General Education Electives Frequently Asked Questions

At Mohawk College, students in most diploma programs are required to take two or three General Education Electives. To find out how many General Education Electives you are required to take for your program, consult your MAP (My Academic Progress), which displays your entire program of study including completed, in-progress, and remaining course work. MAP can be found on MyMohawk → Academics → My Grades → My Academic Progress (MAP).

Each program selects specific semesters in which students are scheduled to take their General Education Electives. Please review your program of study on MAP (My Academic Progress) to determine in which semesters you are required to take your General Education Electives. It is highly recommended that you take your Elective when it is scheduled for your program of study.

The Department of Liberal Studies offers a variety of interesting General Education Electives each semester. You can find a list of courses that may be offered to full-time students on the General Education Electives page. Please note that course offerings vary from semester to semester, and that some courses are not eligible as Electives for all programs.

If there is a General Education Elective scheduled in your current semester, you will choose an Elective when registering for your mandatory program courses on MyMohawk. In the block below your mandatory program courses you will be offered a custom selection of Elective courses based on your program and timetable.

General Education Electives must be clearly distinct from the vocational outcomes for your program of study. This means that some courses are not eligible as Electives for all programs. When registering for a regularly scheduled Elective on MyMohawk, you will only be offered Electives that are approved for your program. However, if you are selecting an Elective off-cycle it is the your responsibility to consult the General Education Elective Restrictions List to ensure that the course is eligible as an Elective for your program. For more information on Elective exclusions for specific programs, please contact gened [at] mohawkcollege.ca (gened[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca)

You are advised to register as soon as the registration system will allow (check your MyMohawk email or announcements for your program’s registration date and time). Elective courses are filled on a first come-first serve basis, and seats are limited, so you may need to consider a second or third choice. The MyMohawk Registration portal is updated in real time, so you can continue logging in to see if any spaces become available in your preferred Elective course right up until the last day of the add/drop period for the semester.

If all the Elective options in your block are full, then you will require special authorization to register for another Elective that fits in your timetable. Please select your mandatory program courses first and bring your timetable to the Liberal Studies Support Office (A111) during the add-drop period to meet with the General Education Coordinator. In the meantime, keep checking on MyMohawk to see if any spaces become available as enrollment numbers on MyMohawk are updated in real time.

As long as it’s during the add/drop period for the semester, you can add, drop or change your General Education Elective via Choose/Change My Timetable in MyMohawk. Please refer to the Academic Schedule on the Mohawk College website for current semester add/drop dates. After the last day of the add/drop period, you will not be able to change or add a new General Education Elective to your timetable.

If you missed, failed, or dropped an Elective from a previous semester you should be able to self- register for an Elective via “Choose/ Change My Timetable” on MyMohawk during the add/drop period. On the first day of the add/drop period you should see a list of “Missed/ Failed” Courses when you go to change your timetable. When selecting an Elective from this “Missed/ Failed Courses” block, please consult the General Education Program Restriction List to ensure that the course is eligible as an Elective for your program. If you are unsure about which course to select, please contact gened [at] mohawkcollege.ca (gened[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca).

If you are off-cycle and/or wanting to work ahead by taking an Elective before you are scheduled to do so, you will not be able to register for your course via MyMohawk. Special authorization to register for an additional elective may be granted during the add/drop period after the on-cycle students have had a chance to register for their Electives first. To request special authorization, please visit the Liberal Studies Support Office in A111 during the add-drop period to meet with the General Education Coordinator (Office hours are posted online). The coordinator will double check your timetable and course availability and add permissions to the system for you to enroll in your elective.

Yes, grades earned in your General Education Elective courses are included in the calculation of your overall Grade Point Average (GPA).

Students who are enrolled in a full-time program are encouraged to take their General Education Elective courses as part of the regular program delivery. However, if you are interested in taking Electives online or in the evening through Continuing Education (CE)/Part-Time Studies, you are welcome to do so at your own expense (fees for these courses are NOT included in regular full-time tuition fees). View a list of CE General Education courses that are accepted as credit towards the General Education requirements of most diploma programs. Please note that Continuing Education courses that are not on this list do NOT qualify for General Education credit. Before registering for a CE General Education course, please consult the General Education Elective Restrictions List to ensure that the course is an appropriate Elective for your program.
You may pay and register for Continuing Education classes either in person at the Registrar's Office or online. For all questions pertaining to the delivery and registration for Continuing Education courses please contact CECreative [at] mohawkcollege.ca (CECreative[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca).

