Academic Policies
Double Counting Courses Policy
Students may double count:
- up to 5 courses between the ENVS stand-alone major and each additional major.
- up to 3 courses between the ENVS co-major and each additional major.
- up to 2 courses between any ENVS major and one minor.
Students may NOT double-count courses within different categories of the ENVS majors or minors (except for ENV 199 Senior Thesis). For example, if EC 30 Environmental Economics is used as a core course, it may not be used as the introductory course in the Sustainability, Equity and Policy track. Students must take at least 15 different courses to complete the stand-alone Applied Environmental Studies major and 10 courses for the ENVS co-major, respectively, in addition to a required internship.
If a student is completing a Senior Thesis (ENV 199), they MAY double-count their thesis to fulfill the capstone requirement in the Applied ENVS major and one of their track electives, but only if the topic of the thesis is related to the track they are completing. A course petition must be submitted to obtain approval to count the thesis as an elective. See Course Petition section below.
Course Petitioning
Environmentally-themed courses that are not listed in our website can be requested by students to count toward specific requirements of the ENVS majors. Examples might include Senior Theses, Independent research courses, ExCollege classes, or courses taken abroad at Tufts programs or elsewhere (see transfer of credit policy below). In order to use an unlisted course for the majors, students must complete a Course Petition form and submit it along with the course syllabus to environmentalstudies@tufts.edu. Once the petition is reviewed by faculty affiliated with the program, the student will be notified of the decision by email. This process can take several weeks.
Students may only petition one ExCollege class toward the major or the minor.
All courses petitioned for an ENVS degree must be a minimum of 3 credits, which is equivalent to 45 hours of instruction/contact plus 90 hours of homework over the semester.
Transfer of Credit Policy
ENVS majors can petition courses taken at an accredited institution other than Tufts:
- up to 4 courses for the ENVS stand-alone major
- up to 2 courses for the ENVS co-major
- up to 1 course for the ENVS minors
More than the limit number of courses may be transferred if a course is transferred as an already existing course at Tufts. Courses taken at Tufts abroad programs are not considered transfer credits, therefore the course limit does not apply to them.
Please note that just because a course is approved for transfer by ENVS (or other department) through SIS, it does not automatically count toward the ENVS major. Any course that is not listed on our website must be petitioned to count toward the major by submitting a Course Petition form along with the course syllabus to environmentalstudies@tufts.edu. Students planning to take a course abroad for their major are strongly advised to submit a course petition before taking the course to ensure it will be accepted. See Course Petitioning section above.
All transfer courses must be at least 3 credits to be petitioned for an ENVS degree (see Course Petitioning section). The number of credits for transfer courses is determined by the Registrar.