Degree Requirements

The Rhetoric and Professional Writing concentration within the English Major provides you with both a breadth and depth of experience with writing in professional settings. Graduates have a wide variety of career paths they can pursue, and part of my job as your advisor is to provide you guidance on class choices so that you are both qualified for and prepared for whichever of those paths you choose.

The following information has been collected across various websites and combined here to help you look at everything at once. This being said, the information here is not exhaustive but rather intended to provide you an overview of what you must take to complete the degree. Click on the links below to read through the full information for all of the requirements.

The following is a brief overview of your list of requirements, organized by your degree audit.

English Department Requirements (for students entering Fall 2025 and after)

Global Literature (3 hrs)
American Literature Elective (3 hrs)
Core Breadth Electives (6 hrs)

Rhetoric and Professional Writing Requirements (For new students coming into the major as of Fall 2025)

Core Concepts (6 hrs)
Methods, Strategies, and Contexts of Rhetoric & Professional Writing (9 hours)
English Electives (9 hours)
Professional Internships–ENG 350 (3 hours)
Application or Practice (3 hours)
Theory or Methods (co requisite)
Multiple Perspectives (co requisite)

English Department Requirements (for students entering the program prior to Fall 2025)

American Literature (3 hrs)
British Literature (3 hrs)
World Literature (3 hrs)
Film (3 hrs)
Linguistics (3 hrs)
Rhetoric (3 hrs)

Rhetoric and Professional Writing Requirements (For new students coming into the major as of Fall 2020) (this will drop off as students graduate)
Additional restrictions not mentioned below can be found on the Rhetoric and Professional Writing degree page.

Core Concepts (6 hrs)
Methods, Strategies, and Contexts of Rhetoric & Professional Writing (9 hours)
English Electives (6 hours)
Writing and Rhetorical Practice (co-requisite)
In their junior or senior year, students may fulfill the Writing and Rhetorical Practice co-requisite in one of three ways:
- Complete an Internship and satisfy course requirements for ENG 350 (or ENG 498)
- Complete EI 495 (Independent Study in Entrepreneurship) with someone in the Entrepreneurship program
- Fulfill a Writing and Rhetorical Practice “contract” for one course taken in the “Methods, Strategies, and Contexts” category (300-level or above) (though we are trying to phase this option out or use it only sparingly)

Language, Writing, and Rhetoric Requirements (For students who came into the major prior to Fall 2020)

Additional restrictions not mentioned below can be found on the Rhetoric and Professional Writing degree page.

Effective Communication (3 hrs)
Digital Technology (3 hrs)
LWR Electives (9 hours)**
English Electives (6 hours)

**Only one creative writing or screenwriting course may be taken under “English Electives” for the Language, Writing, and Rhetoric concentration

For all concentrations:

Two of the RPW concentration classes you take must be at the 400-level under both of these concentration plans (so, in essence, 2 from ENG411, ENG422, ENG425, ENG426, ENG/STS438, ENG455; see me to plan which ones to take since they are not completely interchangeable)

You can not take more than five 200-level courses for the major (the top two blocks). Additionally, you cannot double-count courses across the top two blocks, and English major classes cannot double count toward CHASS requirements (so, ENG 382 cannot be both a Core Breadth and an Arts & Letters). The 200 level restrictions DO NOT apply to GEP or CHASS requirements. For those blocks, you can take as many 200 levels as you want. Some classes may double count across the ENG blocks and the GEP blocks; we can work that out individually.

All courses in the English, CHASS, and GEP blocks must be taken for a grade (except ENG 350), and you must earn a C- or higher for the ENG classes to count towards the degree. The GEP and CHASS blocks are not C-wall classes. You must have a GPA of 2.0 or higher to graduate. *Other exceptions: HESF/HESS classes are allowed to be taken S/U, as are the WL** 101 and 102 classes. WL**201 must be taken for a grade.

As an English major within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, you are required to take both the University’s and the College’s general education requirements. Many courses can satisfy these requirements, and you can look those up with the Degree Requirements page through Registration and Records.

I highly recommend that you try to get these requirements out of the way as soon as you can in your academic career. This will give you the freedom to take what’s more interesting to you as a Junior and Senior and allow you to be taking courses relevant to your career path at the same time you’re (hopefully) doing an internship. Additionally, if for whatever reason you can’t get into a GEP or CHASS course that you need, you still have time left to fulfill the requirement. Relatedly, you also have either 12 hours or 27 hours (depending on when you started the program) of free electives. Try to save those for your senior year, again so that if you can’t get into a class you have that safety net of free electives you can fall back on. Here’s a suggested semester-by-semester breakdown.

College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) Requirements

ENG 101 (4 hrs) [This is also a GEP requirement – you don’t need to take it twice!]
History I (3 hrs)
History II (3 hrs)
Foreign Language 200 level (3 hrs)
Philosophy (3 hrs)
Arts & Letters (3 hrs)
Social Sciences (9 hrs, must be from different disciplines) [No, this doesn’t mean you need to take 15 hrs, they can also count under GEP]
Additional Social Science (3 hrs)

University Requirements
https://oucc.dasa.ncsu.edu/courses/general-education-program/

Mathematical Sciences (6 hrs)
Natural Sciences (7 hrs)
Humanities (6 hrs) [This will be satisfied by your degree.]
Social Sciences (6 hrs) [This will be satisfied by CHASS requirements.]
Additional GEP Elective (3 hrs)
Interdisciplinary Perspectives (5 hrs)
Health and Exercise Studies (2 hrs) (One of these must be at the 100-level)

There are additional co-requisites also required for the University. Some classes you take for the major or to meet a CHASS or GEP course will waive the requirement (not the hours) here, or you can fulfill the requirements through electives:

Foundations of American Democracy (3 hrs)
Global Knowledge
FL 102 Proficiency, if you didn’t satisfy this already via High School

A note about the Foreign Language requirement

Th college requires three courses to complete the Foreign Language requirement: 101, 102, and 201 in your chosen language (here at NC State, those classes are WL**). Prior to starting this sequence you will take a foreign language placement test. This is taken online, unless you feel you might place out of 201. In that case, you should opt to take the exam in a proctored, face-to-face setting. If you indeed place into a level higher than 201 you may be able to get the requirement waived or take 202 to fulfill the requirement.

If you place into 101 and took the same language in high school, then the 101 class will be required but will be considered non-degree (it won’t count for anything on your transcript). For example, if you took Spanish in high school and place into WLSP 101, then WLSP 101 will be non-degree and will not count as a Free Elective. If you took Spanish in high school and decide to take Italian as your language at NC State, then WLIT 101 will count as a free elective. WL* 102 will count as a Free Elective.

If you are a native speaker of another language, please see me for how to proceed/get credit for that.

I highly recommend starting your Foreign Language requirements in your very first semester (or continuing if you place into 201). If you continue from the language you took in high school, then that will ensure everything is fresh in your mind (you do not want a two-year gap between High School and your WL* 102 course, for example). If you decide to change languages, then you are facing three semesters of a language, and you will want to start that sooner rather than later. You absolutely do not want to be entering your senior year having not taken a single language course and realizing that you’re going to need to stick around an extra semester just to fulfill WL** 201!

(Many thanks to Dr. Christin Phelps, our other RPW Advisor, for providing a basis for this page, as well as some of the content!)