BACS Integration Electives

Site Last Updated: Tuesday, July 07, 2026

Integration Electives and their role in the BACS Degree
Current Integration Electives
1. Official List
2. Previously Approved Petitions
Ineligible Courses
Petitioning for an Integration Elective
Sharing Integration Electives with Other Requirements
General Questions

TLDR - High-level overview

BACS Integration Electives are non-CS courses that connect computing with arts, humanities, sciences, or provide relevant computing-related depth; they are a core part of the BACS degree’s interdisciplinary mission.

To count, courses must be taken for a letter grade, be offered outside the CS department, and generally come from College of Arts & Sciences departments (with at most one approved non-College exception).

You should first check the official list; however, many additional courses have already been approved through prior petitions (as listed in this document) and can be accepted with a simple petition request.

Many courses are explicitly ineligible to count as integration electives, including CS courses, many introductory/general education courses, Commerce courses, and courses that significantly overlap CS curriculum content.

New courses may be petitioned as integration electives if they clearly support the goal of integrating computing with another discipline; graduate courses, special topics courses, study-abroad courses, and some non-College courses may qualify under specific conditions.

Integration electives may count toward general education requirements, have limited sharing with other majors, and cannot be shared with a minor due to College policy.

Integration Electives and their role in the BACS Degree

The BA degree in Computer Science degree is offered by the College of Arts and Sciences with a goal of providing students with a strong foundation in computer science, combined with courses in arts, humanities, and sciences, in order to develop an understanding of how topics in these areas connect with computing. Integration electives in the BACS are central in supporting this goal of “connecting” CS with other subject areas in the arts and sciences. As defined in the Undergraduate Record, Integration Electives are:

…non-CS courses that contribute to this program of study by exploring applications of computing to arts and sciences fields in a significant way or by providing fundamental computing depth and background. Integration electives are courses offered by departments in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Integration electives must:

be taken for a letter grade. College policy says: “no course taken under the CR/NC option may count toward fulfilling general education, major, or minor requirements.”
be non-CS courses. Courses with a CS pneumonic may not count as integration electives.
be courses in College departments, with a one-course exception. At most one course outside the College may count for the major, as long as the course meets the goals of the integration electives.

Current Integration Electives

There are multiple lists of integration electives: those on the official list maintained by the University Registrar in the Undergraduate Record, those which have been accepted in the past but must be petitioned.

Official List

The official list of integration electives, which will pre-populate in both SIS and Stellic, are maintained by the University Registrar in the Undergraduate Record. You can view that official list by clicking the button below:

Official Integration Electives

Previously Approved Petitions

Below is a list of courses that are not on the official list at this time but will be approved because they’ve already been petitioned. However, you must fill out the petition form to request that our staff enter a SIS/Stellic exception in your record. (You won’t have to enter much more info than the course and who you are.)

APMA courses that match MATH courses on the list (can only have one non-College course)
ARCH 5420, Digital Animation and Storytelling (can only have one non-College course)
ARCH 5422, Computer Animation (can only have one non-College course)
ECON 4730, Markets, Mechanisms and Machines
ECON 4559, only topic: Introduction to Algorithmic Economics (Note: CS4501 with this same title can only count as a CS elective.)
ENGL 3500, Hacking for Humanists
ENGL 3500, only topic: Literary Games
ENGL 5559, only topic: Big Data and Bio/Graphical Data
EDHS 4300, Psycholinguistics and Communication (can only have one non-College course)
EDIS 2200, Designing Art, Music, & Games (can only have one non-College course)
MDST 3500, Comparative Histories of the Internet
MDST 3559, only topic: Designing Play
MDST 3510 (or 3559) AI Policy and Society
MDST 3760, Reading Black Digital Culture
MESA 2559, Playing Games: A Gateway to the Mid East & S Asia
MUSI 2360, EcoSonics: Environmental Sound Art Composition
MUSI 2559/3559, only topic: Sonification for Musicians, Designers and Scientists
MUSI 3400, Ecoacoustics
PHIL 1330, Virtual Worlds and Philosophy
PHIL 2350, Minds, Machines, and Persons
PHIL 2500, sections on the topic Minds and Machines
PHYS 5630, Computational Physics I
PSYC 2100, Introduction to Learning (AKA Learning and Behavior?), Fall 2018
PSYC 2160, Cognitive Neuroscience
PSYC 2559, only topic: Cognition and Cognitive Biases
PSYC 4500, Computational Methods in Psychology and Neuroscience
PSYC 5270, Computational Neuroscience
PSYC 5332, Introduction to Quantified Cognition
PSYC 5500, Electroencephalography in Spring 2020
PSYC 5710, Machine Learning and Data Mining
PSYC 5715, Introduction to Machine Learning for Psychologists
SARC 5400, Data Visualization
STAT 4559, only topic: Statistical Text Analysis
Research coursework or independent study in a College department where computing is applied to that area, as long as this course receives a letter grade.

