Information About Transfer Credit in Computer Science

General Policy

The main standard we use when deciding whether to accept an introductory computer science course for transfer credit at Wesleyan is whether the course is comparable to COMP 112, 211, or 212 at Wesleyan. In general, a course is comparable to COMP 112 if the main focus of the course is a series of programming assignments using a standard programming language such as Java, C++, or Visual Basic. To be comparable to COMP 211 or 212, the course must cover some subset of the additional topics covered in those two courses, as described in the course descriptions on Wesmaps. For transfer credit for advanced courses, the phrase "comparable" means either an upper-level standard computer science course or an elective in the computer science major at the school. Examples of these types of courses are operating systems, database systems, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, or networking.

Another important criteria for introductory courses and some advanced courses is that the student write a significant amount of code from scratch and/or substantially modify code supplied by the instructor. All work, programming or otherwise, must be substantially graded by a human, not computer. For all courses we consider the type of school where the course was taken. Generally speaking, this means an accredited four-year college or university. If the offering school does not accept the course for credit for its own students (as is the case with some on-line course offerings), we are unlikely to accept it for transfer credit.

Courses which are intended to teach general computer skills (like file management) or to teach the basics of standard computer software packages (such as Word, Excel, or Frontpage) are not comparable to COMP 112 or any other computer science courses at Wesleyan and are not acceptable for transfer credit.

For the major

The transfer credit policy for the COMP major is:

You can transfer at most 2 courses per semester (or summer, or winter session) away towards the COMP major.
You can transfer at most 4 courses in total towards the COMP major.
You must take at least 2 of COMP 211, COMP 212, and MATH 228 at Wesleyan.
You must take at least three 300-level COMP courses used to satisfy the major requirements at Wesleyan.

Exceptions

In certain situations, a hybrid course can be comparable. For example, a course that involves both writing HTML source code and programming Java applets might be comparable to COMP 112. These exceptions will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Procedures

If you plan to take a computer science course at another school and transfer it for credit at Wesleyan, you need to get pre-approval before you take the course. To obtain pre-approval, you must follow these steps:

Send the Computer Science faculty member of DADCOM/CADCOM an e-mail with the name of the course that you want to transfer and a URL for the course so that we can look at the course description. We recommend that you ask the instructor of the course you wish to transfer for information regarding hte kind of assignments and grading, and supply that information when you contact us for pre-approval. We will send you back an e-mail that either grants or denies approval of the course for transfer credit, or we will request more information.
If we approve your request, fill out a transfer credit form (available from the registrar) and give it to the CADCOM member, who will sign it. You must then return this form to the registrar.

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