Policies & procedures: Enrollment & courses

In order to mitigate the residual impact of the pandemic, effective Fall 2022 the College of Engineering has developed a new policy and process for late schedule change requests. Please see below details about the new policy and process.

Limits

• During your undergraduate career in the College of Engineering, you will be granted up to two semesters during which you can make changes to your schedule after the deadlines if you are experiencing hardship.

• Requests beyond the two semesters will not be considered under any circumstances.

• Please note that any technical course that can be used to fulfill a requirement for your major in the current semester must be taken for a letter grade and cannot be petitioned to be taken pass/not pass.  If you would like to petition to change the grading option of non-major technical course, please see your ESS Adviser to talk it through before you submit the petition.

• With your requested change(s), you must still graduate within your allotted time frame (8 semesters for first year students, 5 semesters for transfer students).

• Petitions submitted prior to Fall 2022 will not be counted toward this limit.

• Retroactive petitions will not be accepted.

• This policy applies to fall and spring semesters only and does not include summer sessions late schedule change requests; therefore, summer will not count as one of your two semesters.

Student Submission

• Where is this form?  The late schedule change request will be available to you as an e-form on your CalCentral Dashboard (under Student Resources/Submit a Form) the day after the add/drop deadline and will remain available to you until 11:59 p.m. the Friday before RRR week.

• If you are requesting to change a grading option in a technical course between Friday of week 5 and Friday of week 10 of the semester, please contact your ESS Adviser. You will not be able to request this change via the eForm during this period of the semester.

• Please note that this is a new e-form that was created in partnership with SIS. If you run into technical issues trying to submit your request, please contact your ESS Adviser and we will work with the SIS team to resolve the issue.

• Any misrepresentation of facts or circumstances on your eForm is considered a violation of the Student Conduct Code and may result in sanctions, including, but not limited to, suspension or dismissal from the University.

• Once the e-form is submitted, it is final and cannot be retracted or changed.

Review and Approval Process

• Once submitted, all student requests will be routed to the student’s ESS Adviser for committee review and action. Requests will not be approved automatically.

• Requests for students holding an F1 or J1 Visa who are requesting to go below 12 units will also be routed to the Berkeley International Office for review and action.

• Requests for NCAA student athletes will also be routed to the Athletic Study Center for review and action.

• Requests to add a course will also be routed to the instructor for review and action.

Reasons to Implement this Change

• We are implementing this change in order to mitigate the residual impact of the pandemic. We understand that you may experience significant life events that can negatively affect your ability to focus on your academics, and during these times we want to remain flexible to support you during that semester if you choose to remain enrolled.

• We expect that requests for late schedule changes in any given semester would cite circumstances such as the following:

  • Significant personal hardship: A situation significantly above and beyond circumstances with which a student would normally cope. Examples of significant hardship include serious illness, accident, legal problems, or mental health issues. The circumstance must be one that makes it unreasonable for you to continue the original program of study.

  • Family member health/death: Serious illness or death of a family member, guardian, or dependent.

  • Employment/financial: Increase in working hours after the schedule change deadline that is necessary to address financial issues.

  • Change out of College of Engineering: A decision to leave the College of Engineering. Students will be required to sign an agreement acknowledging that they will leave the College of Engineering and will be ineligible to return.

  • Adding research: Would like to add research units and did not receive permission to add until after the stated deadline. (You will need to provide evidence of this as a part of this request.) If the evidence you provide verifies that this late request is at no fault of your own, this late add will not count toward your late schedule change semester limit.

Note: Courses for which academic dishonesty has been verified by established campus procedures cannot be dropped from the record, nor can the grading option be changed. If a student drops a course in which academic dishonesty has been verified, the course will be reinstated and the grade will be posted to the student’s record. If a student changes the grading option in a course in which academic dishonesty has been verified, the the grading option will be reverted to the grading option on record at the time of the incident of misconduct and the grade will be posted to the student’s record.