Ineligible Courses

These courses will not count as an integration elective, even if petitioned.

Any calculus or differential equations course
Any course offered by the School of Commerce
ARTS 2559 Drawing and Design
ASTR 1220 Introduction to Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe
ASTR 3450 Mission to Mars
ECE 2066 Science of Information
ECE 2330 Digital Logic Design
EDIS xxxx Applied Teaching with Technology other than EDIS 2200, Designing Art, Music, & Games
EGMT xxxx The College has told us that no Engagement course can count
ENGR 1620 Introduction to Engineering
ENGR 2595 Design Like You Mean It
ENWR xxxx No ENWR courses are allowed to count per College rule
HIST 3452 The Second World War
LPPP 3559 Hacking the Department of Defense
LPPP 3559 Hacking for DOD Innovation
LPPS 3241/STS 3020 Science and Technology Policy
MDST 3310 Sound and Cinema
MDST 3140 Mass Media and American Politics
MDST 3559 Propaganda and Digital Politics
MDST 3559 Superhero Media
MDST 4251 History of Games
MUSI 4523 Issues in Ethnomusicology: African Electronic Music
PHYS 1050 How Things Work
PHYS 1655 Introduction to Python for Scientists and Engineers
PHYS 2010 Principles of Physics I
PLAP 3140 Mass Media and American Politics
PLCP 1010 Introduction to Comparative Politics
PSYC 2400 Introduction to Personality Psychology
PSYC 2410 Abnormal Psychology
PSYC 2600 Introduction to Social Psychology
SLAV 2360 Dracula
STAT 1559 Intro Data Science with Python/R
STAT 1601 Intro Data Science with R
STAT 1602 Intro Data Science with Python
STAT 2559 Introduction to Programming for Applications
STAT 3250 Data Analysis with Python

Petitioning for an Integration Elective

By College policy, the official list that’s published cannot contain special topics courses (new courses without a permanent course number) or graduate courses. But some of these courses are great integration electives, and they’re not on the list only because of procedural reasons. Check the list of courses that have been petitioned and approved before, and submit a petition just to let us know you’ve taken one of these. (See below.) Also by policy and because of the role integration electives play in the BACS, the official list does not include any courses taught by departments outside the College of Arts and Sciences.

If you have found another course that appears to fit the goals of an integration elective, you are welcome to petition for the course to count. This section describes some of the background on integration electives, why some are in the official list and others not, and the process to follow when making a petition. Before continuing, make sure that the course you are interested in is not in the list above of courses that cannot count.

Guidance on Potential Courses (within the College)

The College members of the BACS committee and the College Dean’s office have given us guidance on certain courses that are not acceptable as integration electives (and some that are):

Normally 1000-level courses will not be accepted. (Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule on the official list.) In general, courses that are an introduction to a subject area are focused on goals other than connecting computing with that subject.
The College does not allow ENWR classes to count towards any major.
Courses that are fundamentally general education courses are generally not appropriate. Some exceptions are possible (e.g. 2nd writing courses), and so you will see some of these on the list of approved courses.
Courses that are “standard” or “core” or “central” in a subject area are generally not appropriate. (For, example Macro Economics, Organic Chemistry, Genetics are all courses that every major in their respective discipline takes, whether they’re interested in computing or not, and these courses are not usually tailored or specialized in any way to have a computing+X focus (where X is the other discipline).
We also do not approve classes that are close to or duplicate material learned in CS courses. (For example, courses where a major component is teaching programming to students with no programming background.)
Some courses in the iXperience program that have a computational component can count as integration electives (but definitely not as CS electives).
A Pavilion Seminar (PAVS) course that meets the goals for a BACS integration elective may possibly count, despite a published College rule that says that they cannot be used for a major requirement. (We got approval for this from the College.) Submit a petition if you think a PAVS course you are taking is appropriate.
The College has told us that no Engagement courses (EGMT) courses can be used to satisfy this requirement.

