Undergraduate Student Information
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Provisional Bulletin
Senior Honors
Declaring a Major
Your Faculty Advisor
Petitions for Changes in Requirements
Add and Drop Requests
Transfer of Credit
Advance Approval for Summer School Courses at Other Universities
Petitions to Study Abroad
Should There Be Any Problems
Declaring a Major
To declare the Sociology Major you should complete a Major Declaration Form available at the Registrar's Office or the Sociology Office. Complete it as fully as you can, and bring it to the Undergrad Advising Head for review and to complete the form. In addition to answering any questions you may have about the rules, he will also discuss your interests and goals in the major and advise you on future course selection for the major. At this time, you will also be assigned a Sociology advisor.
Your Faculty Advisor
Each Sociology concentrator has a member of the faculty assigned as his or her faculty advisor. General advice about courses or career plans is ordinarily best obtained from your own faculty advisor.
Get to know your advisor. Even if you have no problems, it is still a good idea to introduce yourself to your advisor and to drop by to see him or her from time to time, if only to report that all is going well. But you should also feel that this is someone to consult with when things are less sunny. Your faculty advisor is there to help you and is eager to do so. See your advisor at least once a semester.
All faculty members have their office hours posted on their office doors. Barring illness, you should find them available then. Some advisors prefer to make appointments via email. If you have any difficulty finding your advisor or have any other major difficulties, the Sociology office staff or Undergraduate Advising Head, Professor Laura Miller (Pearlman 103, lamiller@brandeis.edu), will be happy to see you.
Petitions for Changes in Requirements
The requirements for undergraduate concentrators in Sociology are listed in the current catalogue and under Requirements for the Undergraduate Major. The Sociology Department does not recognize requests for changes from the requirements.
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Add and Drop Requests
Add and Drop request forms can be found on the Registrar's page. They must be signed by the instructor of the course being added or dropped.
These requests have clearly published deadlines, and it is your responsibility to anticipate these deadlines. Do not leave it until the last minute only to find that your advisor's next available office hours are after the deadline. Check faculty office hours.
Transfer of Credit
Students who have taken sociology courses at other universities and who wish their courses to be counted toward the sociology concentration at Brandeis should take the following steps:
- Consult with the Registrar's office to arrange for formal approval and transfer credit at the university's level
- Fill out a departmental Special Undergraduate Petition For Concentration Credit (.doc) form in as much detail as possible.
- Include the catalogue description of the course you have taken from the university catalogue where you took the course, the grade that you received, and a copy of the course syllabus along with a copy of your transcript.
- Take it to the undergraduate advising head Laura Miller for approval.
- If the instructor approves and signs the form, bring it to Judy Hanley (Pearlman 201) for final inclusion in your departmental file for future audits.
A maximum of 4 courses may be transferred from another university or study abroad program: up to 2 sociology courses and up to 2 Upper Division of Social Sciences courses.
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Advance Approval for Summer School Courses at Other Universities
If you wish to get course credit or concentration credit for a summer school course taken at another university, you should get approval in advance. A form for this purpose is available from the Registrar's office. Once this Petition for Permission form is completed, the Registrar's office will forward it to the department for approval. You will need to provide information, to the Undergraduate Advising Head, about the texts that will be used and the topics that will be covered in the course. Usually this requires that you obtain a copy of the course syllabus from the other university. The form should be signed before the course is taken. If you receive a C- or better in the course, you will be allowed to count that course toward your sociology requirements.
Petitions to Study Abroad
The Office of Academic Affairs recommends that students who wish to study abroad in their junior year should come in at least once semester in advance to petition for permission to study abroad; that is, at the same time as they apply to the program of their choice. Please note that there are a host of approved programs in the office of Academic Affairs. The Sociology Undergraduate Advising Head should verify that the student will be able to complete the requirements for graduation at Brandeis on schedule even with the time abroad. There are no guarantees of credit before the student goes abroad, so the advisor's role is to give the student ideas about which courses are most likely to count for credit. The final decisions about course credit for courses taken abroad are made by a Dean's committee after the student returns from abroad.
Upon return from Study Abroad you will need to complete another type of petition requesting inclusion of courses taken abroad. You should do this as soon as you're notified by the Registrar and Study Abroad Office that your credits from abroad have been processed into your transcript. You can print the petition from the department website for forms. Complete this form, attach course syllabus, and bring it to the Undergraduate Advising Head during office hours for approval. Without this, courses taken elsewhere cannot count toward fulfillment of the major.
Should There Be Any Problems
If you have any specific questions about any of these procedures, the Sociology Department Office will be very happy to help you. Also, remember that Professor David Cunningham, Undergraduate Advising Head, is available during his office hours to discuss any problems or to receive any suggestions that you may have.
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