In 1989, UC Berkeley adopted the ground breaking American Cultures (AC) undergraduate education requirement. Courses meeting the AC requirement can be found in more than forty departments and programs across the UC Berkeley campus. The American Cultures requirement is a Berkeley campus requirement, the one course that all undergraduate students at Cal need to take and pass in order to graduate. The requirement was instituted in 1991 to introduce students to the diverse cultures of the United States through a comparative framework. Courses are offered in more than forty departments in many different disciplines at both the lower and upper division level.
The American Cultures requirement and courses constitute a new approach that responds directly to the problem encountered in numerous disciplines of how better to present the diversity of American experience to the diversity of American students whom we now educate.
Faculty members from many departments teach American cultures courses, but all courses have a common framework. The courses focus on themes or issues in United States history, society, or culture; address theoretical or analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, and ethnicity in American society; take substantial account of groups drawn from at least three of the following: African Americans, indigenous peoples of the United States, Asian Americans, Chicano/Latino Americans, and European Americans; and are integrative and comparative in that students study each group in the larger context of American society, history, or culture.
These courses focus upon how the diversity of America's constituent cultural traditions have shaped and continue to shape American identity and experience. This is not an ethnic studies requirement, nor a Third World cultures requirement, nor an adjusted Western civilization requirement, nor a course on racism.
Students who entered Berkeley in fall 1991 or thereafter in lower division standing (as a freshman or sophomore with 0-55 transferable semester units) and ALL students who entered in fall 1993 or thereafter MUST satisfy the American cultures breadth requirement in order to graduate. You satisfy the requirement by passing, with a grade not lower than C- or P, an American cultures course. You may take an American cultures course any time during your undergraduate career at Berkeley, but we strongly urge you to meet the requirement as early as possible. If you have questions about your responsibility to satisfy the American cultures breadth requirement, then please consult with your academic counselor.