University at Buffalo (UB)
Students admitted to UB in Fall 2023 or later should visit the new pathways requirements here.
Take ownership of your education by choosing topics of interest to you and applying them to your major or using them as a platform to explore another field of study.
Pathways are a central component of the UB Curriculum. Students are required to complete both a Global and Thematic pathway. Each pathway requires a minimum of nine credit hours, typically satisfied by completing three courses of three or more credit hours.
The university provides a Path Finder Tool, a planning tool to aid in the selection of your pathway courses. This page provides additional resources to help guide engineering and computer science students with respect to course selection. If you have any issues using the tools provided below or need assistance, contact the SEAS Office of Undergraduate Education to meet with an academic advisor.
Learn how to use the UB Pathfinder tool in this instructional video.
Pathways are typically satisfied by completing three 3 credit hour courses, with the first selected from a “List 1”, the second selected from a “List 2”, and the third selected from a “List 3.” Students who select an introductory foreign language sequence for the Global pathway will complete two 5 credit hour courses.
A typical engineering or computer science student will need to satisfy the following requirements via the pathways:
Engineering majors are advised to select the following courses as “List 3,” as they are also major requirements:
Computer Science BS and BA majors should select CSE 442 as “List 3” in Thematic, and any class as “List 3” in Global that does not have prerequisites.
Selecting pathways that contain courses within the major requirements allows a student to connect ideas from their major with the UB Curriculum and allows a student to move through the pathways most expeditiously.
We recommend that engineering and computer science students select pathway courses as follows:
Students coming in with transfer courses that can be identified with any of the five UB Areas have the flexibility to use their courses in many List 1 and List 2 sections. Specific details can be found under each List by logging into the Pathfinder Tool.
Students coming in with AP or exam credit can use a course if it is identified within a specific List. Students can use the UB Areas and Diversity Learning by Course Table below to determine if their courses are part of a Pathway Topic or List. They can also use the Course Filter tab in the Pathfinder Tool.
Below are a series of tools to help SEAS students find courses in UB pathways. Explore pathways...
The table below provides information regarding the number of courses within List 1, List 2, and List 3 that align with a UB Area and potentially Diversity Learning.
A green cell denotes that there are courses within List 1, List 2, or List 3 that map to a given UB Area. A blue cell denotes that there are courses within List 1, List 2, or List 3 that map to a given UB Area and serve as a Diversity Learning course (the number provided in parentheses indicates the number of Diversity Learning courses with a given UB Area). A red cell denotes courses that do not map to a UB Area or Diversity Learning. When clicking on a shaded cell, the collection of List 1, List 2, or List 3 courses that align with the UB Area will be displayed. Scheduling information is also provided. Note that in some cases a course aligns with multiple UB Areas. However, these courses will satisfy just one of the six total pathways courses and one of the four UB Areas required.
| Pathway | Type | List 1 | List 2 | List 3 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | C | H | L | S | A | C | H | L | S | A | C | H | L | S | N | ||
If you have any issues using pathways tools or need assistance, please contact the SEAS Office of Undergraduate Education to meet with an academic advisor.