Academic Plans

If you would like to create a personalized academic plan, we recommend using an Academic Planning worksheet. 

When you create a personalized academic plan, it is a tentative plan since it could change depending on course availability, or adding or dropping courses. It is also a live document, you can change it anytime you enroll in courses. The plan will automatically add up units that you enter so it makes it easy to ensure that you are meeting university requirements for minimum units.  

Please make sure that you also count any units that you have transferred in. This includes community college units as well as IB units, AP units, and A-Level units. 

At UC San Diego, the colleges and academic departments have developed quarter-by-quarter academic plans to assist you in exploring requirements and course options for general education (GE) and major requirements.

Please visit the UCSD Academic Plans site to view available plans. You will want to select your entering year and appropriate major. 

There are many things to look at on the plans such as overlapping courses (marked by a double arrow) and extra notes (such as asterisks). Overlapping courses means that the course counts towards GE and Major requirements. There may also be elective courses included in these plans. Elective courses count towards your overall university unit requirements.

Special Notes

• These are sample template plans that guide your personalized academic plans. The 4-year and 3-year plans do not take into account AP/IB scores or community college coursework. Each major has different plans available. 
• For the 2-year plans, the transfer plan assumes that students have IGETC Certification and 90 units when they transfer to Revelle College and UCSD. Additionally, some plans may assume completion of major lower division prep work.
• Each plan has specific notes from the college and major departments. Please read through it carefully.

You can access your degree audit through TritonLink Tools. We strongly suggest that you download a new degree audit every time you plan to look at it. This ensures that you are looking at the most updated information in case there have been any academic changes to your record since you last downloaded your degree audit.

This is a living document and will be updated anytime you add, drop, change the grading option of a course, when transfer courses get applied, and/or when a professor enters in a grade. Your degree audit is split into sections by requirements: 

• Major requirements are the first large section. 
• Revelle College general education requirements follow: Humanities, Math, Science, Social Science, Fine Arts, and Language
  • Note: Transfer students with IGETC certification will only see Math and Science requirements under the Revelle section.
• University Requirements: ELWR, AHI, DEI, 60 upper division units, JTCCER (first-years only), etc.  

If you need additional assistance learning how to read your degree audit, please refer to our Building an Academic Plan workshop. 

Using your degree audit and sample plans, you can now begin building your unique academic plan. 

Determine your remaining lower division major requirements and use the following resources to create your plan: 

• Department Course Offerings
  • Many academic departments post their course offerings for the next academic year. We recommend searching through Google, i.e “UCSD Biology Course Offerings” to find department/major annual course offering webpages. 
  • Examples: Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Global Health, Math, Psychology, etc. 
• Department major/minor webpages: many departments may have important major/minor information, program opportunities, or even a checklist as a resource. 
  • Examples: Computer Science, Human Biology, Political Science, etc.  
• General Catalog for prerequisites: these are courses that must be completed prior to enrollment.*
• Revelle College General Education web pages
• University Requirements

Important things to look for on your plan:

• 12 units = full-time status (unless approved for part time study)

When making your academic plan, you will want to go through the following list every single time. If you are missing one of these requirements, you will not be eligible for graduation. 

• 180 cumulative units (minimum)
  • Includes AP/IB/A-level units, as well as transfer courses. Up to 105 lower-division transfer units from other institutions can count.
• 60 upper-division units (minimum)
  • Usually 15, four-unit courses
  • Most majors require 48 upper division units, double check your degree audit and add courses as needed
• All Major requirements completed
• All Revelle College General Education requirements completed 
• All University requirements completed, including: 
  • UC Entry Level Writing Requirement
  • American History & Institutions
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Requirement (DEI)
  • Jane Teranes Climate Change Education Requirement (JTCCER) 
  • Pass/Not Pass must be less than 25%
  • 2.0 minimum cumulative GPA

Quarter Limit Policy: Applies to all undergraduate students who enroll at UCSD after Fall 2019.

• First-year students are allowed to enroll for 12 quarters to complete all requirements. 
• Transfer students can enroll for 6 quarters. 
• Remember that summers, approved part-time quarters, or withdrawn quarters do not count towards this quarter limit policy. 
• These requirements include university requirements (such as the AHI and DEI), major, and Revelle College GE requirements. 
• Summer session and quarters with approved part-time status are not counted.

If you need to enroll beyond these quarters, you’ll submit a completion plan for review to your major and your college to make sure your plan is reasonable in your 5th quarter (transfer students) or 11th quarter (freshmen students).

*Course Prerequisites: If you are taking a prerequisite course at UCSD for a course in a future quarter, the system will recognize that and allow you to enroll (the system is assuming you will pass the prerequisite course).

If you do not pass the prerequisite course, at the start of the following quarter a prerequisite check is completed to verify if you still meet the requirements for being enrolled in a course. So if you do not pass the prerequisite course, you will need to update your plan accordingly. 

Pre-Health/Pre-Med Students: If you plan to apply to medical or health professional schools, you need to ensure you meet appropriate program prerequisites. Health Beat Advising in the Career Center has more information on their website, depending on your health profession. 

Graduate School: Some graduate programs may require certain courses to be completed for admission. Make sure to research graduate program admission requirements and take extra courses into account. 

Adding a Minor: Some academic departments and programs may offer minors. The requirements must include at least 28 units, including at least 20 upper-division units.

• You can use two upper-division courses (a maximum of eight units) to fulfill the requirements for a minor that have also been used to satisfy the requirements of a major.
• Declare minor using the Major/Minor tool.

Adding a 2nd Major: Be sure to satisfy the requirements for BOTH majors, including 10 upper-division courses (40 units) unique to each major. 

• Do not use the major/minor tool. You must complete the Double Major Petition process.  
• Selective Majors: You must be accepted into a capped major to declare a double major. 

To ensure your academic plan is accurate, you should verify all major requirements with your major advisors. Visit your department's advising page for more information.

ALL ABOVE STEPS MUST BE COMPLETED BEFORE MEETING WITH A REVELLE ADVISOR.

Schedule an appointment with an academic advisor at Revelle College. Please note appointments are limited, refer to our website for more information. 

After scheduling, you must email your academic planning worksheet to the advisor at least 24 hours before your appointment (to assist with the advisor's preparation for the appointment). Revelle Advising can only confirm general education and university requirements are accurate.

We do not meet with first year freshmen for long term quarter by quarter planning appointments. We welcome to you to attend an academic planning workshop.