Selecting Your Free Electives
Most undergraduate programs require free electives. They are called free electives because unlike major electives, you are entirely free to choose what courses you want to complete. Depending on your program, you may have anywhere from 12 to 30+ credits of free electives to complete.
Free electives or electives allow students to explore interests outside of their major. They can be any courses of interest in the 100-400 level for which you have met the prerequisite requirements. For example, if you are interested in exploring your creative side, you may want to take courses such as FAS-110 - Introduction to Drawing or ENG-226 - Introduction to Creative Writing.
To determine how many free electives you need to complete for your program, please review your Academic Evaluation. In the third section of your Academic Evaluation, where you can view the number of credits required for your program, the credits applied to your program, and the catalog year, you can also see how many free electives are required for your program. See the screenshot below:
If you have already completed some free electives at SNHU or transferred in courses that were applied to your program as electives, you should be able to see those courses listed toward the bottom of your academic evaluation in the Electives section. The Electives section will come after the major course/concentration requirements. If you do not see an Electives section, it means you have yet to complete any electives.
If you have courses that have applied toward your electives requirement, manually deduct the number of free electives completed from the number of free electives required for your program. For instance, if you're a Psychology major, and you're required to complete 39 credits of free electives, but transferred in 14 credits from your previous institution, you will have 25 credits of free electives left to complete. Since most courses are 3 credits, 25 credits divided by 3 credits per course equals roughly 9 courses. If you have not completed any free electives and are required to complete 39 free elective credits, you'll need to complete 13 free elective courses.
To learn more about free electives and view your free elective course options, click on the links below:
Everything You Need to Know About Free Electives
How to Choose the Best Free Elective Courses
Elective Options
Popular Free Elective Options
Once you have determined which courses you would like to complete as free electives, please email me the list of courses at advising@snhu.edu.
