Take a course at UC Santa Cruz

This is a partial list of the courses you can take through our Open Campus program. You can finish up your degree, get your prerequisites, and expand your knowledge without being a matriculated student. Enjoy UC Santa Cruz from wherever you are if you take online courses! Enjoy UC Santa Cruz's gorgeous campus by taking in-person courses! Course selections are limited. Enroll today!

Note: If you are interested in a UC Santa Cruz course that is not listed here, please contact us and we will work directly with the instructor or department to see if there is space available.

Apply for winter quarter by Jan. 20.

See the UC Santa Cruz academic calendar.

Featured courses for the winter 2026 quarter

Anthropology

Overview of ways of learning about the human past beyond the scope of written history. Reviews development of archaeology, fundamental methods and theories, and archaeology's contribution to understanding human origins, the emergence of farming, and the origins of complex societies.

  • Days:
    • Section 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays
    • Section 2: asynchronous
  • Time:
    • Section 1: 1:30PM- 3:05PM
    • Section 2: asynchronous
  • Format:
    • Section 1: In-person, Earth & Marine B206
    • Section 2: Online
  • Instructor: J.C. Monroe
  • Contact for Approval: J.C. Monroe| jcmonroe@ucsc.edu
    or Fred Deakin | fdeakin@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Explores several themes of relevance in contemporary India and Indian diaspora, concentrating on anthropological research and various documentary and popular Bollywood films. Through films and ethnographies, student analyze the nature of anthropological contributions to the study of Indian societies. (Formerly ANTH 80P.)

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructor: A.D. Pandey
  • Contact for Approval: J.C Monroe | jcmonroe@ucsc.edu
    or Fred Deakin | fdeakin@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Cowell College

Do you ever think, I want to make a difference! but don't know where to start? In this class, students learn design thinking theory and methods and apply them to their lives, specifically to the question of what to do after college. Students build deeper awareness of their values and goals, define areas of life and work they want to grow in, ideate multiple life paths, prototype elements of careers of interest, and take small steps to try these out. This is an experiential class that asks students to try new ways of thinking and step outside comfort zones as they learn a creative problem-solving approach applicable in many contexts. (Formerly offered as CLNI 140.)

  • Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays
  • Time: 9:50AM- 11:25AM
  • Format: In-person, Cowell Clrm 131
  • Instructor: Caitlin Stinneford
  • Contact for Approval: Alice Folkins cwprvsta@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

How do you change the world, working alone and in concert with others? To find out students spend the quarter learning about how one non-profit organization of their choosing creates change in their community. Students research an agency, focusing on who is served, how funding works and how real change is created. May be repeated for credit.

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructor: Caitlin Stinneford
  • Contact for Approval: Alice Folkins cwprvsta@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 2

Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

Considers issues of race, place, gender, power, and identities through the converging fields of Black studies and performance studies. Emphasizes global diasporic histories of broad music production and performance from the 14th century onward with an emphasis on the making and performance of global Black social life. Primarily creative in nature, the course allows students to practice creative processes and allows opportunities to produce music and generate performance art. May be repeated for credit.

This course will satisfy the CRES Transnational, Social Movement, and/or Black Studies Minor elective if passed with a C/P or better.

  • Days: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays
  • Time: 4PM- 5:05PM
  • Format: Synchronous Online
  • Instructor: F. Ife
  • Contact for approval: Fife@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Explores the emergence of Native American and Indigenous Studies as well as the theories, methods, and contemporary issues that inform the field. Centers key concepts and central themes from over the last half century of academic scholarship, and activist organizing, for Indigenous peoples and the decolonization of settler occupied lands.

This course will satisfy the CRES Transnational and/or Social Movement requirement if passed with a C/P or better.

  • Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays
  • Time: 1:30PM- 3:05PM
  • Format: In-Person, Soc Sci 2179
  • Instructor: F. Niumeitolu
  • Contact for approval: fniumeit@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

A sustained inquiry into the place of land in the process of learning. Drawing from Indigenous and diasporic ways of knowing, this course invites students to shift normative paradigms of study--so as to learn with the land and not only about it. With some instruction conducted outdoors, students deepen their relation to their local surroundings--and think critically about how they have been formed by colonial histories. The course examines the role of land in various visions of decolonization. Students build sociohistorical literacy in land struggles of the past and present.

  • Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays
  • Time: 3:20PM- 4:55PM
  • Format: In-Person, Kresge Acad. 3101
  • Instructor: M.Ty
  • Contact for approval: mty1@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Against dominant framings of the Korean War, which left 4 million Koreans dead, as the freeing of the Korean people by the United States from the forces of global communism, this course reconsiders the war, which has never formally ended, from below and to the left, namely, through the lenses of multigenerational people's struggles against fascism and imperialism. Through collaborative, participatory research, students materialize from the ashbin of history what might be called a people's archive of the Korean War.

This course will satisfy the CRES Transnational and/or Social Movement requirement if passed with a C/P or better.
This course will satisfy a Black Studies Minor elective if passed with a C/P or better.

  • Days: TBD
  • Time: TBD
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructor: C. Hong
  • Contact for approval: cjhong@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

* Has a synchronous online discussion section: Thursdays 11:40AM- 12:45PM

Crown College

Service-learning class that takes students through the process of creating a marketing plan for a real client. Begins with design and marketing fundamentals and the marketing brief. Teams are formed and assigned projects with local businesses or UCSC startups. Client needs are established through interviews. After a clear understanding of the problem is established, ideation occurs with solutions developed and executed. These may include creating branding, logo design, messaging, digital storytelling (through film, website, social media campaigns), interior design, and product design specification feedback and posters.

  • Days: T & Th
  • Time: 5:20–6:55 PM
  • Format: Synchronous Online
  • Instructor: Staff
  • Contact for approval: Manel Camps mcamps@ucsc.edu (Provost)
  • Marina Glagolev mglagole@ucsc.edu (Operations Mgr)
  • Units: 5

Community service-oriented class provides a supervised learning experience for students who deliver real solutions to local businesses while gaining valuable practical skills and an opportunity to integrate their academic coursework with community involvement. Teams are formed and businesses assigned while students are trained to do interviews, write proposals, project-manage, design websites, and marketing campaigns. No prerequisites are required and familiarity in the following areas is preferred: the lean startup method, the business model canvas, and customer discovery.

  • Days: T & Th
  • Time: 9:50–11:25 AM
  • Format: Synchronous Online
  • Instructor: Staff
  • Contact for approval: Manel Camps mcamps@ucsc.edu (Provost)
  • Marina Glagolev mglagole@ucsc.edu (Operations Mgr)
  • Units: 5

Environmental Studies

Introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) as the technology of processing spatial data, including input, storage and retrieval; manipulation and analysis; reporting and interpretation. Emphasizes GIS as a decision support system for environmental and social problem solving, using basic model building, experimental design, and database management.

Concurrent enrollment with LAB Required, can be completed via Zoom: ENVS 115L

  • Days: Tu & Th
  • Time: 8–9:35 a.m.
  • Format: Synchronous Online
  • Instructor: Bo Yang
  • Contact for Approval: Jeffrey Bury jbury@ucsc.edu (Dept chair) or Jimmy Gaffney jgaffney@ucsc.edu (Dept Mgr)
  • Units: 5

Mathematics

The limit of a function, calculating limits, continuity, tangents, velocities, and other instantaneous rates of change. Derivatives, the chain rule, implicit differentiation, higher derivatives. Exponential functions, inverse functions, and their derivatives. The mean value theorem, monotonic functions, concavity, and points of inflection. Applied maximum and minimum problems.

Prerequisite: MATH 3; or mathematics placement (MP) score of 400 or higher; or qualifying AP exam. See the UCSC Exam Equivalency Chart in the Undergraduate Academic Program section of the catalog for details.

Credit: Students cannot receive credit for both this course and MATH 11A, or AM 11A, or AM 15A, or ECON 11A.

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructors: Frank Bäuerle, Longzhi Lin, or Anthony J. Tromba.
  • Contact for Approval: Department Manager Kathryn Maldwin kabaldwi@ucsc.edu or Instructor Frank Bäuerle bauerle@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

The definite integral and the fundamental theorem of calculus. Areas, volumes. Integration by parts, trigonometric substitution, and partial fractions methods. Improper integrals. Sequences, series, absolute convergence and convergence tests. Power series, Taylor and Maclaurin series. Students cannot receive credit for both this course and MATH 11B, or AM 11B, or AM 15B, or ECON 11B.

