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Applying Transfer Courses to Major/Minor Requirements

 

The Department of Philosophy accepts petitions for a course taken at other two-year or four-year instutitions to substitute for a philosophy course offered at UC San Diego in order to satisfy the same requirements as the substituted course. Common course petitions include Introduction to Philosophy and Introduction to Ethics. 

Note that California Community Collages each have a symbolic logic course that automatically articulates to subsitute for PHIL 10. Introduction to Logic at UC San Diego. This means that a petition is not needed. The substitution happens automatically when your transcript is uploaded. Check assist.org to see which logic course at your California Community College will substitute for PHIL 10. Introduction to Logic 

The department does not accept course petitions for logic or critical thinking courses taken at California Community Colleges. If your logic course is approved, it will be listed on assist.org and will automatically substitute for PHIL 10. 

Petition Process

  1. Download the petition from here.
  2. Fill out your personal information and select "Departmental Exception"
  3. In the "Request" section, state explicitly which course you have taken elsewhere (course number and title) and which philosophy course at UC San Diego you would like it to replace (course number and title): “I want course PHIL XYZ from [name of community college or other four-year university] to replace course PHIL ABC at UC San Diego." 
Note that the transfer course you are hoping to apply to your philosophy requirements must be comparable to a course offered in the philosophy department at UC San Diego.  This means that the course must cover similar content and have similar assignments.  
You must also specify which requirement you would like satisfied with the course replacement (e.g. major elective or core requirement, requirement for another major, GE requirement for a college, etc).  For instance, if you are minoring in philosophy, you might state you want the course to count toward one of your two lower-division course requirement options.  Alternatively, if you are majoring in philosophy, you might say you want the course to fulfill an area requirement or an elective.
-    You can see a list of our courses with a brief description here.
-    If you are wondering about the specific content of a UC San Diego philosophy course, you can usually find a syllabus of a past course in our archives here.

  1. In the "Reason for Request" section, explain why the course you took is comparable in content to the course you are replacing. For instance, are the readings comparable? Are the assignments comparable? Is the subject matter comparable?
  2. Save the petition as a PDF. Combine the petition with the course syllabus. The syllabus must be the actual syllabus that was used in the class you took and not merely a course description. The syllabus must also list readings and details about assignments, as well as due dates.
  3. Name the petition as a pdf using the following convention: latename_firstname_PTN_Coursenumberoftransfercourse_replacing_coursenumberofUCSDcourse.pdf
  4. Finally, send the combined pdf (petition and a syllabus) of the course to philadvising-g@ucsd.edu. 

A Few Things to Keep in Mind

*Petitions are not accepted for PHIL 110, 111, or 112.

*Note that each course requires its own petition.

*Courses petitioned in from community colleges only replace lower-division courses at UC San Diego.  Minors can have a maximum of two lower-division courses applied to their requirements.  Majors can have a maximum of three lower-division courses applied to their requirements, though one of these three lower-division courses must be Phil 10: Introduction to Logic

*Petitions for critical thinking courses to substitute for PHIL 10: Introduction to Logic will not be approved because there is not enough formal content in critical thinking courses to prepare students for PHIL 120. Symbolic Logic.

*Once the petition is approved or rejected by the department, we will make note of the final status in your VAC account. If the petition is approved, we will add the course replacement to your audit prior to or shortly after notification.