Students are bound by the degree requirements in effect during the first semester in which they matriculate at Gallatin, and are responsible for tracking their progress toward the degree. For specific information about the semester of matriculation, see Understanding the Degree Requirements below. Students can learn how to track their degree progress and monitor remaining requirements by reading Tracking Completion of Degree Requirements below.
A more extensive explanation of each degree requirement can be found below the chart, or by clicking on each topic.
128 units (A minimum of 64 units must be completed after matriculation at Gallatin.)
A final minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.0 is required for graduation.
The Core comprises both credit-bearing (34 units) and non-credit bearing requirements.
Approved by the student’s adviser by the completion of the sophomore year (64 units)
Documents required as preparation for the Colloquium
Students are required to complete the Colloquium, a two–hour presentation and discussion with faculty. Students register for “Colloquium” (COLLQ-UG 1, 2 units) in the semester in which they plan to sit for the Colloquium.
*The Liberal Arts, Historical & Cultural, and Critical Race Studies requirements can be completed with as few as 20 units or as many as 36 units. See Liberal Arts Requirement, Historical & Cultural Requirement, or Critical Race Studies for more information about how a single course might fulfill two or three areas.
A minimum of 64 units in classroom courses is required.
Students are bound by the degree requirements in effect during the first semester in which they matriculate at Gallatin.
Degree requirements for students transferring from a school or college within the University are those that are in effect when they first matriculate at Gallatin.
Students who are readmitted must fulfill the degree requirements that are in effect when they are readmitted, unless their offer of readmission states otherwise.
Note: Students who matriculated prior to Summer 2015 should reference the Degree Requirements Archive above.
Students are responsible for tracking their progress toward their degree by viewing their Degree Progress Report, which is available from a link on the Academics tab in their Albert Student Center (NYU’s online student information system). The Degree Progress Report will indicate which requirements the student has completed and which are still remaining.
To be eligible for the Bachelor of Arts degree, students must complete 128 units and all degree requirements within 10 years of matriculating at Gallatin. A minimum of 64 units must be completed after matriculation at Gallatin. Students are expected to satisfy all degree requirements and thus graduate in the semester in which they complete 128 units. If unusual circumstances require additional course work in excess of 145 units, the student may file a Petition to request permission to take extra units for one additional semester only.
No student may attempt or earn more than 168 units. This limit itself is a rarity--a student may reach it only through receiving approval via a Petition.
Students must maintain a minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.0 to remain in academic good standing. A final minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0 is required for graduation.
Please note: Academic good standing is not the same as satisfactory academic progress. Satisfactory academic progress refers to the academic requirement students must meet to maintain eligibility for financial aid. Please contact the Office of Financial Aid for more information on satisfactory academic progress.
The Core comprises both credit-bearing (34 units) and non-credit bearing requirements.
Students must complete 32 units in Gallatin School courses, all of which contain the letters “UG” in the course subject area. In fulfilling this requirement, students must earn 4 units in the *First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar, 4 units in *First-Year Writing Seminar, 4 units in *First-Year or Transfer Student Research Seminar, and 16 units in interdisciplinary seminars. Any remaining units may be taken in other Gallatin curricular offerings, including additional interdisciplinary seminars, advanced writing courses; arts workshops; practicum courses; global and travel courses, and individualized projects (independent studies, tutorials, internships, and private lessons).
*Please note:
The following Core requirements are in addition to the 32-unit course requirements:
Students are required to write a two- to three-page essay called the Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration by the end of the semester in which they complete the 64th unit toward the B.A. degree. Students who transfer into Gallatin with 64 units must complete this requirement during their first semester at Gallatin (deadline: summer/fall admits – November1; spring admits – April 1). Students write the essay in consultation with their adviser, and the essay must be approved by the adviser.
This essay has several purposes. First, students are expected to compose an intellectual history that describes the trajectory of their interests and education thus far. Second, students are asked to frame a plan for future study, including classroom course work and individualized projects. In constructing this essay, students should describe their educational experiences, the central idea or ideas informing their concentration, and the course work relevant to their concentration. Finally, this essay should be understood as an opportunity for students to reflect on how they learn as individuals and to consider what they find academically interesting and worthwhile.
For more information about this topic, see Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration.