Once you begin your education in the College of Engineering, attendance at any institution other than UC Berkeley requires permission. If you wish to take courses at another school during the summer (or in a semester that you are not enrolled at UC Berkeley), you must consult with your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser before registering for the courses.*

Students are not allowed to enroll at another school during a fall or spring semester while also enrolled at UC Berkeley. Under very unusual circumstances, students may be given permission to enroll simultaneously. You should consult with your ESS Adviser to discuss simultaneous enrollment for your specific circumstances before you enroll elsewhere.

If you take courses elsewhere during a fall or spring semester while also enrolled at UC Berkeley and you did not receive prior approval, you will not receive any unit credit or course credit for those courses.

To see what courses may be eligible for transfer, please use Assist.org.  A document regarding how to use Assist can be found here.*

*Please note that courses that are marked as “Articulation valid for transfer students only” and “Articulation for Engineering majors only” in Assist.org cannot be used for degree requirements in the College of Engineering by students who entered UC Berkeley as frosh.  Those courses can ONLY be used by junior transfer students.  For example, the Physics courses from Cuyamaca College and Grossmont College cannot be used by frosh-entry students to fulfill CoE requirements.

Some requirements in the College of Engineering can be satisfied with Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and A-Level exams.  To receive credit, exams must be taken prior to graduating from high school. Our exams page in the Undergraduate Guide has more details.

In very limited situations, the College of Engineering allows students to petition for credit by examination for MATH 1A and/or MATH 1B. These are the only two subjects that may be petitioned to satisfy by examination. At a minimum, approval of both the College of Engineering Dean and a math department faculty member willing to administer an examination that covers the entire course is required. You must be in good academic standing and registered during the term the exam will be offered.  The credit by examination petition is available through the Office of the Registrar.

You are expected to complete required lower division courses before beginning upper division work. Petitions for exceptions, or late schedule change requests, from students out of compliance with this policy are less likely to be approved.

You should use the Assist website to determine equivalencies for courses taken at California community colleges. Courses taken at four-year institutions (including other UC schools) and at community colleges outside California must be evaluated before subject credit can be awarded. To have a course evaluated, please consult with your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser in 230 Bechtel Engineering Center. In most cases, you will need to provide a syllabus of the course in order to begin the course evaluation process.

Each semester, you must enroll in a minimum of 12 units and two technical courses (a minimum of three units each, with the exception of Engineering 26) required in your engineering curriculum. Students who are not in compliance with this policy by the end of the fifth week of the semester are subject to a registration block that will delay enrollment for the following semester.

For most majors, you will need to enroll in an average of 15 units and take more than two technical courses each semester to stay on track. Programs of less than 12 units or more than 20.5 units require approval. Requests to enroll in more than 20.5 units will not be reviewed until the second week of the semester. You should consult with your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser. Please note that petitions for excess units will not be approved for students who are taking upper division courses before completing their required lower division courses.  Additionally, petitions made by frosh, and transfers that have not completed at least one semester, are usually denied (except in the case of some M.E.T. students).

Many College of Engineering undergraduates are interested in studying abroad, and we strongly encourage participation as a means of broadening your education and developing a global view of engineering. International study requires a good deal of planning, organization and self-motivation to be successful, but the benefits are well worth the effort. You may choose to study abroad by participating in the UC Education Abroad Program (EAP) or in a non-UC sponsored program. Study abroad programs are offered for one semester, a full academic year or a summer session. If you are interested in study abroad, you should begin researching country and program options early in your academic career. With careful planning, you can complete a study abroad program without delaying your graduation; however, you will be granted one additional semester to complete your degree requirements if needed.

You must obtain the approval of your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser in order to participate in a study abroad program. Your adviser will verify that you are making satisfactory progress toward your degree and that the time abroad won’t prevent completion of the College of Engineering requirements in a timely manner. Visit the Study abroad section of our website for further information about College of Engineering policies and procedures for study abroad participation.

