A political science major requires 45 hours of coursework. Thirty-three of these hours come from political science classes; these are the core requirements. The remaining 12 hours are called supporting coursework.

Civic Leadership Concentration Icon Civic Leadership Concentration

Requirements Hours
PS 100: Introduction to Political Science 3
PS 101: Introduction to US Government and Politics 3
Select one of the following:
    PS 125: The Washington Experience
    PS 191: Topics in Civic Leadership
1-3
Select any additional 100- or 200-level political science courses 6
Select 300- or 400-level political science courses, at least 9 hours of which must come from the Civic Leadership concentration course list maintained by the department. The other 6 hours may be any 300- or 400-level political science courses 15
Select one of the following:
    PS 291: Internship
    PS 491: Internship
3
To reach 33 hours, select up to 2 additional hours of any political science course at any level 0-2
Total Hours 33

The political science major requires at least 15 hours of advanced coursework (300- or 400- level). Of those 15 hours, at least 12 hours must be taken on the Urbana-Champaign campus. For the purposes of this requirement, a student participating in PS 490 (Individual Study) and/or PS 491 (Government Internship) hours which are supervised by faculty of this campus, no matter where the independent study or internship is located, will be considered “on-campus”.

Students interested in the Civic Leadership concentration can use the Civic Leadership concentration planning form as a guide. View all concentration course lists.

Supporting Coursework

Students must select at least 12 hours of thematically-related coursework at the 200- level or higher that is outside political science and developed in conjunction with an academic advisor. If a student has selected a second major or a minor, this can generally be considered supporting coursework. See exceptions below.

The following courses may NOT be used for supporting coursework: political science courses or courses cross-listed with political science, basic composition courses, language courses below the fourth level that are being used to complete the non-primary language general education requirement, and any courses taken credit/no credit or satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

 

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