The first block of the BBA degree plan is the General Education Common Core (Gen Ed), which all students must complete, regardless of major. The Gen Ed is 42 credit hours from nine categories of subjects. There are thirteen 3-hour courses and, technically, three 1-hour courses.

Theoretically, a student is free to take any of the courses listed in Appendix A to fulfill the various subject requirements of the Gen Ed curriculum. But certain Gen Ed subject categories don’t have options, and the state’s mandated business field of study (FoS) curriculum requires that business students take specific lower-level courses that also belong to the Gen Ed. So we end up dictating almost all of the Gen Ed courses a BBA student must take.

Here’s what it looks like. The TCCNs in the table below are the same as our UTPB course designations, except as noted.

The Component Area Option

Notice that last category. It’s tricky. The state set aside six hours of what they call a Gen Ed Component Area Option (090) to allow components (schools) to include their own Gen Ed requirements. You also hear it refrred to as the Institutional Option.

UTPB uses three of those six hours to require public speaking (COMM 1315) and another two of those hours to require science labs.^[1]

So that leaves us with one stray hour of the Component Area Option yet to get.

Fortunately, ECON 2301 and 2302 are approved Gen Ed courses, either as Social & Behavioral Science or Component Area Option (080) courses. BBA students must take ECON 2301 and 2302 anyway for the business FoS. So we use ECON 2301 to also count for the student’s Social & Behavioral Science Gen Ed requirement and “borrow” one hour of ECON 2302 to count for that last stray hour of the Component Area Option.^[2]

BOTTOM LINE FOR YOU: Just make sure your advisees have both ECON 2301 and 2302, and it’s all covered.

Waiving Science Labs

Many schools don’t require science labs, so we, the COB, often waive the science labs for transfer students who took their science courses elsewhere without labs. In that case, we use all three of ECON 2302’s credit hours to complete the Component Area Option. But the student will still be short two hours for the degree, i.e., without those labs, they’ll only have 118 hours.^[3]

So we have to rummage through their course history and find at least two hours of courses that didn’t get applied to the degree, like PE classes. Most transfer students have an extra course they can use, so it’s no problem. But in my 12 years here, I’ve had two students who didn’t, so I had to send them to go take another course to get their hours up. So be aware of that possibility and catch it early.

Note that we don’t need to do waivers for missing science labs if the student is branded core complete. (See below.) But they’ll need to make up those two hours to get to 120 hours to graduate.

Note also that anyone who didn’t take all their science elsewhere, i.e., still has to take at least one at UTPB, must take the lab(s) with their science lecture course(s). It’s a UTPB requirement. We don’t waive that for those students.

Transferring in Gen Ed Courses

The entire Gen Ed may be transferred in from another Texas public school. A transfer student will be designated core complete on their transcripts from another school if they have completed the Gen Ed at that school.  In that case, the student is done. You don’t have to worry about them having to take any more Gen Ed courses, even if the courses they have don’t match ours. According to the state, they’re done with Gen Ed.

If the student is not core complete, they may still transfer in courses from another Texas public school to apply toward our Gen Ed requirements. If the course has the same TCCN as our course, it’s (supposed to be) automatically substituted for that course. If it hasn’t been substituted, contact your favorite Advising Center celebrity and ask them to work their voodoo to get the course to count.

Even if the course doesn’t have the right TCCN,  it’s still possible to apply it to some Gen Ed requirement. As long as the course was used to meet that same requirement at the Texas public school where the course was taken (for any category except the Component Area Option, 090), the course can be used. For example, certain basic Spanish courses are used at Odessa College to meet their Language, Philosophy, & Culture  (040) requirement. So we accept those courses for our 040 requirement, even though we don’t allow our basic Spanish courses to do that.^[4]

The reason why is worth noting here. The state requires Gen Ed courses to include certain learning outcomes, like critical thinking and communication, and Gen Ed courses undergo a rigorous review process to assure these skills are taught and the outcomes are achieved. So Odessa College does this in their basic Spanish courses, but UTPB does not. This is why we can’t just accept any related lower-level course to be used to meet a Gen Ed requirement. It has to be a bona fide state-approved Gen Ed course.

Note, however, that courses from private or out-of-state universities or courses taken before 2014 do not have to meet that requirement. We evaluate whether or not to accept those courses on a case-by-case basis.

CLEP

We accept CLEP credit for certain courses offered in the degree. These are mainly lower-level courses used for Gen Ed and lower-level business core credit, although there are three CLEPs we accept for upper-level core courses. Students can take CLEP exams anywhere that offers them. Appendix B shows which CLEP exams we accept at UTPB and which courses they count for.

THECB Guide to Implementing the Common Core

The THECB has published a short guide to answer questions about implementing the Common core. I find it very useful. Here’s a link to that resource.

Footnotes