Hola! I’m a 1st year student at York thinking about transferring to utm. I know uoft first years have to take certain courses before they can choose a major, but since I already have a major here at York, does it mean I’m exempted from meeting the breadth requirement? [First-Year Seminars (199 courses) are open only to newly-admitted, Faculty of Arts & Science students (3.5 credits or less).] If not, is there any way I can skip taking those courses? Cheers!
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hola,
i appreciate your upbeat tone and can-do attitude. i also appreciate the Hawaiian spin on your question. i do get the feeling, however, that you’re kind of just using a lot of uoft jargon without REALLY understanding what it means. and hey, i get that it’s confusing – if it was easy to understand, my job wouldn’t exist- but it’s making your question a little bit tricky to interpret.
so, let me try and clear some of the confusion, at least: breadth requirements are a requirement that all faculty of arts & science students must fulfil in the course of their degree. the requirement is that you take a certain number of credits in each of five categories – or ‘breadths’ – of knowledge delineated by the faculty.
you can fulfil the requirement either by taking 1.0 credit in 4 of the 5 breadths, or 0.5 credits in 3 of the breadths and 1.0 credit in the other 2. i know it’s confusing. read it over a few times if you have to.
these breadth requirements have nothing to do with your program(s) (what you call a major, which means something different at york than it does here, but never mind that for now). the breadth requirements are the same regardless of your field of study. SO you can’t be exempted from the breadth requirements, but some of the transfer credits you get will almost certainly go towards filling some of those breadths you need to cover. for example, you may have taken a course at york that transfers over as 1.0 credit in the breadth 1 category. in that case, you would not be required to take any more credits in the breadth 1 category (though you would be welcome to do so, if you wanted to).
next up: i’m not sure why you quoted that little piece on 199 courses. 199 courses are not mandatory. if you don’t want to take them, you don’t have to. in fact, if you come in as a second-year student (that is, you have more than 3.5 transfer credits) you won’t be eligible to take any 199 courses. but don’t worry, it’s a very small collection of courses, and not taking one shouldn’t affect your degree at all; in fact, most people don’t take on, because they’re so limited.
also, utm doesn’t have 199 courses, so it’s even less relevant to you (though utm students are, of course, allowed to enrol in a certain number of downtown courses if they so choose).
i hope that all helps. i have a feeling this post will result in more questions than understanding, so feel free to keep ’em coming. also, enrolment services is a great starting point if you have general questions about the university. the calendar is also a great resourse. good luck deciphering the maze of confusion that is uoft policy and procedure.
cheers,
aska