Students who intend to transfer to a four-year college or university aim for an Associate of Arts (AA) or Associate of Science (AS) degree from Red Rocks. These students need to finish college-level general education courses in the areas of communications, math, science, social sciences and arts and humanities. All students must also pass a speech course. Other necessary transfer classes include two levels of College Composition, College Algebra and at least one history course.
Students wishing to obtain a non-transfer degree such as an Associate of Applied Sciences (AAS) or a certificate do not need to meet the same requirements. First-year courses for these students include general education areas but often at lower levels. For instance, a technical writing course may replace College Composition. Certificate programs usually do not require such courses at all; for instance, the Associate of Applied Science degree in culinary arts requires College Composition and Career Math, but the culinary arts certificate includes neither.
Students who receive certain scores on assessment tests, such as the ACT and Accuplacer, may need to pass preparatory courses before being allowed into college-level English and math. Students should enroll in necessary preparatory courses as early as possible to be assured they can complete the sequence before graduation. For example, students who test into the lowest math course will need to take four preparatory courses before they can sign up for College Algebra.
Within the social studies, science and arts/humanities categories, Red Rocks offers students a variety of choices. Social and behavior sciences classes include history, economics, geography, sociology, anthropology and psychology. Physical and life sciences include biology, anatomy, astronomy, geology and physics. For arts and humanities, students select from art, music, history, theater, general humanities, foreign languages, philosophy and literature.
Since 18-22 credits of transfer and AAS degree programs are electives, students may include approved electives in their schedules their first year.