Prerequisites: MATH 11A or MATH 19A or MATH 20A or qualifying exam. See the UCSC Exam Equivalency Chart in the Undergraduate Academic Program section of the catalog for details.

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructors: Frank Bäuerle, Longzhi Lin, or Anthony J. Tromba.
  • Contact for Approval: Department Manager Kathryn Maldwin kabaldwi@ucsc.edu or Instructor Frank Bäuerle bauerle@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Vectors in n-dimensional Euclidean space. The inner and cross products. The derivative of functions from n-dimensional to m-dimensional Euclidean space is studied as a linear transformation having matrix representation. Paths in 3-dimensions, arc length, vector differential calculus, Taylor's theorem in several variables, extrema of real-valued functions, constrained extrema and Lagrange multipliers, the implicit function theorem, some applications. Students cannot receive credit for this course and MATH 22 or AM 30.

Prerequisites: MATH 19B or MATH 20B or qualifying AP exam. See the UCSC Exam Equivalency Chart in the Undergraduate Academic Program section of the catalog for details.

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructors: Frank Bäuerle, Longzhi Lin, or Anthony J. Tromba.
  • Contact for Approval: Department Manager Kathryn Maldwin kabaldwi@ucsc.edu or Instructor Frank Bäuerle bauerle@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Double integral, changing the order of integration. Triple integrals, maps of the plane, change of variables theorem, improper double integrals. Path integrals, line integrals, parametrized surfaces, area of a surface, surface integrals. Green's theorem, Stokes' theorem, conservative fields, Gauss' theorem. Applications to physics and differential equations, differential forms.

Prerequisite: MATH 23A.

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructors: Frank Bäuerle, Longzhi Lin, or Anthony J. Tromba.
  • Contact for Approval: Department Manager Kathryn Maldwin kabaldwi@ucsc.edu or Instructor Frank Bäuerle bauerle@ucsc.edu
  • Units: 5

Ocean Sciences

An interdisciplinary introduction to oceanography focusing on biological, chemical, geological, and physical processes. Covers topics such as origins and structure of planet Earth and its oceans, co-evolution of Earth and life, plate tectonics, liquid water and the hydrologic and hydrothermal cycles, salinity and elemental cycles, ocean circulation, primary production and nutrient cycles, plankton and nekton, life on the sea floor, near shore and estuarine communities, future environmental problems our oceans face. Students may also enroll in and receive credit for EART 1

  • Days: TBA
  • Time: TBA
  • Format: Asynchronous Online
  • Instructor: M. Polito
  • Contact for Approval: Christopher A Edwards cedwards@ucsc.edu (Dept Chair) or Amy Kornber amylkorn@ucsc.edu (Dept Mgr)
  • Units: 5

Technology and Information Management

Uses weekly talks by leading industry practitioners and university researchers to provide in-depth exposure to the management of technology. Topics covered include product development, operations, strategy, finance, and marketing for technologies such as software and information systems.

  • Days: Th
  • Time: 3:20–4:55 PM
  • Format: Synchronous Online
  • Instructor: S. Desa
  • Contact for Approval: Leah Kahn lkahn@ucsc.edu (academic planning) or Alonso Antunez De Mayolo alantune@ucsc.edu (Finance)
  • Units: 2

Computer Science and Engineering

Introduction to computer systems and assembly language and how computers compute in hardware and software. Topics include digital logic, number systems, data structures, compiling/assembly process, basics of the system software, and computer architecture. Course is 7 credits with integrated laboratories illustrating concepts covered in lecture. Note that CSE 12 assumes some programming experience. Students can show programming experience by taking one of the courses listed in the prerequisite list below or by taking the CSE python Test-out Exam: https://undergrad.soe.ucsc.edu/cse-20-testout-exam (Formerly CSE 12 and CSE 12L)

  • Days: Tu & Th
  • Time: 5:20 – 6:55 PM
  • Format: Synchronous Online
  • Instructor: M. Siero
  • Contact for Approval: Jose Renau renau@ucsc.edu (Dept Chair)
  • Danielle Danubia Ditmars dditmars@ucsc.edu (Dept Mgr)
  • Units: 7