POLITICAL SCIENCE @ DePaul University
STUDENT ADVISING
The purpose of student advising in political science is to
help you to spend your time at DePaul efficiently and effectively. Most students want to take classes that interest them,
and most want to avoid spending time and money unnecessarily. DePaul Univesity has a fairly complicated curriculum. It is
easy to make mistakes with it. On the other hand, there is a reasonable degree of choice, and if you are somewhat attentive,
you should make it through without serious problems.
FACULTY ADVISOR
Every declared political science major is assigned a faculty
advisor. While conferences with these advisors are not required, you should check in with them from time to time to go over
your progress toward your degree. You do not want to be blindsided in your senior year when the dean's office reviews your
transcript and discovers unfortunate gaps in it.
MAKING SENSE OF YOUR COURSE REQUIREMENTS
It is suseful to think of your college courses in terms of
three broad categories: liberal studies courses, political science courses, and open electives.
I LIBERAL STUDIES COURSES
The intention of liberal studies courses is to insure that
all graduating students are liberally educated. There are core courses in this area for each of the four years of undergraduate
study, and there are five learning domains in which you must take courses as well. Generally you will have choices
in this curriculum, but htat choice is constricted. Pay attention to the guidelines for each libeal studies area and to the
information in class schedules. It is probably a good idea to work on your liberal studies classes earlier in your academic
career, so as not to be faced with a battery of these requirements in your last year. In any given quarter, the available
courses are listed in the front of the class schedule books used to register.
Liberal Studies Quirks
Students who have not placed out of the Quantitative
Reasoning requirement are strongly reccommended to take this course before enrolling in in classes in the Scientific
Inquiry domain. Either MAT 150 or BMS 125 may be substituted for the quantitative reasoning requirement.
The third year course requirement, experiential learning,
may be satisfied several ways, Service learning courses are offered throufgout the academic year. Foriegn and domestic study
programs that take the student out of the Chicago area also satisfy this requirement. Internships, offered through the department
or through the Career Center Internship Office do as well. If you take an experiential learning course in political science
and wiush to have it count towards your major, you may do so. However, you then need to take an additional course that qualifies
as a "learning domain" course and substitute that course on the experiential learning line of your course planning guide.
Most political science majors must take the fourth year capstone
seminar (PSC 390) through the department. This course satisfies the liberal studies fourth year requirement. It cannot be
"double counted" as a 300-level PSC elective. The only exceptions to this rule are for double majors and students in the honors
program. Double majors only need to take one capstone. It may be taken in either major field. Honors
students take the capstone seminar through the honors program, not through the political science department.
II POLITICAL SCIENCE COURSES
Political science courses are the ones that will satisfy the
requirements for your major. Our department divides the fiel into six subject areas. As with liberal studies, the idea is
to make sure that majors are broadly educated within our discipline. Therefore, students are required to take courses in five
of these areas at the 200 level. Our course numbering system locates courses according to the divisions of political
cultures, American politics, political thought, international relations, and comparative politics. (There is no requirement
for the public law courses numbered in the 260 series. These courses may be counted as PSC electives).
Courses at the 300 level parallel the categories
established at the 200 level, as reflected in our numbering system. The courses in the 320 series for example, are concerned
with American politics, like the courses in the 220 series. The difference is that courses at the 300 level focus more on
specific topics, are more intensive, and typically require significant research projects. Students need to take four 300 level
courses from three different areas, (That means that students can take two courses in one area).
PSC 200 is the only course that is required
of all majors. This course is designed to introduce students to the concepts and methods frequently use din political science.
Political Science electives can
come from any part of our curriculum, except that only one 100 level course can be counted as an elective. A student
wishing to take a second 200 level comparative politics course or a fifth 300 level course may count them as electives in
political science.
A couple of suggestions:
1) Take PSC 200 early in your academic career. This course
is designed to help you be a better political science student, so it is advantageous to take it early.
2) Take 100 level courses and 200 level requirements before
taking 300 level courses. 300 level courses assume the most knowledge and sophistication. It is best to take them in your
third and fourth year.
III OPEN ELECTIVES
Open elective courses are freebies. They come from any area
of interest to you, including extra political science courses beyond the required 13 courses for the major.
THE COURSE PLANNING GUIDE
The course planning guide is the sheet of paper you recieve
from the college of liberal arts office or from our department. It is very important to you because it is your road map to
graduation. It indicates the courses you have taken and the ones you have yet to take. If you transfer courses from another
school, the college office will decide where those courses will be located. Make sure that the office recieves all transcripts
from other schools, and check with them to make sure they have been appropriately counted. Students entering DePaul in the
Autumn 2000 quarter or later may get an up-to-date accounting of their courses through peoplesoft. Directions for accessing
this information are located at the end of this document.
You should refer to the course planning guide every time you
register for classes. Keep it in a place with important school documents, and keep it updated. One good strategy is to enter
each quarter's classes onto the course planning guide sheet in pencil. After you successfully complete the classes, go over
the entries in ink. (If you drop a course, you can simply erase the entry).
The course planning guide has lists the liberal studies and
political science requirements and it has space for you to enter open elective courses that you take. There is a section on
the guide entitled Placement Test Results. The results are not usually entered on your guide, because students often
recieve the guides before the college has recieved the results of these tests. But you should know what these results are
and which of the courses listed in this section you need to tale, if any. If you do not remember the results of your placement
testsm you should check with the college office in Suite 1200 of the 990 West Fullerton building. If the placement tests direct
you toward certain couorses, up to twelve quarter hours in these arear may be applied towards your degree. These should be
entered in the Open Electives section of your planning guide.
MODERN LANGUAGE
DePaul has a modern language requirement. This is usually
met by successful completion of two years of a language in high school, or by testing out of the requirement. If the
student has not satisfied this requirement, they will have to take a year of a second language at the university level. Many
students in political science are interested in additional language training, and thus mayt choose the modern language option.
This option allows students who complete a three course language sequence to count two of those courses towards liberal studies
domain requirements. This sequence must be beyond the minimum language requirement. For example, if a student satisfies
the language requirement by high school classes in Spanish, they may exercise the language option by taking a more
advanced sequence of Spanish classes in college. Alternatively, the same student may exercise the language option by taking
an introductory sequence in an additional language, such as Japanese.
The effect of the modern language option is to get you out
of two classes that may be of less interest to you than language study. For example, you could substitute a language
class for a science or a philosophy requirement. (The third language class would be counted as an open elective). Students
choosing this option should read the substitution rules in the university bulletin carefully. They are quite specific.
STUDY ABROAD OPTIONS
Many of our majors are interested in studying abroad. The
vast majority of students who do so find the experience to be intellectually and cultutrally enriching. The study abroad office,
located on the fifth floor of SAC, offers a wide array of study abroad options. These programs carry extra costs, so it is
wise to think about them early. A large number of these programs dramatically escalate the learning of a second language,
but there also a number of study abroad programs with no second language components for students not interested in language
development.
There are some practical effects studying abroad may have
on your course planning: They nearly always satisfy the experiential learning requirement; they often allow students to exercise
the modern language option described above; a number of programs have courses that could count towards your political science
major.
ACCESSING DEGREE PROGRESS REPORTS
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log on to campus connect
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click on Advising Reports
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enter password, as per instructions
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press "Save"
You will recieve an e-mail when your report is ready, usually
within 24 hours. After getting email log on to campus connect, and retrieve under Advising Reports, View Degree Progress.