Students are required to submit (1) a five- to eight-page adviser-approved Rationale about the topic or topics to be discussed in the Colloquium and (2) a List of Works consisting of 20-25 works representing several academic disciplines and historical periods related to the theme or themes described in the Rationale. Both the Rational and List of Works require approval from the student's adviser another member of the Gallatin faculty.
For more information about this topic, see Rationale and List of Works.
Students receive 2 units for successfully completing a two-hour presentation and discussion with the student’s adviser and two other faculty members. Both the Rationale and List of Works serve as the main focus of the discussion in the Colloquium. Students register for “Colloquium” (COLLQ-UG 1, 2-units) in the semester in which they plan to sit for the Colloquium.
For more information about this topic, see Colloquium.
All students must complete the Liberal Arts requirement, which is distributed as follows: 8 units in the Humanities; 8 units in the Social Sciences; and 4 units in either Mathematics or Science.
This requirement is designed to help students think historically—and culturally---about their concentration work. To that end, students are required to take at least 4 units of coursework in the 'Premodern' period, 4 units in the 'Early Modern' period, and 4 units in ‘Global Cultures’ for a total of 12 units. While some courses may satisfy multiple areas of the Historical & Cultural requirement (i.e. Global Cultures and Premodern), one course cannot be used to fulfill more than one area of the requirement (in this example, either Global Cultures or Premodern, but not both).
More information about the Premodern, Early Modern, and Global Cultures areas is available below.
The 'premodern' period traditionally extends from the world of antiquity, from the earliest records of human civilization up to the emergence of early modern social, political, and technological regimes (14th-16th centuries CE). It is common to include under this vast temporal umbrella such disparate phenomena as the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and South Asia; the societies and cultures of the European 'Middle Ages'; the Mayan and Incan civilizations of South and Central America; pre-Ming dynasty China; the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates of the Middle East, north Africa, and Spain. Students of the premodern world might expect to study (among many possibilities) Classical Greek philosophy and drama, Ancient Mediterranean wisdom Literature, Epic poetry and romance, the interplay of oral and written cultures, the Han legacy in the East, the Roman legacy in the West, heresy and the institutionalization of religion, the rise of Islam, crusade, the flourishing of scientific learning at Baghdad and Cordoba.
For a course to fill the Premodern requirement, at least half of the semester's coursework should focus on this historical period. Courses that use this historical period as foundation or context for later historical periods do not fill this requirement.
**It is important to understand that 'premodern' and 'early modern' are categories created by Western scholars to describe cultural, political, social, and economic differences across vast periods of time. For this reason, these categories are not fixed, and they vary across disciplines and geographic regions. In other words, while the terms 'premodern' and 'early modern' can be useful for exploring the diversity and development of ideas across time, they also invite debate, discussion, and interrogation.
The 'early modern' period is understood to begin in many regions around the 14th century, and to continue to the 18th century, or, depending on geographic region, to the late 18th or 19th century CE. It describes the era from the invention of the printing press to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, from the early contact of European explorers with the Americas to the American Revolution. It marks the beginning of world exploration and the expansion of world trade, the beginning of a global economic system; and the beginning of European colonialism, including the Atlantic Slave trade. It is common to associate this period with, for some examples, the European Renaissance, the Ottoman Empire, the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, colonial Latin America, the colonial and early revolutionary culture of the United States.
For a course to fill the Early Modern requirement, at least half of the semester's coursework should focus on this historical period. Courses that use this historical period as foundation or context for later historical periods do not fill this requirement.
**It is important to understand that 'pre-modern' and 'early modern' are categories created by Western scholars to describe cultural, political, social, and economic differences across vast periods of time. For this reason, these categories are not fixed, and they vary across disciplines and geographic regions. In other words, while the terms 'pre-modern' and 'early modern' can be useful for exploring the diversity and development of ideas across time, they also invite debate, discussion, and interrogation.
Gallatin students are required to stretch beyond the cultural context that is most familiar to them, and take (at least) 4 units of coursework in classes dealing with the beliefs, practices, literatures, or intellectual traditions found in contexts beyond the boundaries of, in general, the United States and Western Europe. Students are encouraged to take classes that address the various contexts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East.
