The Curriculum

The College Catalog lists descriptions of all courses that the College is authorized to teach. The Schedule of Classes lists the courses offered in a particular semester with the days, times, and scheduled meeting place. Readers are referred to these documents for more detailed descriptions of courses listed below. The following programs can be found in the College Catalog under “General Information” or in the Schedule of Classes under “Academic Options:”

The Curriculum Process

The Curriculum Committee of the Academic Senate is charged with the review and approval of modifications and updates of existing courses on campus. The committee also approves or rejects proposals for new, added, reinstatement of, or modularization of courses.

Title 5 of the State Administrative Code calls for periodic review of college curriculum. All pre-existing campus courses were reviewed and modified prior to March of 1990. This review determined whether these courses are non-credit, credit but non-degree, or credit and degree courses. From 1990 forward, all new courses and course changes must satisfy Title 5 requirements, and the new LACCD Course Outline of Record (COR) will replace all existing course outlines. COR’s should be obtained from the Department Chair and can be provided to students. A copy of the current Course Outline of Record is kept in the Office of Academic Affairs.

Articulation

The articulation process between the community colleges and universities results in written contractual agreements concerning the transferability of course work and the satisfaction of lower division course and program requirements. There are several types of articulation including Transfer Course, Course to Course, Major Preparation, General Education, and CAN System.

Transfer Course Articulation identifies which courses transfer for full unit credit. These courses satisfy the unit requirements for both admission to a university and graduation with a baccalaureate degree. These agreements are negotiated system-wide by segment. One transfer agreement exists for CSU (all 23 campuses) and one for UC (all nine campuses); none exists for the independent segment.

The agreement for CSU Baccalaureate level transfer courses is known as the Baccalaureate Level List. These courses are indicated in our catalog by a CSU after the course name.

The agreement for UC is known as the Transfer Course Agreement, or UC-TCA. This agreement is updated annually for new and revised courses. These courses are indicated in our catalog by a UC after the course name.

Course-to-Course Articulation agreements identify selected Pierce College courses that are articulated as comparable to or acceptable in lieu of a particular university’s course offerings. This type of articulation is determined by the responsible teaching faculty of the transfer institution; the faculty will render the decision regarding comparability of ‘equivalent’ courses in a targeted discipline (e.g. mathematics).

Major Preparation Articulation tailors course articulation to the majors most commonly selected by our transfer students to a specific university. Beyond literal course-to-course articulation, this type of agreement permits some flexibility in negotiating substitute courses within selected majors as determined by the faculty responsible for the degree.

General Education (GE) or breadth requirements typically constitute about 1/3 of the units required for a baccalaureate degree. Many students, particularly those undecided about campus or major, focus on GE completion. GE completion may be completed one of two ways, depending on the university system transferred to; for students wishing transfer to the UC system, the IGETC (Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum) must be certified if they wish to fulfill the GE breadth requirements. Students wishing to transfer to the CSU system may certify either IGETC or CSU-GE Breadth to fulfill the GE breadth requirements. If there are GE Breadth requirements for independent universities, they will be listed in the individual articulation agreements we have with the university.

California Articulation Number (CAN) System is a course numbering system in use by postsecondary educational institutions in California. The numbering system provides a cross-reference course identification number (the CAN System subject identifier plus a number) for semester courses that are transferable, lower division introductory courses commonly taught on California College and university campuses.

Participating campuses agree to accept identically numbered CAN courses in lieu of their own courses from all other participating campuses for all purposes, recognizing that CAN courses are not necessarily identical in content, but are acceptable "in lieu of" each other. For example, CAN ECON 2 on one campus will be accepted for CAN ECON 2 on every other participating campus. The University of California does not participate in the CAN system.

California Articulation Numbers are listed after each course title in the catalog and schedule, Lists of courses and sequences from campuses participating in the CAN system are published in a CAN catalog, which is available in Counseling Office and the Transfer Center. An updated CAN list can also be found on the Internet at <http://www.cansystem.org/>.

ASSIST is an acronym for the Articulation System Stimulating Intersegmental Student Transfer. It is a website which make the articulation agreements between all public institutions available to Internet users. Included on the website is information for Transfer Course, Course to Course, Major Preparation, and General Education Articulation. The website address is www.assist.org