Document Actions
Liberal Studies Program
The Liberal Studies Program offers extensive advising exclusively to all Liberal Studies majors. Students are assisted in making the proper course choices through the means of the Peer Advising for Liberal Studies (PALS) Center in the Pfau Library, Room 241, through email advising at pals@csusb.edu and by phone at (909) 537-5482.
The basic program includes courses in the following areas of study:
Reading, Language and Literature - 28 units;
History and Social Sciences - 28 units;
Mathematics - 18 units;
Natural Sciences - 22 units;
Visual and Performing Arts - 13 units;
Physical Education and Health - 10 units;
Human Development - 10 units;
General Education - 20 units;
Liberal Studies Assessment - 8 units.
Off-Campus Programs
• The Liberal Studies Program provides advising for those Liberal Studies majors attending the Palm Desert Campus by means of the i2eye Video Conferencing System by simply contacting the Palm Desert Student Services Office at (760) 341-2883 to make an appointment. Many courses are offered on-line for those students who primarily attend the Palm Desert Campus. On-line courses are taught completely on the Internet and are not assigned classroom space. Students taking on-line courses should consult the Office of Distributed Learning website for minimum hardware and software requirements for taking any courses on the internet http://odl.csusb.edu/web/courses.htm.
•The Liberal Studies Program provides advising for students attending
Victor Valley Community College, http://www.vvc.edu/offices/career-center/
and Chaffey Community College http://www.chaffey.edu/transfer2/
by means of the i2eye Video Conferencing System by simply contacting
the Transfer Center in each of these campuses to make an appointment
to talk with a Liberal Studies advisor at CSUSB.
Lower Division Transfer Course Requirements
• The Lower Division Transfer Pattern (LDTP) is an agreement between all California State Universities (CSUs) and all California Community Colleges (CCs) involving courses to be used in Liberal Studies for becoming an elementary school teacher. The majors go by various names: Liberal Studies, Elementary Subject Matter, Integrated Teacher Preparation, Non-integrated Teacher Preparation, or similar combinations of names. These majors all lead to the BA degree and provide the subject matter preparation required by the State of California to become a qualified elementary teacher. In addition, the Integrated programs include all the course work for the preliminary credential and save a year of time in becoming a certified teacher.
The LDTP provides for 45 semester units to be taken at a CC that are transferable to any CSU major in subject matter preparation for elementary teachers. An additional 15 semester units are guaranteed transferable and may be specific to a CSU campus. The LDTP guarantees that your CC units will transfer to the CSU of your choice. How can you take advantage of the LDTP and make sure you take the correct courses at a CC? It's easy, just do one of the following:
1. Go to http://www.assist.org and select your community college and our campus. Then select Liberal Studies for your major; the track within Liberal Studies is unimportant, the LDTP is the same for them all. You will see all the courses listed. Or,
2. Use one of the Transfer Guide Sheets produced by our campus for all of our local community colleges. The Guide Sheet contains exactly the same information available from ASSIST. The Guide Sheets are available from our own web site http://liberalstudies.csusb.edu and are often provided in hard copy form at the community colleges.
In either case, the LDTP is built into the information provided. You do not need to be concerned with any of the details of the LDTP other than the fact that the courses you see listed on ASSIST or on the Guide Sheets are guaranteed to transfer from your community college to our campus. We also caution you that taking any course not listed under 1. or 2. will likely not be usable towards fulfilling the requirements of the major and only transfer as elective units. http://www.calstate.edu/acadaff/docs/ITP_NITP_Revised(9-15-06)KH_Statewide.pdf
Transfer Guide Sheets
• The Liberal Studies Program transfer guide sheets are available from counselors at both your junior college and CSUSB. If you wish to see a copy of this lower-division transfer guide, you can also find it at Project Assist: http://www.assist.org. ASSIST is a computerized student-transfer information system that displays reports of how course credits earned at one California college or university can be applied when transferred to another. The mission of ASSIST is to facilitate the transfer of California Community College students to California's public four-year universities by providing an electronic system for academic planning that delivers accurate, timely, and complete information. A point to remember while running http://www.assist.org is, that if you are not a student at CSUSB yet, you may select any of the classes listed to fulfill the requirement you are searching for; however, if you are matriculated at CSUSB, you may only select those classes that are an exact match to the course you need.
Local Community Colleges Transfer Guides Links:
The Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE)
• AState program designed for students who are entering the teaching profession, enables students who are enrolled in a program leading to an initial teaching credential to have educational loans assumed by the California Student Aid Commission.
The basic APLE program assumes up to $11,000 in educational loans in association with four consecutive years of full-time teaching in a designated teacher shortage field of eligible California K-12 public school. To be eligible to participate in APLE, an individual is required to teach in any one of the following:
o A designated teacher shortage field, which includes mathematics, science,
reading and language arts specialist, foreign language, music and special
education,
o Schools serving a large population of students from low-income families,
o Low-performing schools, defined as those in the bottom 50th percentile
of the Academic Performance Index (API),
o Schools having a high percentage of teachers holding emergency permits,
o Schools serving rural areas,
o State Special Schools.
Liberal Studies students who teach in a low-performing or low-income school for four years receive $11,000 in benefits. New teachers in special education may receive both the basic $11,000 and up to $1,000 of additional loan assumption during each of four years. Another $1,000 of benefits may be received annually for the four years by individuals teaching special education in a school ranked in the lowest 20th percentile of the State's API, resulting in a maximum of $19,000 in loan assumption benefits.
The APLE program assume educational loans that were incurred either to meet the costs of obtaining a baccalaureate degree or an initial teaching credential.
If you have educational loans and plan to teach in a school that qualifies as a result of serving high need populations, we encourage you to apply. There are a substantial number of APLE allocations still available, and if you are eligible, you will have an excellent chance of obtaining one. The application and instructions are on the CSU APLE Web site at: http://www.csusuccess.org/scholarship. If you think you are eligible for this excellent program that will assume payment for your educational loans, you are urged to visit the CSU APLE web site, print the application, and submit it to the Financial Aid Office immediately. We want as many Liberal Studies students as possible to participate in APLE thereby reducing the significant costs of paying back educational loans.
• The Liberal Studies Program provides checklists for each of the three pathways to your academic goal. You can visit the Advising Center in Pfau Library, Room 241 or online at http://liberalstudies.csusb.edu. Each checklist is a user-friendly tool that contains a list of all the requirements you need to complete as well as useful tips.