UTPB’s requirement to take two one-hour science labs throws off the numbers not just for the Gen Ed but for the overall degree. All other courses in the BBA are three credit hours, so those odd two hours leave us one hour short of the required 120 hours to get a bachelor’s degree at a Texas public university.

So that’s 119 hours. The student needs to cough up an extra hour to get 120. Since students who come to UTPB as freshmen are required to take the freshman seminar, UNIV 1101, we count that as their 120th hour. But so many come to us as transfer students, and they don’t always take a freshman seminar at their previous school. Those students have to find some other course and use it as a free elective to get to at least 120 hours. I say “at least” because so many don’t have a stray one-hour course and end up using a three-hour course. Either way, it works.

Transfer students without the freshman seminar and get their science labs waived (see the Gen Ed chapter) will only have 117 hours in the BBA. So they must take (at least) three additional hours to get to 120.