For a course to fulfill the Global Cultures requirement at least half (seven weeks) of the semester's coursework should focus on a single non-Western cultural context. Please note that courses focused on globalization, colonialism, or imperialism do not necessarily satisfy the requirement. While a course may cover other contexts, courses that fill this requirement will demonstrate a strong focus on a single non-Western context so that some depth of understanding can be achieved. Courses that survey a range of contexts with limited depth do not fulfill this requirement.
The Critical Race Studies requirement is met by classes, across disciplines and intellectual traditions, that foreground race/racism and structures and practices that produce them. These classes will help students better understand how to unpack the racial grammar, sometimes visible and often latent, that shapes and constricts “knowledge” in different domains about that theme. This may entail focusing on how the legacies of racial and colonial violence have given rise to “common sense” notions about race, naturalizing uneven distributions of power, resources, cultural worth, and life chances.
Courses meeting this requirement address how modern race/racism emerged and attend to the flexibility and adaptability of ruling ideas about race in the U.S. and transnationally. Some courses allow students to examine how seemingly group-specific racial ideologies change across time and place, with attention to the ways in which racial thinking has led to dispossession, elimination, and social deaths of others. Other courses focus on decolonizing movements and cultures that have envisioned marginalized peoples as sources of social transformation and liberation. Regardless of their specific topics, courses meeting this requirement help students develop their concentrations by situating different ways of knowing in relation to historical and contemporary maps of racial power and privilege, local and/or global. Courses may examine political economies, cultural production, scientific knowledge, and people’s understanding of themselves and others.
Students must take (at least) 4 units of coursework to fulfill this requirement. For a course to fulfill the Critical Race Studies requirement, at least half (seven weeks) of the semester’s coursework should focus explicitly on the above.
A minimum of 64 units of coursework must be completed after matriculation in Gallatin.
In addition, students are required to complete their last 32 units at NYU, through courses at NYU in New York City or at an NYU study away program. Students who wish to study abroad through a school other than NYU or who wish to take courses outside of NYU should either do so before they complete 96 units or file a petition asking to be waived from the requirement. Such arrangements require prior permission, which may be requested by submitting an External Study application (and petition, if necessary) to the Gallatin Office of Global Programs, 411 Lafayette Street, 3rd Floor.
Undergraduate students must complete all degree requirements within a period of 10 years from the first semester of matriculation at Gallatin.
Students who are readmitted after an extended absence from NYU will have their records evaluated upon readmission to determine the remaining time permitted to complete the degree.
Students are expected to satisfy all degree requirements and thus graduate in the semester in which they complete 128 units. If unusual circumstances require additional course work in excess of 145 units, the student may file a Petition to request permission to take extra units for one additional semester only.
No student may attempt or earn more than 168 units. This limit itself is a rarity--a student may reach it only through receiving approval via a Petition.
A student may apply a maximum of 64 transfer units toward the Gallatin degree. Included in this maximum are all units earned prior to admission to Gallatin (including Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, Maturity Exam Certificate, etc.), any non-NYU units a student may be approved to take after matriculation at Gallatin, as well as units granted for course equivalency. Please note: all Gallatin degree candidates must complete a minimum of 64 units after matriculation at Gallatin and must satisfy all other degree requirements.
Transfer credit is applied to a student's NYU record according to the following policies:
For more information about transfer credit, please see Advanced Placement and other pre-college credit.
Undergraduate students may earn a maximum of 32 course equivalency credits for professional experiences they have had before matriculating in Gallatin. Course equivalency credits will be applied toward the transfer credit limit. The number of course equivalency and transfer credits combined may not exceed 64 units. Course equivalency credit does not count toward the undergraduate residency requirement
See Course Equivalency for more information about how to apply for this credit.
No more than 31 units in business courses can count towards the Gallatin BA degree. This includes, but is not limited to: all courses in the Stern School; business courses in the School of Professional Studies, NYU Shanghai, and NYU Abu Dhabi; and business courses transferred from other colleges and universities.
Undergraduate students may take a maximum of 24 units in private lessons during their studies at the Gallatin School. Included in this total will be units earned from Gallatin Private Lessons (INDIV-UG 1701) as well as units earned from Steinhardt music courses noted as “individual instruction in the performing arts” (e.g., Participation in NYU Orchestra, Vocal Training (Private Lessons), etc.).