Departments & Programs

Slavic Languages and Literatures

Special Credit in Slavic Languages and Literatures

  1. Students who wish either to test out of the College of Arts and Sciences language requirement or to get special ("S") credit for their knowledge of a SLAV language, or both, must take a written departmental placement test for that language. An additional oral examination may be administered at the discretion of the relevant language instructor. International students may not receive 100- or 200-level credit (either regular or special) in their native languages, but they may request that the language requirement be waived for them, pending results of the placement testing. Students who have finished high school in the United States, regardless of their native language, are not considered to be international students and may therefore receive special credit in a SLAV language.
  2. Students testing into the second semester of a SLAV language may earn 4 credit hours of special credit for the semester they tested out of. Students testing into the third semester may earn 8 credit hours of special credit. Students do not have to take a SLAV course in order to be awarded this credit.
  3. Students testing into the fourth or fifth semester of a SLAV language may earn 200-level credits (either 4 or 8 for Russian; 3 or 6 for other languages), only if they take a 200-level or higher course and complete it with a grade of C– or higher. For example, students testing into SLAV R202 can get 4 hours of special credit for R201 if they complete R202 with a grade of C– or higher; students testing into R301 can get 8 hours of special credit for R201-R202 if they complete R301 with a grade of C– or higher. Special credit is not awarded in the Slavic department for courses above the 200 level.
  4. SLAV majors may not apply special credit they earn for 200-level courses toward fulfillment of their major requirements. They are required to substitute other courses in order to meet the College of Arts and Sciences and departmental credit requirements for all majors in SLAV.