The curriculum offers an introduction to all of the visual arts professions offered by the School of Art and Design, and helps prepare students to choose an undergraduate course of study. All undergraduate degree programs in art, with the exception of the major in art history, require 12 semester hours of foundations courses. These include classes in 2-D and 3-D traditional and digital design and two classes in basic drawing, all taken during the first year. In addition, all studio and art education majors must take a beginning life drawing class and a two-course sequence surveying the history of world art (excluding the general education course ''Introduction to the Visual Arts''). Currently, this basic curriculum, taken during the first and second years, comprises a total of 21 semester hours of the 120 or more semester hours required to complete an undergraduate degree at NIU. Transfer students may satisfy some or all of these prerequisite courses at other institutions, depending on the evaluation of their transfer credit upon entering NIU.