Language majors will be seeing some changes to their list of required upper division courses starting next semester.

Students earning their bachelor’s degrees in German and French will be required to take one more upper division course, while students who are working toward their degree in Spanish will have to take fewer classes.

Effective in fall 2015, German and French majors will now have to take a capstone course, bringing the minimum of required upper division units from 25 to 28.

Adding a capstone to the program will strengthen the backgrounds of students majoring in these languages, said Patricia Black, chair of the international languages, literatures and cultures department.

“For the first time language majors have a capstone course, and this helps students with a more up to date degree,” Black said, “and will help students complete their GE writing intensive requirement.”

Meanwhile, the number of classes needed for a degree in Spanish is decreasing.

A memo from Paul Zingg, president of Chico State, announced that the minimum number of required major upper division units for Spanish will decrease from 34 to 28.

“The faculty members did a study and found that there are students not able to finish within their allotted time, who have no choice but to drop back to a minor,” Black said.

In response to the study, Black and other faculty members came to an agreement to reduce the upper division units in Spanish.

“All these changes should help students graduate with good degrees in a timely fashion,” Black said, “and be prepared for a global society and internationally oriented careers if that is what they choose.”

Michael Arias can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.