Minors are optional. You may earn up to three minors as part of each degree completed. Postbaccalaureate students (students who have already earned a bachelor's degree) may not be awarded a minor.
Requirements to Declare a Minor
- Any undergraduate student with at least sophomore standing (45 credits completed) who is declared in a major may declare a minor. An exception to the rule that you must have 45 credits and a major in order to declare a minor is Marine Biology; you may declare a minor in Marine Biology at any time.
- There are no departmental admission requirements for minors at UW-Seattle.
- Only the adviser in your major department can sign off to declare a minor; this is to ensure you meet university satisfactory progress requirements.
- You are strongly encouraged to meet with the minor adviser to discuss the subject matter of the minor and your plans for completing of the minor.
Credits Required to Earn a Minor
- Most minors require 25-35 credits. In some cases, background requirements will increase this total.
- Most minors require a minimum of 50% or 15 credits (whichever is greater) must be completed in residence at the UW campus granting the minor.
Grades
- Most minors require a minimum 2.00 GPA for the courses taken to complete a minor.
- Some minors may require a minimum grade in each course taken for the minor. In such cases, the course-grade minimum is specified as part of the minor requirements, as listed in the General Catalog.
- If a course-grade minimum and GPA minimum is not specified, any passing numerical grade and minor gpa is acceptable.
- Courses taken S/NS may not be counted toward a minor.
Majors and Minors
- You may not complete a major and a minor in the same program at the same time.
- Once you complete a major, you may not ever earn a minor in that program.
- Any undergraduate may declare any minor at UW-Seattle; there are no departmental admission requirements for minors at UW-Seattle. Declaring a minor, however, is not a backdoor route toward entering a major. If a department has admission requirements for the major, you must apply and meet those requirements even if you have already declared a minor in that field.
- You may have a major in one college and a minor in another. You will complete the general education requirements of the college of your major; you are not required to meet the general education requirements of the college of your minor.
- You may have a major in the Evening Degree Program and a minor in the UW-Seattle day program, or vice versa. However, since there are limitations for Evening Degree Program students on taking day classes, students in this program should consult with their adviser on possible minor options.
- You may combine a major on one UW campus (Seattle, Bothell, Tacoma) with a minor from another campus. Cross-campus minors are declared via the Change of Major/Minor form, submitted to your home campus (not the campus offering the minor). You must be careful, however, to meet UW's residence requirement: at least 45 of the final 60 credits must be completed at the campus granting the degree. For more information see Cross-Campus Registration.
Overlaps Allowed
- Although you cannot major and minor in the same program at the same time, some majors and minors include courses from more than one department. In such cases you may overlap, but the amount of overlap might be restricted. For example, some Religion courses may count toward the Comparative History of Ideas minor. If you minor in Comparative History of Ideas and major in Comparative Religion, you may count these courses toward both your minor and your major with no restriction. However, the Diversity minor restricts overlap with your major to 10 credits. Be sure to check the minor requirements to determine how much overlap with your major is allowed.
- Courses in your minor may also count, as appropriate, toward foreign language, Q/SR, writing, and Areas of Knowledge requirements, without restriction.
Postbaccalaureate Students
- Postbaccalaureate students (students who have already earned a bachelor's degree) may not be awarded a minor.
Advising
- General questions about minors can be answered by your major department adviser or by a premajor adviser, but you are strongly encouraged to meet with a minor adviser to talk about the subject matter of the minor and your plans for competing the minor.
Applying to Graduate
- Your degree application must list any minors you plan to complete. Your major adviser will run a DARS audit for your minor and include it with your graduation application.
- Once you have declared a minor and have included it on your degree application, you must complete that minor or drop it officially, or you will not graduate. This protects you from being graduated when your actual intent is to continue on in order to complete the minor.
- If you want to add a minor after your graduation application has been submitted, see your adviser, who will update your application and notify the Graduation and Academic Records Office. You may not add a minor after the graduation application deadline — the third Friday of the quarter in which you plan to graduate — unless at the same time you postpone your graduation date to a later quarter.
Certifying Completion of a Minor
- Minors will be posted on your transcript.
- A minor must be awarded at the same time a bachelor's degree is awarded.
