LETTER: Transfer credits just as credible

To the editor:

I am nearing graduation and I have a few thoughts from my experience as a transfer student.

There are some USU policies that seem to attack transfer students. At graduation, as I understand it, the requirements for the distinctions of cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude are based only on so called “USU GPA,” excluding grades earned at other schools. Why? The transfer status of every class from every in-state school and some out of state schools is clearly listed on the USU website—if a non-USU class is accepted as equivalent to a USU class, a grade from that class ought to be considered equivalent in every way. USU accepted my UVSC associates degree as credible and should therefore accept everything that comes with it. The USU Faculty Senate who has power over setting such requirements should consider making changes here. Also, transfer students who come with associates degrees should not be required to take depth education courses. We finished our general education and tend to get a little frustrated when USU tells us that we weren’t generally educated well enough.

However, I would like to praise the decision to make associate degree holders exempt from the CIL exams, because after all, we were “generally educated.”

Curtis Nelson