What Are Elective Courses?
Elective courses are classes that a student can take which are not required to graduate or to fulfill a degree. They are generally seen as the opposite of core requirements, which are classes that all students must take unless they have special dispensation. In some cases a school might also speak about elective major courses, which are courses that fit into major requirements but are not part of the core requirements.
Many majors at a university or college offer a number of special elective courses within the scope of that major. From this selection of elective courses, a certain number of credits must be taken to fulfill the major, but the actual choice of classes is still left up to the student. This is in contrast to specific classes that may be required to fulfill the major, and in contrast to broader core requirements that all students at the university may have to take. Often these elective courses will allow the student to focus on a particular specialization within the major at universities where there is not a formal way to specialize.
For example, a student majoring in linguistics may be required to take a number of core classes. She may have to take classes on the foundations of language, phonetics, syntax, phonology, and semantics, as well as taking an analytical class on a chosen language. In addition to these core requirements, however, she may also be asked to take a set number of elective courses within the major. So a student more interested in the hard science of linguistics might focus on classes on neurology and linguistics, while a student more interested in cultural anthropology might take elective courses on social aspects of language, cultural language acquisition, and language extinction and its relationship to cultural heritage.
At the high school level, the majority of classes taken are generally core requirements. As a result, any degree of specialization a student wishes to do must be done through elective courses. Additionally, these electives tend to be much more free form and entertaining than other classes, and may allow students a chance to play while being educated, rather than undertaking a more exacting education. In this sense, electives at high school are often looked to as a way to give students a bit of a break, while still keeping them engaged.
For example, some high schools might offer electives in wood working, or in architectural drafting, or in nutrition. Others might offer sports electives, or music electives, allowing students to delve more deeply into these areas than they would in core requirement classes. Others might place the bulk of their art classes as electives, so that students who want to pursue painting, creative writing, sculpting, or any number of other creative pursuits would need to enroll in them as elective classes. There is often considerable overlap between the subject areas covered by elective courses and those covered by extra-curricular activities, but electives take place during the actual school day, and are graded in the same way as regular classes.
Written by Brendan McGuigan
