Professional-Technical Common Courses (P/TCC) General Rules

P/TCCs are designated by the first 4 letters of the department/division, the ampersand symbol "&" and the 3-digit course number (e.g. AUTO& 135).

Getting Started

Colleges developing a P/TCC will:

  • Review the list of currently existing Common Course Matrix. 
  • Collaborate to identify a unique department or division designation, course number and/or course title.

Some basics about numbering:

  • Introductory and foundational courses should be assigned numbers lower than more advanced courses within the same department or division designation.
  • It is recommended unique college courses be renumbered and renamed to prevent course number or title confusion between P/TCC and unique courses at the same college.
    • Example: A college should avoid having both a WELD& 101 (P/TCC) and WELD 101 (unique).

NOTE: New criteria consistent with ctcLink will be adopted or revised as system requirements change.

Due to limits in the Student Management System, the common course title field is 24 characters total (including punctuation and spaces).

Common course titles use upper and lower case letters. 

Optional: After the common course title (24 characters), colleges may use a colon (:) and then append a custom title, using an additional 24 characters for a total of 48 characters in the title field. 

NOTE: New criteria consistent with ctcLink will be adopted or revised as system requirements change.

Rules governing use of three-digit common course numbers:

  • 000-099  Below college-level
  • 101-199 First year courses:
    • 100-119 Introductory and exploratory courses
    • 120-189 Series and discrete courses
  • 200-299 Second year courses:
    • 200-209 Standard second year offerings
    • 210-289 Courses ending in:
      • 1-3   Courses in series, with prerequisites. For example, MACHINING I, II, III
      • 0, 4-9 Discrete offerings (stand-alone courses), or a series with no prescribed order. For example, AUTO I, II, III
  • 190-199 and 290-299 Work-based and similar:
    • Should be used for work-based learning, including internship, cooperative learning, field experience, service learning and similar.
    • Also for individual research, special seminars, special topics and independent study.