UBC Faculty of Arts Graduation Requirements

NEW Faculty of Arts requirements for 2024/25

Please be advised that the Graduation Requirements for the Faculty of Arts at UBC have changed for students who enter the program in 2024/2025 or later. Please read through these new requirements in their entirety.

Please see the following UBC infographic for quick reference of the old vs new requirements for the BA:

The Faculty of Arts requires all students to complete specific graduation requirements. Students do not need to complete these requirements before transferring to UBC. However, most students complete many of the requirements in their first and/or second year, particularly the writing component, which must be completed within your first 60 credits.

To begin your application process, click here

General Information:

All applicants to UBC must demonstrate competency in the English language. There are nine ways to meet the English language requirements. Click here to determine which category applies to you.
Students must ensure that all the courses they are planning to take are transferable to UBC by referring to the BC Transfer Guide
Students may receive some transfer credit for certain university-level high school courses. See here

Useful links when using this course planning worksheet:
UBC Degree Requirements (UBC Arts Calendar)
UBC General and Program-Specific Transfer Requirements
Important Dates and Deadlines
BC Transfer Guide

BA Degree Requirements

Langara Equivalents

Prerequisite & Course Information

Writing
(3 credits)

ENGL 100
or
WRDS 150

Writing

ENGL 1100
or
ENGL 1123

LET (min. level 3 or 4) or LPI equivalent or BC English 12, minimum 70% grade with a provincial exam required as a prerequisite.
Langara students can apply to UBC without completing the writing requirement; however, the writing requirement must be completed within the first 54 credits of their degree.

Research
(3 credits)

See here for a list of approved courses

Research

Students must also complete a research-intensive experience, typically specified for their major
These UBC courses are normally offered at the 400-level. There are often prerequisites and they are frequently restricted to Majors in the discipline. See UBC advisor

Ways of Knowing Breadth Requirement

(21 credits)

Areas of Breadth (Humanities & Creative Arts, Language as Meaning, Natural and Physical Sciences, and Social and Behavioural Systems)
and
Place & Power

*Please see description below

Outside Requirement

Students must complete a minimum number of credits outside the field of study of their specialization(s) or major (similar to a Breadth requirement).

Major	Honours or Combined Major	Double Major, Double Honours or Adding a Minor
60 outside credits required	48 outside credits required	24 outside credits required

See link for more details.

Arts Credit Minimum Requirement

A minimum of 72 of the 120 credits required for the Bachelor of Arts degree program must be Arts credit, except when the completion of the student’s specialization(s) requires more than 48 credits outside of Arts. See UBC Credit Requirements and Regulations for more details.

Arts Credit is defined by subject area. Credit completed in subject areas identified in the UBC Calendar course descriptions as being offered by the Faculty of Arts, is considered Arts Credit.

*Ways of Knowing Breadth Requirement

1. Areas of Breadth (18 credits)

Students are required to complete coursework across four areas of study:

Humanities and Creative Arts
Language as Meaning
Natural and Physical Sciences
Social and Behavioural Systems

The student’s major or Honours program will encompass deep engagement in one of these areas, so no additional credits are required from that area. The Breadth requirements will, therefore, consist of coursework in the three remaining disciplinary areas of study.

Students may choose how many credits - 9, 6 or 3 - they spend in each of the three remaining Breadth areas, for a total of 18 credits. Areas are defined by course code. All credits completed within each of the Breadth areas must be taken from the same course code (i.e. Language as Meaning: FREN (9 credits)).

Step 1: Determine which Area of Breadth your Major falls under

Step 2: List the remaining three Areas of Breadth

Step 3: Allocate 9, 6, and 3 credits to the three remaining Areas of Breadth

9 credits in one discipline, assigned to one of the three remaining Areas of Breadth
6 credits in one discipline from another Area of Breadth, and
3 credits in the remaining Area of Breadth.

Students are encouraged to select disciplines and courses that align with their personal interests, post-graduate goals, and/or recommendations from their major’s program.

2. Place and Power (3 credits)

Students must complete 3 credits from the approved course list (**this course list is not currently available, and therefore students should aim to take the Place and Power requirement at UBC). These credits do not need to be exclusive of the student’s other degree or program requirements and may be met in any of the disciplinary areas, including that of the student’s major.

Please see the image below from UBC for examples of the application of the Ways of Knowing Breadth Requirement:

Students should consult the BC Transfer Guide to determine which Langara courses are transferable to UBC.

Course Planning Guides for programs within UBC Faculty of Arts

Anthropology	History
Archeology	Interdisciplinary Studies
Art History	International Relations
Asian Area Studies	Latin
Asian Language & Culture	Latin American Studies
Canadian Studies	Linguistics
Classical Studies	Mathematics
Classics	Medieval Studies
Cognitive Systems	Philosophy
Commerce (Minor)	Political Science
Computer Science	Psychology
Economics	Religion, Literature and the Arts
English	Religious Studies
First Nations Language & Linguistics	Sociology
French	Speech Sciences
Geography	U.S. Studies
Greek	Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice
Hispanic Studies

For additional programs and degree options, click here.

1. NUTR 2112 (3) + 2212 (3) for a total of 6 credits is equivalent to UBC's FNH 255 (3) credits.

These Course Planning documents are created by the Langara College Counselling Department and are intended for use only as a guide. UBC's requirements are subject to change, and it is the student’s responsibility to consult original sources to ensure accuracy.

Updated Nov 2023