Faculty members do consider this when recruiting a student for a graduate assistantship position on a research project. A student with an excessive number of deficiency courses generally makes slower progress with a research project and may be a less viable candidate for such a position.
Also, the student may experience a delay in completing required graduate courses until the pre-requisites or co-requisites have been satisfied. Fundamental courses in basic science and mathematics--college chemistry, college physics, and several semesters of calculus--must first be completed prior to enrollment in the graduate-level core courses that require them. Likewise, fundamental graduate-level core* courses must be completed before advanced graduate elective courses.
Examples:
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Two semesters of basic college chemistry (inorganic, analytical) must be completed prior to enrollment in the fundamental graduate-level course, HWRS 517A Fundamentals of Water Quality
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The fundamental graduate-level core course, HWRS 518 Fundamentals of Subsurface Hydrology, must be completed prior to HWRS 535 Advanced Subsurface Hydrology or HWRS 603A Well Hydraulics and Pumping Test Analysis
*Although fundamental graduate-level core courses are not sequential--there is no particular order to take them--each course is not offered every semester.