Skip to main contentSkip to footer content

Course Descriptions

The courses of study offered at Dutchess Community College are arranged alphabetically in this section. Before planning a specific academic program, the student must consult the official lists of courses offered in both day and evening issued prior to the beginning of each semester. The College reserves the right to cancel any course when the enrollment is insufficient to support the course. The right is also reserved not to offer a course if resources become unavailable or if the course has been deleted from any curriculum since the last printing of the catalog. Normally, however, every course will be offered at least every other year. A student who needs a course which is not offered, or which is fully enrolled, should confer with the appropriate department chair.

Courses numbered below 100 are non-credit and preparatory in nature; 100-level courses are usually designed for first-year students; 200-level courses are generally designed for, and often restricted to, second-year students.

Below the number and title of each course description is the credit hour value granted for the course in terms of lecture and/or laboratory hours. Generally, a credit hour is earned for 15 50-minute sessions of classroom instruction with a normal expectation of two hours of outside study for each class session. Similarly, two or three 50-minute sessions of laboratory or field work each week for a semester would normally earn one credit hour.

It should be understood that courses may be composed of various types of instruction; for example, a lecture course which also has required laboratory periods, or a lecture course having an additional requirement for supervised independent study or tutorial activity, or a course which may utilize self-paced instructional materials within a given time period under the supervision of the instructor.

Prerequisites are intended to ensure that a student has sufficient preparation before advancing to the next course in a sequence. Prerequisites, where stated, must be met before enrollment will be permitted.

A course fee is applied to each course that has scheduled laboratory hours and/or requires dedicated space, such as a laboratory, studio, or physical education facility, and/or specialized equipment. The course fee is billed when the student registers for the course. Currently, the fees range from $20 to $40. Also, for some courses, students may be required to purchase individual or expendable supplies.

In addition to course fees, students in some courses in nursing, clinical laboratory technician, phlebotomy and dietetic technology are required to purchase insurance, and some students in a few health and physical education courses may pay for Red Cross Certification.

NOTE: Courses are listed alphabetically by their three-letter designation.