Additional Blocks Requirement

In addition to the literature, history and economics block requirements, all journalism students must complete three additional blocks. Each block consists of eight credits of a subject offered by the College of Arts and Sciences. 

It's important to understand that "blocks" are a School of Journalism and Communication requirement; "Groups" are a university requirement. It's efficient to overlap your blocks and your groups whenever you can.

Classes taken to fulfill the university’s Arts & Letters (>1), Social Science (>2) and Science (>3) group requirements can be used toward the blocks. First- and second-year foreign language (if used for the Bachelor of Arts degree) and the Writing Composition (WR) classes cannot be used as an additional block.

The Science (>3) group requirement automatically creates one additional block because it requires at least two courses from the same subject code. A good strategy for journalism majors is to get their second additional block from the science group requirement as well. To do this, make sure your third and fourth science courses are also from the same subject code.

For example, ASTR 121, ASTR 123, BI 132 and GEOL 101 would complete the science group requirement. However, it would only give you one additional block with ASTR. To get two additional blocks from the science requirement, here's one combination that would work: ANTH 171, ANTH 173, HPHY 101 and HPHY 103. This will give you an additional block with astronomy and human physiology.

You may use the same subject code to complete more than one additional block. This is usually the case when a student has another major or a minor in a College of Arts and Sciences subject. You may also complete additional blocks with literature, history or economics courses as long as they are not the same courses used to fulfill those individual blocks.

For example, if you minor in history (or just like taking history courses), you will use two HIST courses for the history block requirement. You could then use two more history courses for an additional block.