In order to enroll in a graduate course:

• You must have completed at least 60 units as a college student (does not include units earned through AP/IB/A-Level exams)
• You must obtain permission from the instructor of record
• Your upper division technical GPA should be at least 3.0

Please see your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser if you wish to petition to use a graduate course to fulfill a technical requirement for your major. No more than two graduate courses may be used to complete degree requirements.

Limitations to special studies courses

• Courses numbered 97, 98, 99, 197, 198 and 199 must be taken on a Pass/Not Pass basis and cannot satisfy any technical requirements.
• There are limitations on the number of units a student may earn toward graduation, and in each semester, for special studies courses (courses numbered 97, 98, 99, 197, 198 and 199). No more than 16 units of 98, 99, 197, 198 and 199 courses can be counted toward the B.S. degree, and no more than 4 units in any single term can be counted.

Approvals required for enrollment in independent and field studies courses

If you are interested in pursuing independent study or participating in research for academic credit (normally courses numbered 198 or 199), you should review the information on your major department’s website regarding procedures for obtaining credit for undergraduate research/independent study. You begin the process by obtaining the support of a faculty person who will sponsor your work. Most departments require faculty sponsors to complete and sign paperwork acknowledging their support of your research/study, and on that basis, the department will provide a permission number for registration. Some departments do offer letter graded research units (normally courses numbered H194 or 196).

Online courses offered by UC Berkeley during the summer session may be used to fulfill degree requirements. You can also complete courses online during the summer at other institutions, see attendance at other schools after enrollment at UC Berkeley for more details regarding this requirement.

With the exception of UC Online, you cannot enroll in an online course offered elsewhere during the fall and spring semesters while also enrolled at UC Berkeley. UC Online enrollment during fall and spring semesters is limited to one course, and you are required to maintain 12 units and two technical courses toward your degree.

Consult with your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser for more information.

A maximum of 4 units of physical education courses are allowed to count toward the B.S. degree in engineering.

Self-paced classes are offered as alternatives to regular classes in some lower-division computer science courses. These classes allow you to work at your own pace (subject to some constraints determined by the course), with most of the learning completed through study guides, workbooks, texts and frequent quizzes.

Before taking one of the self-paced classes, you should consider whether you are sufficiently motivated to do the work without having very specific deadlines and an instructor. The UC Berkeley Self-Paced Center has more information about these classes.

Substitutions for required courses must be approved by petition. The petition must be submitted to your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser well before you have started the course you wish to substitute.

Units earned in UC Berkeley Extension XB courses or Berkeley courses completed through the UC Extension Concurrent Enrollment Program will be counted toward your degree only in the following circumstances:

• If you are required to complete academic requirements for graduation, and you have obtained approval from the college.
• If you have obtained permission from the college prior to taking courses.
• If you were dismissed, and you have developed an academic plan with your Engineering Student Services (ESS) Adviser.

Grades earned in UC Berkeley Extension XB or Concurrent Enrollment courses will be included in your UC Berkeley grade-point computation. If you have been dismissed by the College of Engineering, however, your grades will only count toward your UC Berkeley GPA if you obtained the college’s approval prior to taking the courses.

NOTE: Students enrolled in UC Extension are not part of UC Berkeley and units completed are not considered “in residence.” International students should work with the Berkeley International Office if they will be completing their degree through concurrent enrollment.

In order to take courses through UC Extension Concurrent Enrollment, you must complete the following steps:

1. Meet with your ESS Adviser to request approval to take courses through UC Extension’s Concurrent Enrollment Program.
2. Enroll in the classes online. Visit the UC Extension Concurrent Enrollment Program for details on how to register.
3. Obtain approval for enrollment from the course instructor and the department chair. This is done electronically. You are expected to discuss the possibility of enrolling with the instructor during the first week of classes. Enrollment is based on availability of space in the class.

Requests to waive a course requirement will not be considered.