Specialist, Major and Minor
Every Arts & Science program is a Specialist, a Major or a Minor. They differ in size and depth: across the 328 programs in this Calendar, Specialists run from 10.0 to 15.0 credits, Majors 6.0 to 8.5 and Minors 4.0. You graduate with one Specialist, two Majors, or one Major and two Minors (degree planning covers how they combine).
Reading the notation
Requirements are written in a compact shorthand. Four marks cover most of it:
- A slash ( / )
- means "or": any one of the courses it separates.
- A comma or semicolon
- means "and": you need each of the courses or groups it separates.
- Parentheses
- group courses that go together, so a slash between two groups means one whole group or the other.
- H1 and Y1
- end every course code: H is a half credit (0.5), Y a full credit (1.0), and 1 means St. George.
So this line from the Actuarial Science Major asks for one of several course sets:
(MAT130H1/ MAT135H1 and MAT136H1)/ (MAT148H1, MAT149H1)/ MAT137Y1/ (MAT158H1, MAT159H1)/ MAT157Y1
Requirements also count credits by level. "300+ level" means courses numbered in the 300s or 400s, which you can read from the first digit of the course number.
Getting in
In this Calendar, 191 programs are open enrolment, 120 are limited enrolment and 13 aren't admitting new students. Open programs take anyone who meets their stated requirements. Limited ones have more applicants than spaces, so they set required courses, often with minimum grades, and meeting them may not guarantee a place.
Requirements that need a person
A few requirements can't be checked from your record alone, like a director's approval, a substitution or a course list a department keeps on its own website. Ask the department early. Atlas marks these for you to confirm and never counts them as done on its own.