As of the Fall 2013 semester, the University of Hawaiʻi College of Arts and Sciences will be removing certain graduation requirements for their new and continuing students. The breadth and depth requirements, a system unique to the A&S Colleges Bachelor’s program, will no longer be in effect. As KapCC only offers Associate’s and Certificates, these requirements never applied to KapCC students and therefore the removal will also mean very little.
The only KapCC students that might be affected are those who were planning to transfer to UH Mānoa and to transfer and earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and Sciences. No new credit requirements will be added to the program. For those who have never worked on or heard of the breadth or depth requirements, the changes will be unnoticed.
The University of Hawaiʻi College of Arts and Sciences required its students to diversify their educational experience through either the “Breadth” or “Depth” options. The breadth option required the student to take at least three credits in each of the the four Arts and Sciences school colleges (Arts and Humanities; Language, Linguistics, and Literature; Natural Sciences; and Social Sciences). The depth option requires the students to focus on pursuing another major, minor, or certificate in the A&S Department.
These requirements are not to be confused with the UH General Core Requirements, which are still in effect.
The intention of the removal of these requirements is to help students graduate on time, and to give them more freedom in pursuing their chosen course of study. The A&S Department encourages its students to take courses outside their specialty, but now offers students the flexibility to pursue these things on their own.
For students who would prefer to continue on this course of education and want the old requirements to still apply to them, there will be a form available in September that will give them the option to retain the breadth or depth requirements.