Associate in Arts Program (University Transfer)
The Associate in Arts (AA) degree is designed to prepare a student for entry into the junior year in an appropriate baccalaureate degree program. The AA degree is a university parallel, college transfer degree comprised of 60 credit hours: 36 credit hours of general education plus 24 credit hours of electives. Each student who earns an AA degree from Pensacola State College (PSC) is guaranteed admission to one of the state universities in Florida per s. 1007.23, F.S.
PSC offers the lower division preparation for many of the approximately 200 majors in the State University System. The AA degree provides the courses of study equivalent to those offered in the freshman and sophomore years (lower division) of Florida's state universities. A student who earns an AA degree meets the lower division general education requirements of a Florida state university but does not automatically meet the requirements for a particular major at a university.
In order to transfer smoothly from PSC to a bachelor's degree program, it is very important that students take the initiative to know all the requirements for their planned major at the university. It is also important that students take courses at PSC that are required for admission to the major at the university the student plans to attend. These courses, called common prerequisite courses, are the required components of the degree programs within the State University System of Florida and may be taken to satisfy the 24 credits of AA electives or the 36 credit hours of AA general education, when applicable. These common prerequisite requirements are available at each university's website and at the Florida Shines website at https://www.floridashines.org. PSC Academic Advisors are available to help students.
Advising Tracks
To further assist the AA student, PSC has designed Advising Tracks, which include the common prerequisite courses in a planned major at a state university in Florida. These Advising Tracks are for advising purposes only. Each AA student who completes the 36 credit hours of general education and the 24 credit hours of electives and satisfies all other graduation requirements will be awarded the AA degree. See the PSC website or online Catalog for information on each Advising Track.
Students who spend their first two years at PSC and earn an AA degree before transferring to a state university in Florida benefit from the personal attention of their instructors, small class sizes, very affordable tuition, and a flexible schedule of classes offered at five locations as well as online.