Community Engagement

Do you want to help make San Diego a better, more vibrant place to live? Whether volunteering at a nonprofit, mentoring elementary students, or addressing homelessness, our community engagement courses will get you involved in the local community to tackle some of our most pressing societal issues. You can take any class from the approved course list below to automatically satisfy the experiential learning requirement. Other options for fulfilling the requirement within the Community Engagement track include the following:

CAT 90: Fall quarter offerings only.
Special studies 198 or 199 courses: Must be approved in advance via the course proposal.

Access List

To get involved in community engagement, check out the following opportunities and resources:

Updated Approved Course List

An updated approved course list is effective as of Fall 2024. The previous approved course list was only effective through Summer 2024. To minimize any impacts to long-term planning, students who entered the university prior to Fall 2024 can write into the Virtual Advising Center to request an exception to this change.

Once you've enrolled in a class from the previous approved course list, you can send a message asking to have it applied to your experiential learning requirement and your degree audit will be manually updated. Again, please note that you must wait until you've registered for the previously approved course to submit this request.

Course Proposal

If you have an experiential learning class in mind but don't see it on the approved course list, you can propose it for review by submitting a course proposal before the deadline specified for the category of that course. Classes eligible to be proposed will fall under one of three categories: study abroad coursework, special study 198 or 199 courses, and other UC San Diego classes.

Submit Proposal