Arts/Outside Credit

This is the most important page in this book. Please be sure to read it thoroughly before enrolling for any courses. Note that cited sources are limited as the content of his page has instead been manually discussed with multiple members of Arts Advising for accuracy.

At UBC, the credits you earn are tied to a specific faculty. Typically in a Bachelor of Arts, at least 72 of your 120 credits must be earned in the Faculty of Arts.¹ This is the "Arts credit minimum requirement." This requirement is not compatible with the Major in Computer Science, as it requires students to take 63 credits outside of Arts² - your CPSC_V, MATH_V, and/or STAT_V courses. To account for this, Computer Science students are automatically granted a relaxation of the requirement to only 57 Arts credits with the following note attached:

"Note that students granted a relaxation of this requirement must complete the maximum number of Arts credits possible within the degree’s 120 credit total and no non-Arts elective credit will be permitted."¹

Similarly, the "Outside Requirement" typically specifies that students must earn at least 60 of their 120 credits outside their major field of study. Because the 63 required CPSC_V, MATH_V, and/or STAT_V credits are considered to be within your field of study, you are also granted a relaxation of this requirement to 57 outside credits.

In order to complete your degree in 120 credits:

1. Do not take any non-Arts courses except those specifically required for your major.
2. Do not take any courses with Credit/D/Fail grading. This is because CR/D/F credits are not applicable towards the Outside Requirement.

If this advice is ignored, those credits earned will be added on top of your required credits, not subtracted from them. It is fully allowed to take more than 120 credits in your degree, but keep in mind the following consequences:

• You will pay more tuition than necessary.
• You will complete more coursework than necessary.
• In order to fit the extra credits into your schedule, you may need to...
  • ...extend your degree by an additional year.
  • ...take summer courses.
  • ...take more than 5 courses in a single term.

Which credits are Arts credits?

For B.A. students, a course is deemed to carry Arts credits if the offering department/school is housed by the Faculty of Arts. To check, search the course code on the Academic Calendar. "Faculty of Arts" should display next to the subject name, like "Psychology, Faculty of Arts." Note that despite displaying "Faculty of Science," COGS_V courses carry Arts credits for B.A. students. Also note that despite mentions of Science credit on the course homepages, all PSYC_V and GEOS_V courses carry Arts credits for B.A. students.

What about transfer credit?

Transfer credits will only be applied towards your degree if they are either Arts credits or they directly map to a Computer Science major requirement. For example, AP and IB Computer Science courses grant generic 100-level CPSC_V credit rather than credit for CPSC_V 110 or CPSC_V 121, so they are considered to be electives and do not count towards any of your major, Arts, or Outside credit requirements. However, if a student on a Go Global exchange term transfers back 3 generic 300-level CPSC_V credits, they will directly count towards the upper-level Computer Science requirement so long as it has not already been fulfilled.

What about MATH_V 110 or CPSC_V 103/107?

The Arts and Outside credit requirements will be relaxed further if a student takes MATH_V 110 over MATH_V 100/180 or CPSC_V 103 and CPSC_V 107 over CPSC_V 110 to account for the additional Science credits. In order for this relaxation to display on Workday, a request may need to be submitted to Arts Academic Advising.

¹. Credit Requirements and Regulations | UBC Academic Calendar, as of November 20 2025 ↩

². Computer Science | UBC Academic Calendar, as of November 20 2025 ↩