Courses completed through Continuing Education (CE) will appear on your MAP (My Academic Progress) under “Other Course Activity”. Once your official final grade is submitted the credit should be automatically applied towards one of your General Education requirement slots. If after receiving your final grades the course is not automatically applied to your General Education Requirement, please contact the General Education Coordinator at gened [at] mohawkcollege.ca (gened[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca) to request an exemption.

If the General Education requirements for your program are already fulfilled on your MAP, taking an extra Elective may NOT help in raising your GPA. The additional Elective would appear under "Other Course Activity" and we cannot guarantee that it would be used in the calculation of your overall GPA. Some academic areas will manually calculate a student’s GPA using the highest Elective grade even if the Elective is listed as "Other Course Activity", but you would have to verify this with your program area. To boost your GPA, you might consider re-taking a core program courses in which case the higher grade would replace the lower grade on your MAP and be used in the calculation of your GPA.

Maybe. If you have an outstanding Elective from a previous or upcoming semester upcoming semester the you request special authorization from the General Education coordinator to add that Elective to your timetable.

Most General Education Electives taken at Mohawk college, will automatically transfer if you change from one Mohawk College program to another (or register in another Mohawk program after you have completed one). This means that most students who have already completed General Education Electives at Mohawk College are not required to apply for exemptions.

If you have previously completed General Education Electives at Mohawk College, please check your MAP (My Academic Progress) report through MyMohawk to see if your Electives have been applied to the General Education spaces for your current program of study. If your previously completed Electives are under the “Other Course Activity” section of the MAP report, contact gened [at] mohawkcollege.ca (gened[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca) to inquire about the eligibility of your prior Mohawk College credits for General Education credit.

If you previously completed courses at another post-secondary institution you might be eligible for exemption from one or more of your General Education Electives. There are several factors to consider when selecting a course to use for a General Education exemption request. To qualify for General Education credit, the transfer course must meet all the following requirements.

• The course must be from an accredited post-secondary College/University.
• The course must address one of the five General Education themes: Arts in Society, Civic Life, Social and Cultural Understanding, Personal Understanding, Understanding Science and Technology.
  Most courses in the Arts (e.g., Literature), Humanities (e.g., Philosophy, History), and Social Sciences (e.g., Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science), as well as, some broad introductory science courses (e.g., Astronomy, Environmental Science, etc.) qualify as General Education.
• The content of the course must be completely unrelated to the vocational outcomes or courses for the student’s program of study.
  For example, students in Business programs cannot use an Economics course to exempt from their General Education requirement.
• Courses that focus on specific workplace, professional, technical, or applied skills and knowledge do not qualify as General Education.
  This includes communication/ language acquisition courses, advanced science and math courses (e.g., Chemistry, Physics, Algebra, Calculus), computer skills courses, workplace health and safety courses, instructional art/ music courses, and courses that involve placement, practicums or laboratory components.
• The course must be equivalent to 3 credits or 42 contact hours
• The final grade on the official transcript must be 60% (C) or higher (50% for courses taken at Mohawk College).
  Courses with non-numerical grades or that are evaluated on a pass/fail basis are not eligible for Credit Transfer.

Note: To receive transfer credit/ exemption for a mandatory General Education course (i.e., a specific General Education course that is required for a program of study), the transferring course must match at least 80% of the learning outcomes for the respective Mohawk College course.

If you have work/life or educational experience that does not meet the criteria for credit transfer/ exemption, you may wish to explore the possibility of having your learning assessed through Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition. PLAR is available for most of our General Education courses and/or for each of the five General Education Themes. Please note that there is a non-refundable PLAR challenge fee. To obtain further assistance and information about PLAR, please contact the college’s Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition office at: plar [at] mohawkcollege.ca (plar[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca)

You can apply for a General Education Exemption online via MyMohawk. For step by step instructions please see: Apply for an Exemption in 5 Easy Steps.

Note: Do not assume your application will be approved! If you are scheduled to take your General Education Elective, register and remain in your course until you are notified about the outcome of your request. If approved, your Elective will be automatically dropped from your timetable.

If you are not currently registered in an Elective and/or you are requesting an exemption for a General Education Elective that you are scheduled to take in a future semester, you can apply for the exemption(s) at any time. If you are trying to exempt from an Elective that you are currently registered in, your application should be received before classes begin in order to be processed before the drop deadline.

Timelines can vary depending on the time of year; however, applications are normally assessed within 10 business days from the time the assessing Department receives your paperwork.

Do not assume your exemption request will be approved! If you are scheduled to take your General Education Elective, register and remain in an Elective course until you have been notified about the outcome of your application. If your exemption request is approved, your Elective course will be dropped automatically from your timetable.

Yes. Each credit sought through exemption requires its own Exemption Request form.

General Education Exemptions are represented as “E” on your transcript/MAP and are not calculated as part of your overall GPA.