two natural sciences or engineering introductory courses with or without laboratory, field or studio [8 units]
- Humanities, arts or foreign language course (outside of your major(s)) [4 units]
- Social sciences course (outside of your major(s)) [4 units]
Upper-Division SSHA General Education Requirements
Four upper-division general education courses outside area of emphasis or major(s) [16 units]
At least 120 Units to Include the Following:
- At least 44 semester units of general education courses.
- At least 60 semester units of upper division courses.
- Students must complete all course prerequisites with a C- or better.
- Students must complete all major requirements with a C- or better and maintain a 2.0 GPA in all major course work.
- Students must complete all major requirements with a letter grade option unless the course is only offered on a pass/no pass basis.
- Courses graded with a pass/no pass grading option are limited to one third of the total number of units required for general education.
- Students must obtain pre-approval through the SSHA Advising Office for all courses completed at institutions other than UC Merced. All courses completed at institutions other than UC Merced must be worth at least 3 semester units to fulfill major, minor or general education requirements at UC Merced.
Transfer Students
Please review the “General Education for Transfer Students” section on the UC Merced General Education page. Transfer students are strongly encouraged to complete IGETC in order to prepare for work within SSHA. Students who do not complete IGETC before transferring are required to complete SSHA Foundations, an IGETC-like general education pattern. Please contact the SSHA Advising Office for more information at ssha.advising@ucmerced.edu.
Last updated: July 2016