College of Science Advising Center

Science Advising for Semester Conversion

Curriculum Year Change Transition

On February 7, 2019, all current transition quarter students were given the option to switch to the semester curriculum. Students will have one full year to make the switch if they choose. In general, we are strongly advising students to not switch to the semester curriculum unless you have otherwise received advising from your department. Departments will be communicating to their students department specific information. However, here is some general information:

  • Quarter Courses/ DPR: If you transition to the semester curriculum, the majority of the classes you took on quarters will not transition smoothly. Therefore, manual adjustments will need to be made to your Degree Progress Report (DPR). These fixes will most likely not happen until the time of graduation. Also, if you switch to the semester curriculum, any petitions written in quarters will fall out of your DPR and will need to be manually inputted once again.
  • Quarter Units: Please be aware if you transition to the semester curriculum, all your quarter units will be divided by 1.5. For certain scenarios that are not sequence courses, you may be short units.  Ex: if you took a 4-unit quarter class, you will only receive 2.66 units in semesters. Most semester courses are 3 units, therefore, you would be short at least 0.33 semester units. However, for sequences, such as MAT 114, 115, 116 this series equals 12 quarter units, these units divided by 1.5 equals 8 semester units to cover MAT 1140 (4 semester units) & MAT 1150 (4 semester units) respectively.
  • General Education courses (GE’s): Please be aware that if you transition to the semester curriculum, you will also be changing your General Education (GE) requirements to semesters. Visit the University Catalog for general information about the semester GE structure, and use the Quarter v. Semester GE Tool to see how your quarter GE courses will convert. This also means that all of the GE courses you took in quarters will be converted to semester units. For example, a 4-unit quarter GE course will be converted to a 2.66-unit semester GE course. As a result, you may  be short toward your overall 48-unit semester General Education requirement.

For specific department information, please reference your department email or this chart.

Department Specific Conversion Information

Fall 2017 Transfer Students & Continuing Students should follow the requirements that were in place in the year you were admitted to Cal Poly Pomona. Please find the curriculum sheets here. You may find your curriculum year at the top of your Degree Progress Report.

Fall 2017 First-time freshmen students should have been notified if they would be changing to the new curriculum by the Office of Student Success. All of the fall 2017 freshmen below will be changing with the exception of Biology-Botany; Biology- General Biology; Biology- Microbiology; Biology- Zoology and Physics majors. This change will occur in August 2018. If there are questions, please consult with the Advising Center or your academic department.

Please view the following links to find out more specific semester conversion information. This information has been provided by your academic department. Be sure to look at the other College of Science department's conversion information for your support courses and other pre-requisites. Lastly, please be sure to continuously check your Cal Poly Pomona email for updates regarding this information.

Biological Sciences

Chemistry & Biochemistry

Computer Science

Geological Sciences

Kinesiology & Health Promotion

Mathematics & Statistics

Physics

Every effort has been made to provide students with the most accurate information for advising purposes. However, this information may be amended or changed at any time. Please continuously check your CPP email for updates. Should you have any questions regarding the above information, please feel free to contact the College of Science Advising Center here. Webpage last updated: August 2020