The curriculum of the Physical Sciences Program has a high degree of flexibility to allow selection of courses to meet the interests and goals of the individual student. To earn a Bachelor of Science degree in the Physical Sciences Program, a student must satisfactorily complete the following requirements:

1. Basic Requirements. Courses are required in four foundational disciplines.
   1. Chemistry: CHEM 135 and CHEM 132 or 136 (4 credits)
   2. Mathematics: MATH 140, 141 and one other math course for which MATH 141 is a prerequisite (11 or 12 credits)
   3. Physics: PHYS 161, 260, 261, 270, 271 (11 credits) or PHYS 171, 174, 272, 273, 275, 276 (14 credits). Students desiring a strong background in physics should take the 171-276 sequence, which is required of physics majors and offers much smaller classes than the 161-271 sequence.
   4. Computer Science: CMSC 106, or CMSC 131, or PHYS 165, or ENEE 114, or ENEE 240, or ENEE 241. Students who are taking Computer Science as an area of concentration must also complete: CMSC 114 or 132, CMSC 214 or 212, and CMSC 250.
   5. Science/Technical Elective (3 or 4 credits): See undergraduate advisor for details
2. Distributive Requirements. Beyond the basic courses, students complete 24 upper level (300-400) distributive credits. All students must complete 18 of the 24 distributive credits as physical sciences majors. The distributive credits must be divided among three areas of concentration with at least 6 credits in each area. The areas of concentration include the disciplines of chemistry, physics, mathematics (including statistics), astronomy, geology, meteorology, computer science or one of the engineering disciplines. Students who wish to select electrical engineering need the permission of the Assistant Dean in the College of Engineering.
3. General Major Requirements. Programs in the Physical Sciences are usually sequential in nature, and students must be careful to satisfy prerequisites in all cases. Students are advised to develop a physical sciences curriculum with the help of the Physical Sciences advisors as soon as possible, but preferably by the end of the sophomore year.
   1. All Physical Science students must have a planned program of study approved by the Physical Sciences Committee. In no case shall committee approve a program which has less than 18 credits in the three distributive areas of the Physical Sciences program to be completed, at the time the program is submitted.
   2. A grade of C or better must be earned in all program courses (basic prerequisite and distributive requirement courses).
4. The CORE Liberal Arts and Sciences Studies Program. The requirements of the CORE program are described under the "Academic Regulations and Requirements" section of this catalog. The program requires a total of 43 credits.
5. Elective Requirements. In addition to meeting the requirements stated above, each physical sciences student must plan a sufficient number of elective courses to meet the minimum 120 credits needed for graduation.

Engineering courses used for one of the options must all be from the same department, e.g., all must be ENG courses or a student may use a combination of courses in ENNU and ENMA, which are both offered by the Department of Materials and Nuclear Engineering; courses offered as engineering sciences, ENES, will be considered as a department for these purposes. Selection of ENEE courses is by Permission Only.

Certain courses offered in the fields included in the program are not suitable for Physical Science majors and cannot count as part of the requirements of the program. These include any courses corresponding to a lower level than the basic courses specified above (e.g. MATH 115), some of the special topics courses designed for non-science students, as well as other courses. A listing of "excluded" courses is on the last page.