Earth Sciences

How to Read Course Descriptions

Courses listed in this catalog apply to the fall 2010, spring 2011, and summer 2011 terms. Courses are numbered numerically within alphabetically arranged subject areas.

The bolded first line indicates the official course number, a descriptive title, and the number of units. The next lines indicate prerequisites, corequisites, advisories, repeatability rules, enrollment limitations, UC/CSU credit acceptance, and lecture and lab hours followed by a Taxonomy of Program number in parentheses.

• Prerequisites: This is a requirement that must be met before a student can enroll in the course.
• Corequisites: This is a course the student must take in the same semester.
• Advisories: This is recommended preparation the student is advised but not required to have before or in conjunction with the course.
• Repeatability Rules: When a course belongs to a group of related courses, students can complete one course or a combination of courses within the group for a maximum of four completions.
• Enrollment Limitations: Some courses place limitations on enrollment. These limitations prevent students from duplicating course work or from enrolling in two sections of the same course in any given semester.
• Acceptable for Credit: CSU means the course is accepted for transfer at any California State University (CSU) campus; UC means it is accepted for transfer at any University of California (UC) campus. Some courses can be used to satisfy general education or major requirements while others transfer as elective credit. UC Credit Limitation means credit for the course may have UC transfer restrictions; these restrictions are identified at the end of the course description.
• Lecture and Lab Hours: These are the number of hours the course meets for lecture and/or lab per week.
• Taxonomy of Program (TOP) Number: The TOP number is identified in parentheses after the lecture and lab hours. This number serves an administrative purpose and is not intended for student use.

The course description summarizes the purpose and key topical areas of the course, and it includes special requirements if any exist. Some course descriptions end with information about whether the course was "formerly" another course, how many times the course may be repeated, if the course is offered pass/no pass, or what the UC credit limitation is.