Assistance in Advising Students

Informing Students on the AC Requirement

The American Cultures (AC) Center is extremely grateful for your support of the AC curriculum. The advice you provide to students about AC helps prepare them for the exciting opportunities within this unique UC Berkeley curriculum. And in recognizing that critical role, we would like to share some information about, and opportunities in, the AC curriculum.

In its almost three decades of existence, AC has become the campus's signature curriculum, and is now offered across over 40 departments and programs on campus, from the arts and humanities to the physical sciences. The AC curriculum is uniquely designed to offer students the opportunitiy to learn about topics as varied and including environmental justice, human rights and digital technologies, mass incarceration, language and literacy, educational inequality, andevolutionary biology.

The curriculum is constantly developing, with new course additions addded each semester aimed at fostering critical conversations on the role that our diverse communities play in shaping the past, present and future of the nation. To help tell this story, the historical roots and contemporary shoots of the AC curriculum have now been captured in a short introductory video which is available on our History of AC page

Fulfilling the Requirement

To fulfill the AC requirement, students must complete an AC course of at least 3 semester units, and receive a grade of at least a C- or "Pass". 

Students may complete an AC course at a community college or partner institution, although we highly recommend that students take the course on the Berkeley campus, for it is part of the unique Berkeley experience. To find a list of approved courses, please visit our Courses page.

In addition, students may petition for a non-AC course to be approved by the Academic Senate for credit. Although a course may "feel" like an AC course, does not mean that it will satisfy the requirement. The Academic Senate carefully reviews every petition to ensure that the course aligns with the guidelines that make up an AC course. For more information about this process, students can visit our Petition Process page. 

Services for Advisors

If the information to support your advising of students is not found on this website, the AC Center staff are available to provide one-on-one consultations and also deliver presentations to college and department staff.  Please let us know if we can provide any support to you in this vital work (for example through hosting a brown bag discussion, providing a list of new AC courses and their details, or sending over some of our new swag).  To do so, please email americancultures@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail).