wqb interaction with major electives

justinbh2

hi there,

I am trying to plan a degree and I have a few questions:

1) In some cases is it possible to get part of the breadth courses waived? For example, since I am going to try to get an MBB degree would they waive the Breadth Science(BSCI) requirement considering the science breadth already associated with the degree? In turn that could be used as undesignated breadth and fulfill other electives within the major.

2)Can you fulfilll WQB requirements within the major electives? Say if a major has three slots available for 9 credits of your choice, could you fill them with WQB courses.

Basically, I want to turn the BSCI into Undesignated Breadth(UDB) and have 12 creds UDB. I can then use 9 of the UDB credits for filling the 9 elective credits of the major. The last 3 UDB credits can be used to fill some other breadth reqs(a BHUM/BSOC combo course). That would leave me with one BHUM, one BSOC, 2 W's and 2 Q's. That leads me to question three.

3) Can I use courses from my major to fill W and Q course reqs? I think the answer to this is yes.

If yes is the case then that takes care of the Q courses for me as well as one W course. I would then only need one W and one BHUM/BSOC combo course. Not bad, if all this works. Sorry if this sounds confusing. They didn't exactly make this a user friendly system.


thanks in advance.

Toasted

1. No.

2. WQ, yes. B, no.

3. Yes.

justinbh2

According to this link:

http://www.sfu.ca/ugcr/For_Faculty/WQB_Criteria_and_Definitions/

It mentions that in some situations certain breadth is waived.

"Note that DB requirements may be waived at the request of the program for the area in which the program resides. For instance, Biological Sciences may request that its students be exempted from completing the DB requirement in Science. In such cases, the student will be required to take additional UB credits to replace the DB credits that have been waived. In the example cited, the Biological Sciences major would need to replace the 6-credit Science Breadth requirement with an additional 6 credits of UB."

I wonder if that applies to MBB.

anonymous1

Just talk to the academic advisor for MBB.

justinbh2

good idea. Already done. Just wanted to see what people said here as well.

thanks. I worked out plans for two scenarios and they ended up being the same amount of credits. So, in the end, it doesnt matter.

thanks for the feedback. More feedback on the matter would be more than welcome from anyone else.

ChaozXIII

Oh I have a question
if I have two required lower division courses breadth courses but they are not your major, do they count?

lets say chem 121 and chem something something(and they are both breadth courses) are in required your lower division
and your major is physics

Student0667

ChaozXIII;54624 said:

Oh I have a question

Shoot.

if I have two required lower division courses breadth courses but they are not your major, do they count? lets say chem 121 and chem something something(and they are both breadth courses) are in required your lower division
and your major is physics

Yes, they do count. As long as the course is outside your major (with notable exception in Double/ Joint Majors), it counts no matter what.

justinbh2

if the CHEM courses are required breadth for your major then wouldnt they be part of your major and, therefore, ineligible?

Student0667

justinbh2;54639 said:

if the CHEM courses are required breadth for your major then wouldnt they be part of your major and, therefore, ineligible?

They are part of your PROGRAM REQUIREMENT, not your MAJOR. As said in SFU's WQB site,

SFU WQB said:

Only courses outside of the student's major may count as a B.

What it is trying to say is that as long as it is OUTSIDE your major DEPARTMENT and it is a breadth course, it counts as a Breadth. I verified this claim by talking to a real academic advisor. (ie: Anything that isn't MBB counts as a Breadth)

justinbh2

Student0667;54642 said:

They are part of your PROGRAM REQUIREMENT, not your MAJOR. As said in SFU's WQB site,



What it is trying to say is that as long as it is OUTSIDE your major DEPARTMENT and it is a breadth course, it counts as a Breadth. I verified this claim by talking to a real academic advisor. (ie: Anything that isn't MBB counts as a Breadth)

so physics isnt mbb and any physics not part of the major and also has BSCI designation counts as breadth.

is that what you are saying? Please advise.

Student0667

Justinbh2, since you are a MBB major, any course that is not a MBB course counts as a Breadth. I don't care if it is a required course for you program (ex: BISC 101, BISC 102), as long as it is not MBB, it is a B-Science.

justinbh2;54652 said:

so physics isnt mbb and any physics not part of the major and also has B-SCI designation counts as breadth.

is that what you are saying? Please advise.

So YES, this is exactly what I said. In fact, any future courses you took outside of MBB that doesn't have a designation will counts toward your Undesignated Breadth.

Let me just say this. You are in Science, you will finish your B-Science within one semester and you wouldn't even notice it. You should probably be more concerned with looking for some B-Humanities and B-Social Science.

justinbh2

COGS and ARCH will fill the other B's, and just to clarify, I am still in arts. However, I will be switching to science once I complete all the lower div req's for MBB.

Your help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

justinbh2

just to verify what student0667 said, here is the response from the MBB advisor:

"From: Ingrid Northwood [mailto:inorthwo@sfu.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 3:28 PM
To: Hollander, Justin
Subject: Re: breadth science for MBB

Hi Justin,

It's not that they get waived, but rather they are "covered" by Bisc101 and 102 so it's nothing to worry about.

Sincerely,
Dr. Northwood"

So yea, its already covered in the program.