Guidance on Potential Courses (outside the College)

Courses outside the College that do not significantly reflect the purpose of integration electives (see the top of this document) cannot count. So a course that primarily focuses on Engineering, Education, etc., will not count. The Commerce school has determined that none of the COMM courses they offer meet the goals of this requirement, so we will not accept any, even by petition.

But, schools outside the College sometimes offer a course that has an arts and sciences nature. In 2019-2020 the BACS Committee reconsidered our policy on this, and agreed that a student may petition and have at most one course outside the College count, as long as that course meets the goals of integration electives.

Here are some examples that show non-College courses meeting this criteria:

EDHS 4300, Psycholinguistics and Communication, is the kind of course that could be taught by UVA’s Psychology department.
Some STS courses offered by the Engineering School have a heavy focus on a topic in the arts and sciences (e.g. ethics or history) and are taught by faculty with PhDs in an arts or science discipline.
APMA courses in Engineering that match an equivalent MATH course on the list fall into this category.
Some courses from the Batten School that are courses that could have been something taught by the College’s Politics department.
Some courses in Architecture are covered by this guideline also.

There may be other examples. Again, you can only count one course outside the College.

In deciding on a petition for a non-College course, we consider if there’s a department in the College that might in principle offer a course like this. (You can see a list of College departments here.) Courses are not appropriate if they have a strong focus on professional or technical practice; this is most often the case for courses from commerce, engineering, nursing, education and some other schools.

If you’re not sure after reading this, it does no harm to submit a petition. We don’t mind if you’re truly not sure and petition, but please don’t submit requests that are clearly covered by the restrictions described in this section.

Guidance on Non-UVA Courses (study abroad, transfer, etc)

If the course transfers to UVA with a course number that matches something on our approved list, it will count.

Otherwise, it is still possible. To be guaranteed that it will count, you will need to petition in advance of taking the course or studying abroad, and we may need details about the course. We may need more info than you can easily obtain before you take the course at the other university, but we will try to work with you on this.

Submitting a Petition

Use the button below to submit a petition for a course to be counted. We’ll ask you some information about who you are (name, computing id, declaration status, etc) and details about the course (name, number, when you plan to take it, etc). As you prepare to fill the form, please keep in mind the following:

Be sure you read this page carefully, especially the sections describing Integration Electives, which courses have already been approved, and which courses cannot count.
You cannot submit a petition until you are officially declared to be a BACS major in SIS. Wait until you’re accepted. We can’t process your request in SIS if you’re not a major.
The BACS Integration Elective requirement is for 12 credits. This is normally four 3-credit courses. If you petition for a course that’s not 3 credits, it will be considered, but keep in mind that you’ll have to earn a total of 12 credits in this category.
Petitions are not normally handled by email, due to the volume of requests and the fact that multiple people may be handling petitions. You must use the form below.
The petition form is used for both of the following purposes:
1. If the course is on the “accepted automatically” list in the previous section, submit the petition form at the link below. You’ll only need to identify yourself, the course, and the semester you took the course. Note: It will help us if you wait until you’re officially enrolled in the course to ask us to update SIS to recognize one of these “automatic” requests.
2. If you’re petitioning for a course that’s “new”, i.e. one that’s not on any list in this document, the petition request may take place in two stages.
  1. Some requests are easy to decide, and so we’ll first ask for some basic info and see if we can answer quickly. (For example, a grad course in computational biology. Easy decision!) We’ll ask for a brief justification and a course description.
  2. Other requests require more info, and we may need to ask others to help us decide. If we need more info, we’ll follow up and ask you to supply more info, which may include a course syllabus, schedule, or other evidence of how computing is a focus in that course, how much of the course has this flavor, etc.

BACS Integration Elective Petition Form

Note: We may not be able to decide on your petition if the information we need is not available because the course will first be offered in a future semester, or because it’s at another university and you can’t get this information, or because you can’t get that information for some other reason. In such cases, you may have to wait until you can get that info without knowing whether or not we’ll approve it in the end. If such uncertainty is a concern, it might be better to plan to take an approved course rather than risk a negative response from us later.

