Undergraduate Catalog
Academic Policies and Procedures
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Admission to the College
College Requirements
Admission to the College
Freshman Information
Journalism and Communications is a limited admissions college. All applicants will be considered on a space-available basis. A grade point average of 3.0 (on all work attempted) and 60 hours of acceptable credit are required for admission at the junior year. Students should have completed the university’s general education requirement. Admission for students who meet these criteria is automatic, except in departments that are already over limit
Students not admitted automatically or with averages below 3.0 may petition for admission. Petitions are available from the college’s Student Services Office, 1000 Weimer Hall. Petitions from students who have completed the college’s quantitative option or foreign language requirement will be given preference.
Students who fall below academic standards will be listed as off track for their major and will be flagged. These students must consult the advising staff in 1000 Weimer Hall, or the student may choose to go to the Academic Advising Center.
Transfer Information
To be eligible for admission to this college, a transfer student must satisfy the minimum requirements for admission to the college as stated in the Admissions section of this catalog. This includes all prerequisite tracking courses. All applicants must have completed two years of a foreign language in secondary school or 8-10 semester hours at the postsecondary level, or document an equivalent level of proficiency.
Students must complete at least 64 hours of 3000 or 4000-level courses at the University of Florida or other four-year institutions.
Double Major/Dual Degrees
Students wishing to specialize in more than one field can earn a second bachelor’s degree in this college by completing an additional 30 credits of work, with the necessary qualitative and residence requirements. Individuals who wish to earn a second bachelor’s degree must petition for admission to the department in which they wish to study. Journalism and Communications majors cannot double major or minor within the college.
Academic Advising
The college maintains an advising service for prospective majors through its Office of Student Services. Upon admission to the college each student is assigned an adviser for the remainder of his or her stay in the college. Students may change advisers by consulting their department chair.
Typing Ability and PC Skills
All students entering the college must be able to type and operate a personal computer; laboratory assignments are completed on personal computers. Students are expected to type 20 words per minute before enrolling in MMC 2100 or RTV 2100 and 30 words per minute for selected advanced courses.
Telecommunication majors must take its equivalent, RTV 2100, Writing for Electronic Media. Entry into the broadcast news sequence is limited to students in the Department of Telecommunication who have placed in a competitive entrance exam to evaluate their writing ability. Contact the department office to determine when typing and writing tests are given. MMC 2100 is limited to ADV, JM or PR majors, except by permission of the journalism department chair. Students who pass a proficiency exam in writing given by the college may be exempted from and earn credit for MMC 2100.
Student Responsibility
The most important fact a student can remember about academic advising is that he or she is responsible for earning a degree. While the college maintains an academic advisory service and carefully works to keep accurate student records, the student personally is responsible for meeting all degree requirements.
Therefore, a careful reading of these requirements is advised, and each student is urged to visit an adviser at least once each semester to review his or her progress. Computerized universal tracking audits indicating each student’s academic progress are available online to students in the fall and spring semesters.
Computer Requirement
Computer requirements vary by major and may change. In general, students need access to and ongoing use of a near state-of-the-art computer capable of Internet access, printing and running recent versions of software for word processing, graphical web browsing, database operations, statistical analysis and presentations. Some students, depending on course work, will need computers capable of desktop publishing, digital photo editing, web design and audio/ video editing.
Refer to the university’s home page at
www.ufl.edu.Transfer Credit
Students may transfer up to 60 semester hours from a community college. Hours taken over 60 may meet certain requirements but will not count toward graduation. After 60 hours, credit taken as a transient student at another university can be transferred to UF. Permission to take transfer work after a student has earned 90 credits must be received by filing a petition in 1000 Weimer Hall. Professional courses required for one’s major generally cannot be taken at other schools.
Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory Option
Undergraduate students in the college may take no courses designated ADV, JOU, MMC, PUR or RTV under the Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory (S-U) option, except courses which are offered only for an S-U grade.
