Major and Minor FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions about the Public Health Major and Minor
Students can take most courses for the Major before being able to declare it in Fall 2025. The only courses not available before Fall 2025 are the Capstone courses. See Major requirements for a full list of courses.
For students who need to/want to graduate in Spring 2025, the only option is the certificate; there is no option to retroactively get the bachelor鈥檚 degree.
The earliest you may graduate with the Public Health major is December 2025. You may apply for December 2025 graduation even if you are not enrolled in Fall 2025 courses. If you choose to delay your graduation there may be implications for tuition, financial aid, job opportunities or graduate school admissions. The required Capstone course will be offered in Fall 2025, and if there is enough interest may be offered in Summer 2025. Please email Gabriela.Sales@colorado.edu if you are interested in the capstone course for Summer of 2025.
The Minor requirements will be exactly the same list of required courses as currently required for the Certficate. Note that you may have to re-enroll in the minor once it is approved even if you enrolled in the Certificate.
The Major should have no impact on opportunities for Certificate students.
The Public Health Major Degree Audit is now available for students to run What-if audits. Instructions for how to run a What-If audit: (/registrar/students/degree-planning/audit/run).
The Minor has not been approved yet and it is unlikely that it will be approved in time for Spring 2025 graduates to be able to declare the Minor. The Minor will go into effect the same time as the Major (Fall of 2025), if approved. Spring 2025 graduates can complete the Public Health Certficate which has the same requirements as the Minor.
We cannot guarantee that all Major and Minor required and elective courses can be taught online. There are offerings of certain core courses over the Summer that are taught entirely online and some taught in person. There are also a variety of courses taught by .
If we have enough student interest in taking a Capstone course in Summer 2025, students could take that in summer and students could complete the Major requirements in Summer 2025 (as long as the student has all other Major requirements completed). You may apply for December 2025 graduation even if you are not enrolled in Fall 2025 courses. If you choose to delay your graduation there may be implications for tuition, financial aid, job opportunities or graduate school admissions. Please email Gabriela.Sales@colorado.edu if you are interested in the capstone course for Summer of 2025.
Until the Minor is officially approved, the Certificate will continue to be offered.
Yes. Talk to your advisor about how easy or hard that would be to do with your other major.
Not at this time. We will be submitting the Major for approval in Spring 2025. Please contact veterans@colorado.edu if you are interested in declaring to find out the timeline for approvals.
Not at this time. We are currently unable to submit any new Majors for approval as we already have an approval in the queue. There is no timeline for the submission. The Public Health Minor and Certificate are the only option until the Major is approved by the U.S. Government.
You can find our four-year course plan here.