General Education requirements

The College’s webpage on Policies about majors in the College states: “Courses used to meet general education requirements can also count toward your major.” That page is the source for much of what’s explained below (and if there is any difference you should assume the College page is correct).

The College’s rule states: “No more than two courses can be counted simultaneously for two non-interdisciplinary majors; an interdisciplinary major may share up to three courses with another major.” (You can see this rule here on the College website, and see a list of which majors are “interdisciplinary” on this page in the section “What is an Interdisciplinary Major?””.)

This rule also applies if your other major is not in the College, unless the school that offers the other major has a more strict policy. This is true of Data Science: students doing a double-major with Data Science and CS (or any College major) can normally share only one course between the two majors; please read the Data Science policy (see “Simultaneous Counting” section in 2025-26 UG Record here) carefully and consult a data science advisor if you have questions.

If the course is a degree requirement for the BACS major and would fulfill a requirement for the minor, it cannot be shared, i.e., used for both. The College has a rule that course credits applied toward a major may not also be applied toward a minor. This means that a BACS student’s integration electives or CS courses may not also be used towards a minor in another subject. CS has no control over this rule.

The College rules on sharing apply even if the minor is outside the College (e.g. Data Science). However, the sharing rules do not apply to prerequisites to declare the BACS major (CS111x and CS2100) or to declare the minor. (E.g., if Data Science requires a STAT course before you can declare the DS minor, it’s a prerequisite to declare the DS minor, and that course could count for a BACS integration elective if it’s on our list. Or, if another major requires CS1110, there’s no issue because it’s a prereq to declare the BACS and not a major requirement.)

General Questions

There’s a course that’s been accepted but it’s not showing up in SIS as counting for me!

If it’s not on the official list in the Undergraduate Record for the “plan requirements term” as shown in SIS, you must submit a petition – see the last section. SIS only recognizes those on the official list. If you took a class listed below that that’s been petitioned and accepted, you must submit the petition so our staff knows to enter a “SIS Exception” for you.

The set of courses that can count will change from one academic year to the next, and will be updated just once a year (in the summer, before the next academic year begins). If a new course is added in a year after your requirements term as shown in SIS, we will accept this but SIS does not automatically recognize it, so you’ll have to fill out the form described later in this document.
Can my advisor give approval for a course that’s not on the list to count as an integration elective?

No, you have to submit a petition.
There’s a course in the College that looks like it ought to count. Can it?

First, check the list of courses that have been petitioned before.
1. If it’s been rejected, sorry, it can’t be used.
2. If it’s listed as having been accepted, great! But you must submit the petition form so we can update your record in SIS.
3. If it’s not listed, you can use the petition form to ask us to consider this.
There was a course on a previously official list that’s not on the latest list. Why?

Every student has an official “requirements term” in SIS and the list for that year is the one SIS uses to check your degree requirements.
1. Use Stellic’s planner to see if that course counts for you. If it does, it will count no matter when you take it as long as you don’t change your requirements term (and you currently have the correct Requirements Term in Stellic).
2. If Stellic does not show it counting, but you took it during a year it was listed in the UG Record’s list, you can submit a petition that we will approve. (You took it based on what you saw on the list that was current at that time.) In the section of the petition that asks you to justify why the course should count, explain this situation.
3. If you have not yet taken it, this means we removed it from the list for some good reason. Students who have a later requirements term than the one that includes that course cannot take it and have it count.
There is a course on a more recent list, but not on the older list for my requirements term. Can it still count?

Yes, we’ll count this without any problem. Submit a petition and explain this situation.
Who decides about petitions and about other policies about integration electives?

The BACS degree program is managed by a joint committee made up of CS faculty and faculty from various College departments. The College Dean’s office is frequently involved in discussions of direction and policy because having a program managed across two schools is unusual. A program director (the DUP, director of undergraduate programs) from CS does day-to-day management, and staff from CS answer many questions and otherwise support the program.

Petitions are initially reviewed by the Director and may then be evaluated by others on the committee (including our member from the Dean’s office). Sometimes we ask the opinion of the instructor or the DUP from the department offering the course. The BACS Committee has final authority on such decisions, i.e. they cannot be appealed to a department chair or dean.