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What does it take to graduate from the University of Washington? At least, when you have an Environmental Science major, an Environmental Studies minor, a Restoration Ecology focus, and participate in the Honors Program?

Here are all of my requirements, broken down:

 

*Note that the University and its schools can and frequently

change requirements form year to year, so this only holds

true for my path from 2014-2018

University Requirements:

These are the requirements that every UW student must fulfill in order to graduate. Luckily, there are only two of them, and they are relatively easy to fulfill by just graduating with a Major and a minor or focus!

-Actual Requirements 

  1. Minimum of 180 credits

  2. Minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average: 2.00

-My Results:

  1. 214 credits

  2. Cumulative Grade Point Average: 3.88

Honors Requirements:

These requirements are entirely irrelevant to most students, except those in the Honors Program. If you are one of those lucky few, here are the modest requirements that they put in place to earn the Honors designation on your degree:

  1. Minimum Cumulative GPA: 3.30

  2. Honors 100 and Honors 496

  3. Two “Experiential Learning Activities”

  4. One Honors Individuals and Societies class

  5. One Honors Arts and Humanities class

  6. One Honors Social Sciences class

  7. One Honors Natural Sciences class

  8. Five additional Honors classes

  1. Cumulative Grade Point Average: 3.88

  2. Honors 100 and Honors 496

  3. Swing and SER “Experiential Learning Activities”

  4. People Planet Politics

  5. Maker and DIY Culture

  6. Politics of Living and Dying

  7. Climate Change

  8. All my other Honors classes

  1. One English Composition class

  2. Ten credits of Writing Across the Curriculum or additional composition classes

  3. One Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning class

  4. Ten credits of Natural Sciences, outside of the major

  5. Ten credits of Individuals and Societies, outside of the major

  6. Ten credits of Visual, Literary and Performing Arts

  7. Ten additional credits in any of the three Areas of Knowledge

College of the Environment Requirements:

  1. ENGL 131

  2. Honors Climate Change and Honors Maker and DIY Culture

  3. MATH 124

  4. Honors Human Evolution and Climate Change

  5. Honors Social Problems and Politics of Living and Dying

  6. SPAN 201 and SPAN 202

  7. ESRM 150 and ENVIR 100

Environmental Science Major Requirements:

  1. MATH 124

  2. MATH 125

  3. Five credits of additional Quantitative and Scientific Reasoning

  4. ESRM 250

  5. Five credits of Communications

  6. Five credits of Economics

  7. BIOL 161

  8. BIOL 162

  9. Either ESRM 210, ESS 201, ESS 210, OCEAN 230, or ATM S 211

  10. CHEM 142

  11. CHEM 152

  12. ESRM 200

  13. ESRM 201

  14. ESRM 300

  15. ESRM 304

  1. MATH 124

  2. MATH 125

  3. QSCI 381 (Statistics)

  4. ESRM 250

  5. ENVIR 200

  6. ECON 200

  7. BIOL 161 (AP Credit)

  8. BIOL 162 (AP Credit)

  9. ESRM 210

  10. CHEM 142

  11. CHEM 152

  12. ESRM 200

  13. ESRM 201

  14. ESRM 300

  15. ESRM 304

Restoration Focus Requirements:

  1. Capstone ESRM 462, 463 and 464 -or- ESRM 494 and 495 -or- ESRM 494 and 496 

  2. 35 additional credits from a list of possible Environmental Science classes

  3. Honors Option: Minimum Cumulative GPA of 3.30 in all UW coursework, Minimum Cumulative GPA of 3.50 in ESRM classes, and the Honors Capstone

  1. Capstone ESRM 462, 463 and 464 

  2. ESRM 473, ESRM 331, ESRM 399, ESRM 362, ESRM 474, ESRM 479, ESRM 489, ESRM 478

  3. Honors Option: Cumulative GPA of 3.88 in all UW coursework, Cumulative GPA of 3.98 in ESRM classes, and the Honors Capstone

Environmental Studies Minor Requirements:

  1. ENVIR 100

  2. ENVIR 200

  3. One course from ESRM 235, ENVIR 221 or ENVIR 243

  4. Five credits from the list of classes considered “Human and Social Dimensions”

  5. Five credits from the list of classes considered “Natural Sciences”

  6. Five credits form the list of classes considered “Policy and Decision Making"

  1. ENVIR 100

  2. ENVIR 200

  3. ESRM 235

  4. ENVIR 379 

  5. ESRM 210

  6. ESRM 473

Degree Requirements

These requirements are entirely irrelevant to most students, except those in the Honors Program. If you are one of those lucky few, here are the modest requirements that they put in place to earn the Honors designation on your degree:

These requirements are for students who are majoring in Environmental Science and Resource Management. Although these are the core ESRM classes, note how few of them are actually exclusively "environmental" related. 

These requirements are for students who are majoring in Environmental Science and Resource Management, but who chose to specify their degree in the Ecological Restoration focus. Compare the number of environmental science classes in this part of my degree to my actual major requirements; it is skewed this way because my focus takes up the additional 35 "electives" you need in ESRM for the major. 

ESRM Major
ENVIR Minor
Summary

Summary: What Does This Mean?

Over the past four years, I have taken a grad total of 43 classes as a University of Washington student. Many of these classes overlap with several requirements, while others are specific to only one requirement: for example, my HONORS 100 class was just an introduction to Honors, while my ENVIR 200 class counted for my minor, as the communications class for my major, and as one of the Visual, Literary, and Performing Arts classes required by the university. 

​

All in all, it can be very confusing to figure out what classes you need in order to graduate with your major, minor, focus, or honors. I have visited my department adviser, Lisa Nordlund, more times than I care to count (at least twice a year, sometimes several times per quarter!). Thankfully, the University of Washington has a handy tool called the Degree Audit Reporting System, which allows the students to track their requirements and see how the classes they have taken fit into their degree. I'm a bit of a physical thinker, so I also had 5 whole sheets of check boxes and list of potential classes to take on hand as I planned out my future schedule. Take a peek at how I decided to organize my schedule each quarter! 

{insert picture of schedule}

​

I won't pretend that I knew exactly what I wanted out of my schedule and that I planned it out from day one. There were lots of times when I realized that a class I wanted to take wouldn't fit into my schedule, or that I would be taking too many credits, or that a class filled up before my registration date and I had to come up with a plan B. 

These requirements are for students who are minoring in Environmental Studies. Compare the overlap between Environmental Science classes and Environmental Studies courses; fortunately, there was a decent amount of overlap!

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