Required and elective courses
In Japanese: 必修科目・選択科目 (hisshu kamoku, sentaku kamoku)
Definition
Required courses must be passed to graduate; elective courses are ones students choose to take.
In more detail
The Standards for the Establishment of Universities say a curriculum is built by dividing courses into required, elective and free courses and assigning them to years.
Which courses are required, and how many elective credits are needed, is set by each faculty or department’s graduation requirements.
Failing a required course blocks graduation, so checking that no required course is missed is part of course registration.
In Classio
Classio’s bulk registration for required courses enrols the department’s and year’s current students in the required classes. Courses with several classes or over capacity are not registered and are listed for manual assignment.
See also
Related terms
- Course registration
Course registration is the process by which students register the courses they will take, based on the timetable, capacity and graduation requirements.
- Graduation requirements
Graduation requirements are the conditions, such as the number of credits earned, that a student must meet before the school confers graduation.
Sources
Sources checked: October 24, 2026