Welcome to CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies!

CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies is a University-wide, individualized degree. We're commonly known as CUNY BA even though we confer both the BA and the BS degree. The University established this special degree route in 1971 in response to professors and students who believed that CUNY should allow individual faculty and students to define programs of study.

Founding Document

See The Entire Document

Program Goals

  • Encourage students to take advantage of the extraordinary resources and learning opportunities available at the City University’s 18 colleges and at The Graduate Center;
  • Allow self-directed, academically able students to design an individualized program of study that complements their academic, professional, and personal goals; and
  • Foster intellectual exploration and responsible educational innovation.

CUNY BA provides students with a flexible, academically challenging way to earn their degree while giving them a major share of the responsibility for the content of that degree. It’s an exciting, versatile, rewarding degree route for highly-motivated, self-directed students whose academic goals transcend traditional majors. Students create their own degree plans working directly with faculty mentors and academic advisors. CUNY BA attracts many of the best students from within and from outside the University.

  • Minimum eligibility requires at least 12 college credits completed with at least a 2.8 GPA and an idea for one (or two) viable individualized area(s) of concentration.
  • The average GPA of admits has risen each year over the past 10 years. Cohorts now enter, on average, with a transfer GPA of 3.2 and 66 credits.

History

CUNY BA has been a part of the City University of New York for over 50 years. Explore its storied history below. Here, you will find the CUNY BA archive, an interactive timeline of the program's history, an academic calendar of changes pulled from the archive itself, and the document that founded the program.

Cover of a booklet from the archive that says CUNY Baccalaureate Program on its cover. All of the letters are capitalized. The words "CUNY" are black and angled diagonally across the page from the top left corner. The remaining words are red and start in the bottom left corner.

Click below to visit the main CUNY BA archive page.

Cover of a booklet from the archive that says CUNY Baccalaureate Program on its cover. All of the letters are capitalized. The words "CUNY" are black and angled diagonally across the page from the top left corner. The remaining words are red and start in the bottom left corner.
A screenshot of the interactive timeline available by clicking on this photograph. The timeline is split into two columns. To the left is a document and to the right is a description of that document. Below it is a scrollable timeline.

Click below to visit an interactive timeline for the CUNY BA program

A screenshot of the interactive timeline available by clicking on this photograph. The timeline is split into two columns. To the left is a document and to the right is a description of that document. Below it is a scrollable timeline.
Document showing an academic calendar of changes that have occurred in the CUNY BA program. A PDF document with readable text is available at this link.

Click below to visit a document containing the major changes to the CUNY BA program over the years.

Document showing an academic calendar of changes that have occurred in the CUNY BA program. A PDF document with readable text is available at this link.
A screenshot of the founding document for CUNY BA, which is found in a readable PDF format at this link.

Click below to visit an archival page about the founding of CUNY BA.

A screenshot of the founding document for CUNY BA, which is found in a readable PDF format at this link.
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