Students are permitted to take elective courses outside the college on an S-U basis, subject to university rules published in the Academic Regulations section of this catalog.
Once the S-U option is approved, students may not elect to convert to a letter-grade. Writing and Math Requirement courses may not be taken S-U.
Courses for outside concentration credit may be taken S-U with the following restrictions (in addition to university restrictions):
- The option may not be applied to any course below the 3000 level.
- Not more than three credits of S-U work may be taken to fulfill the outside concentration requirement.
- No beginning-level course (for example, SYG 2000, CGS 2531) may be offered for outside concentration credit under S-U.
- Refer to the university calendar for deadlines to apply for the S-U option.
Probation and Suspension
A student will be placed on college probation if he or she fails to maintain a 2.0 overall average and a 2.0 professional average. A student will be flagged if either or both of these averages fall below a 2.0 GPA for two consecutive terms. Students on college suspension must successfully petition the college admissions and petitions committee for reinstatement.
Dropping Courses
Petitions to drop courses beyond the first two will be approved only when circumstances beyond the student’s control prevent the satisfactory completion of a course.
In all cases, students must file the petition with the Student Services Office, 1000 Weimer Hall. All petitions must be submitted before the deadline. After these dates, all petitions are processed through the Faculty Senate Committee on Student Petitions in 222 Criser Hall.
Correspondence Study
No student enrolled in this college can receive credit for a required professional course in the major through correspondence study.
Foreign Language Proficiency or Quantitative Option Requirement
This requirement may be satisfied by demonstrating proficiency or completing college-level credits in a single foreign language. Students who elect the foreign language option may meet the requirement by successfully completing the second or third beginning-level course in one foreign language.
This is not a credit hour requirement, but a proficiency requirement. The requirement may be met by earning a grade of C or better or a grade of S.
Students who transfer fewer than 10 semester hours in one foreign language to the university should contact the foreign language department (Romance Languages, 170 Dauer; Germanic and Slavic Languages, 261 Dauer) immediately to take the placement exam. The exam either places the student into the correct course in the sequence or out of the requirement. In either case, students do not receive college credit for performance on the placement exam.
Students who place out of the requirement must be sure to have a letter of proficiency sent to the Student Services Office, 1000 Weimer Hall.
OR
To meet the quantitative option, take any three of the following courses: ACG 2021C, ACG 2071, STA 2023, STA 3024, STA 4222, CGS 2420, CGS 2531, CGS 2532, CGS 3063, CGS 3066, CGS 3403, CGS 3460 or CGS 3462.
Statistics and computer courses listed under the quantitative option can apply three hours toward the general education mathematical sciences requirement.
Courses used for the quantitative option cannot be taken for S grades.
OR
Complete two college semesters of American Sign Language.
Outside Concentration
A portion of the student’s required 80 credit hours from outside the college must constitute an outside concentration.
The outside concentration for the college is 12 hours in one academic department or an approved area of study, as recommended by the department to meet specific career goals. In either option, 9 of the 12 hours must be at the 3000-level or above, unless they are prerequisites. Courses used to fulfill the outside concentration cannot be used to meet other requirements.
Professional Limit
The college stresses a broad background in liberal arts and sciences. The student spends about two-thirds of his or her time on general background courses. The remaining one-third involves the development of professional techniques in relation to this background knowledge.
Because the college insists on this broad background of general education, the number of professional credits applied toward graduation is limited. The college permits 44 professional credits (ADV, JOU, MMC, PUR and RTV) to be applied toward graduation.
Professional courses as defined by the college and accepted by transfer are counted toward the 44 total credits. A student must earn a minimum of 80 hours of non-college courses as part of the 124 hours required. (Sixty-five semester hours must be in liberal arts and sciences.) You can apply no more than six hours of activity courses in the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences.
Internships
Many students earn credits by serving internships. Students are urged to use their elective hours within the college for this purpose. All students in all departments must work 100 hours for each hour of credit. Internship credit can be repeated with change of assignment for a maximum of three credits. Please consult with your department.
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