It is essential that you understand the difference between university general-education requirements (including “groups”) and journalism general-studies requirements (“blocks”). Some courses can count toward both requirements at the same time. Some can’t. Track your progress with both your groups and your blocks with your Degree Audit Report on Duck Web.
"Groups" are a University of Oregon requirement. All UO students pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree must complete at least 15 credits of group-approved courses in three areas:
- Group I: Arts & Letters (labelled >1 or A&L)
- Group II: Social Science (>2 or SSC)
- Group III: Science (>3 or SCI)
In each of these three groups, students:
- must complete at least two courses from the same subject. The courses do not need to be in sequence with each other.
- cannot use more than three courses in any one subject.
Additionally:
- a student may not use more than three courses from any one subject in all the three groups combined.
- Effective Fall 2002, students may only use one of their major courses toward any group requirement. Journalism students, for example, have several courses that fulfill a group requirement. They include J201 Media & Society (>2), J387 Communication History (>2) and J397 Media Ethics (>1). So, a journalism student who has taken J201 can use it as a Social Science (>2) course but then cannot expect J387 to do the same. Nor can the same student expect to use J397 as an Arts & Letters (>1) course.
"Blocks" are a School of Journalism and Communication general-studies requirement. The blocks provide 56 out of the required 94 credits from the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) that all journalism students must complete. All journalism students’ block requirements include a minimum of:
- Three additional blocks of eight credits each. Courses used to satisfy the literature, history and economics blocks above may not be used twice. Eligible CAS subject codes are listed here.
