Undergraduate Advising

Attend a PSCI major meeting to declare our major.  All students may sign up at MyCUHub during the Fall and Spring semesters (login and look for a "Change Major Meeting").  Major meetings are not offered during the Summer semester due to Orientation commitments. Students interested in declaring the PSCI minor should come to our walk-in hours.

For more information on the program requirements, please see Major Requirements and Minor Requirements.

Important information about Dropping a class After the 10-week deadline, all dropped classes require a Late Drop Petition Form for petitioning the dean.

Instructions for accessing your degree audit can be found on the Office of the Registrar's site.

Trust your instincts and meet with your academic advisor! Degree Audits must be updated by your advisor in order to be fully accurate; this is particularly true when you have study abroad work or transfer work from a different institution. Make an advising appointment on MyCUHub.

Electives are courses that you can "elect" to take purely out of interest--because they are not something that you need in order to fulfill a major, CORE, or minor requirement. Almost every student needs electives! The exact number you need is a question of math. If you need 120 credits to graduate from CU... let's say you need to spend about 44 credits on MAPS/CORE requirements, and 44 hours on PSCI major requirements. You've got 32 credits left over to fill with... what? Some students will decide to add a second major, thus "spending" these 32 credits, which otherwise would have been electives, on a second set of major requirements. Others will add a minor or certificate program, and then fill the remaining needed credits with their elective choices. Often times, to meet the 45 hours of Upper Division needed for graduation, these electives will need to be Upper Division. Anecdotally, it often happens that students start off at CU being very focused on CORE and the PSCI requirements. This is good, obviously; it will help you get your requirements completed. But if all you ever take as a Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior is CORE and PSCI, guess what; in Senior year, you will have run out of requirements to fulfill, and will actually be forced to take many courses purely as electives--and a certain number of these actually MUST be outside of your major. It seems to most advisors that a smarter plan is to be taking one to two electives each term--this has the advantage of allowing you to take some major courses in your Senior year (at which point you'll have first choice of these courses, and can hopefully really enjoy your selections), and also gives you a chance to explore possible minors/second majors/areas of interest along the way.

The College of Arts and Sciences' Academic Advising Center has a list of possible minors. Minors are a smaller concentration of courses in a particular department. Most minors are 18-21 credits. To declare a minor, you will generally visit the walk-in hours for an advisor in the department in which you are declaring the minor.

The most popular second majors are International Affairs, Economics, History, and Environmental Studies (International Affairs and Environmental Affairs have some overlap with Political Science.) The most popular minors are Philosophy, History, Economics, Geography, and Business (though Business courses can only be taken over the summer). There are also several popular certificate options like the Peace and Conflict Studies certificate and the INVST Community Studies certificate.

The College of Arts & Sciences has a Pre-Law Advisor who can answer your questions about applying and attending law school. Make an appointment using MyCUHub.

• The Student Academic Services Center (SASC) provides tutoring, workshops, support for non-native English speakers, and a great community environment!
• Get input on your papers for FREE!  The Writing Center offers consulations on your research papers.
• Would you like some extra assistance with  ECON 2010?  There's an ECON help lab (not available during the summer months).