Jargon Buster - Majors, Directed Courses, Approved Courses, Electives

Degree Programs contain many elements. The following definitions use the Bachelor of Science (BSc) as an example to elaborate on important concepts:

Core courses

These are courses that all students must take. These courses provide essential background skills and knowledge sought after by employers.

Majors

A Major is a sequence of courses that build up skills and knowledge in a particular area. All students in the Bachelor of Science must take at least one Major, but may wish to take two (called a Double Major). The name of your Major will appear on your academic transcript. In the Bachelor of Science program most majors are 90 units long, except for Chemistry and Photonics, which both contain 100 units. The Majors in the BSc are made up as follows:

Units required in that Major	90 unit Major	Chemistry Major	Photonics Major
Units at 1000 level	20	20	30
Units at 2000 level	30	40	30
Units at 3000 level	40	40	40

Approved courses

In the Bachelor of Science you must take at least 160 units of science-related courses. These are called Approved Courses. These courses include the program Core and Directed courses (i.e. MATH1100, 1110 or 1210, STAT1070, SCIT2000), any course from any major in the BSc, and courses appearing in the list of "Other Approved Courses"

Electives

An Elective is a free choice of any unrestricted course at the University. You can choose electives in any area of interest (e.g. a language, or music), or to complement your Bachelor of Science studies (e.g. with further Science courses, or courses from Engineering, Business, or whatever). In the Bachelor of Science you can take up to 80 units of electives.

Compulsory Courses

Some courses in certain Majors may be compulsory if you are taking that major.

Directed Courses

In many Majors you can choose courses from a list. These are called Directed courses. All of the 90 or 100 units of courses in a Major are therefore either Compulsory or Directed.

An additional resource explaining many central concepts can be found at:
www.newcastle.edu.au/students/future/jargon-buster.html