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.
Credits Required
- Most minors require 25-35 credits. In some cases, background requirements will increase this total. For example, the oceanography minor requires 25 credits of oceanography courses, but many of the oceanography courses have prerequisites in biology, chemistry, earth and space sciences, and math.
- Some minors specify a minimum number of credits counting toward the minor that must be completed at the UW (i.e., in residence).
Grades
- A minimum 2.00 GPA is required for the courses taken to complete a minor.
- Departments may require a 2.0 (or lower) minimum grade in each course taken for the minor. In such cases, the 2.0 course-grade minimum is specified as part of the minor requirements, as listed in the General Catalog. If a 2.0 (or lower) course-grade minimum is not specified, any passing letter or numerical grade is acceptable, so long as the GPA for all courses counted toward the minor is at least 2.00.
- 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. If you complete a minor, however, you may later earn a major in that program if you return as a postbaccalaureate student, are admitted to the major, and complete all the remaining requirements.
- 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.
- You may combine a major on one UW campus (Seattle, Bothell, Tacoma) with a minor from another campus. 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, many majors and minors are interdisciplinary, including 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.
- 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
- The requirements of most minors are straightforward. If there is any question about what course can be taken to complete a minor (for example, if the requirements for your minor refer to "approved" courses or say "see adviser for options") or if you wish to apply transfer X credits to your minor, you should consult the adviser in the department offering the minor.
- General questions about minors can be answered by your major department adviser or by a premajor adviser.
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.
