To access the official minor requirement sheet for the current catalog year, students should visit the College of Letters & Science website.  The minor requirements below are provided with additional supplementary information pertinent to students pursuing the minor.

The English minor requires 24 units in English, at least 20 of which must be upper-division, distributed in the manner outlined below.

The English Department now offers two possible plans for the upper division portion of the minor.

1. Preparation. One lower-division course in English (4 units)
2. Upper division courses, following either the Core or Thematic Plan  (20 units)

Plan 1 – Core Plan. 20 UD units, distributed as follows:

1. 1. 1. 4.0 units of literature, pre-1700, chosen from: English 101, 105A-B, 110A-B-C, 115, 119, 119X, 144, 152A-B, 156, 157, or 162.
      2. 4.0 units of literature from 1700-1900, chosen from: English 102, 103A-B, 126A-B-C, 137A, 169, 172, 179, 180, or 181.
      3. 12.0 units of English electives.

Plan 2 – Thematic Plan. 20 UD units of English electives chosen around a central theme. Students are required to meet with a faculty member to choose a topic and course of study. Final approval required by faculty undergraduate committee.

Depending on course content the following courses may apply to area A or area B of the upper-division minor; English 114AA-ZZ, 128AA-ZZ, 131, 132AA-ZZ, 133AA-ZZ, 134AA-ZZ, 151AA-ZZ, 16SAA-ZZ. Any of these courses apply automatically to area C. Contact the department to see which courses will apply to areas A and B in a given quarter. Substitutions and waivers are subject to approval by the chair of the department.

All courses to be applied to the minor must be completed on a letter-grade basis. This includes both courses offered by the English Department and those offered by other departments and applied to the minor.

Students do not need to declare the minor. Once a student has completed the course work outlined above, he or she can pick up a Minor Request for Certification Form at the English Department advising office, South Hall 3432. The following preconditions apply, as noted on the official minor sheet provided by the College of Letters & Science:

• Student UC grade-point average in pertinent upper-division courses is 2.0 or higher.
• No more than 5 upper-division units overlap between the English minor and the upper-division portion of a student’s major(s) or other minor(s). If the overlap with a student’s major(s) exceeds 5 upper-division units, then completion of the English minor will not be formally recognized; if the overlap with other minor(s) exceeds 5 upper-division units, then only the first minor reported will be noted on the student’s transcripts.
• Students must have completed at least 12 of the upper-division requirements for the minor while registered as a UCSB student. Substitutions and waivers are subject to approval by the chair of the department.
• Students may petition only one course from outside the department to satisfy either a lower division requirement or an upper division elective. No non-department substitute petitions will be approved for area A. Pre 1700 Literature or Area B. 1700-1900 Literature.

The English Department welcomes students majoring in other programs who feel they would like to complement their studies, and enrich their cultural lives, by minoring in English. Such crossing of disciplines makes even more sense today because the field of literary studies like many other humanities fields—has in recent decades actively fostered relations with the arts, social sciences, and science and technology. (See, for example, the department’s Voice of the Shuttle: Web Site for Humanities Research for a conceptual map of how literature currently intersects with other disciplines.)