The Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) is an educational plan for California community college students designed to facilitate transferring to a four-year public university. Public universities include all UC and CSU schools.
Contents
- Different areas of the IGETC
- Area 1 English Communication
- Area 2 Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning
- Area 3 Arts and Humanities
- Area 4 Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Area 5 Physical and Biological Sciences
- Area 6 Foreign Language only required for UC
- References
Completion of the IGETC will permit a student to transfer without the need to take additional general education courses at their university. This enables a student to focus only on their specialization once accepted into a UC or CSU.
A common misconception is that the IGETC is an admission requirement into a university. The IGETC is a recommended certification that students receive from community college. Students that complete the IGETC are waived from general breadth courses in their university. By waiving these classes students can save money by fulfilling general education requirements in a cheaper institution.
The IGETC requires completion a minimum of 37 semester or 49 quarter transferable units with a C grade or better in each class. Students can choose to take classes across any California Community College campuses. They must fulfill a certain number of units from each of these areas: English Communication, Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning, Arts and Humanities, Social and Behavior Sciences, Physical and Biological Sciences, and Foreign Language.
Different community colleges use different titles for courses. For example, English Composition is known as “English 101” in one campus and “English 1A” in another. Unfortunately there is no universal list of classes with numbers. Students need to match the class description in their catalog.
Also, there are slight differences between the requirements for a UC and CSU. For example, a CSU requires oral communication while a UC would not.
Different areas of the IGETC
Source:
Area 1: English Communication
Requirements are ‘English Composition’, ‘Critical Thinking - English Composition’, and ‘Oral Communication’. ‘Oral Communication’ is ONLY required for CSU schools. This is six required units for a UC and nine for CSU.
Area 2: Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning
Requirement is one mathematics course - 3 units.
Area 3: Arts and Humanities
Three courses are required (9 units); At least one in Arts and at least one in humanities.
Area 4: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Three courses are required (9 units); at least two separate discipline. Disciplines include Anthropology and Archeology, Economics, Ethnic Studies, Gender studies, Geography, History, Interdisciplinary Social & Behavioral Sciences, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology.
Area 5: Physical and Biological Sciences
Two courses are required (7 units); at least one physical science and at least one biological. One of these courses must have a lab.
Area 6: Foreign Language (only required for UC)
The Foreign Language course is required for UCs only. If you have proficiency equivalence of two years in high school this may be waived.