hello this information is presented by
the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and
Sciences Academic Advising and Resource
Center it is designed to provide
registration guidance to intended
political science majors our
Advising Center houses seven full-time
professional advisors you will be
assigned to one of us because you are an
you are an intended major within our
college we will assist you for the first
one to two years once you complete
certain major requirements typically
after about three to four semesters you
will be officially declared into your
major
we will then transition you over to
your major's department so you can
receive a faculty advisor your faculty
advisor will assist you through
graduation
after you complete orientation and
register for classes you'll be assigned
to someone in our center they'll reach
out to you via your ECU e-mail your
advisor will be listed in
PiratePort, Banner and Degree Works and you are
welcome to reach out to us with
questions
political science offers two degrees:
the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelors of Science
both degrees require a 120 hours graduate and require
nearly identical core courses so you
don't have to immediately decide which
one you'd like to pursue you have time
the Bachelor of Arts consists of 40
hours of general education, foreign
language through level 4, your core
courses and a required minor the
Bachelors of Science consists of 40
hours of general education, your core
courses, a concentration and a required
minor concentrations include the
following four
one, Campaign Elections and American Politiics
two, International Relations and Comparative politics
three, Pre-Law and
four, Public Administration
and Policy/State and Local Government
the Bachelor of Arts degree has more
room for free electives and therefore is
a little bit easier to add a
major on to
the catalog also provides an
alphabetical list of all the minors we
offer since both the Bachelors of
Science and the Bachelors of Arts in
Political Science require a minor I
encourage you to start reviewing these
now and you may even want to take a
course for a potential minor if you're
not sure what you would like to minor in
in the fall just to test something out a
lot of these minors also incorporate
classes that are general education
courses so you can strategically explore
a minor while completing general
education requirements this is a sample
for your plan for the political science
major I want to stress the word sample
because there are many possible course
combinations that lead to graduating in
four years
both the B.A. and the B.S. in political
science degrees start off with the same
intro political science courses followed
by general education for example we
prefer you to take to political science
courses in the fall however if that's
not possible
you can take one in the fall and take
two in the spring instead
also even though we list English 1100 in the fall we expect that about half of our
students will take English 1100 in the
spring and that's perfectly fine you'll
notice that your first two semesters are
composed of General Education classes
this means as long as you take Gen Ed.
classes for your major
you'll be on track even though we have
foreign language listed in your first
semester for our B.A. majors it is fine to
postpone just don't wait too long
postponing a semester or even to the
beginning of your sophomore year is fine
but you don't want to wait till your
junior year to start Spanish
you'll also see in the final two years of the B.A. there's plenty of room to add on a
double major and still graduate in four
years
but we have plenty of time to discuss
that later
if you are bringing in Advanced Placement credit
this slide shows you minimum scores needed
and what credit you will be receiving for those scores
we typically receive AP scores from
college board in early July if you have
questions about this please consult your
academic advisor
if you are bringing in college level transfer credit
you can look up course equivalencies in Banner Self-Service
just look under the student
tab for course equivalencies then select
your state and the college you attended
courses listed have already been
approved for transfer credit if you see
a course that transfers over as "xxx" that
means that while they may transfer to
ECU you may need to work with your
advisor to get those re-evaluated by the
department to see if they will count
towards specific degree requirements
also if you do not see a course listed
at all it doesn't necessarily mean it
won't transfer it just means that again
you may need to work with your advisor
to get that course re-evaluated by the
department always consult your advisor
with questions about transferring in courses
so how do you know when we have
processed your AP scores or college
transfer credit you should look in
Banner Self-Service under the student
tab for student records then select your
academic transcript here is an example
of how AP credit and college level
transfer credit will appear as you can
imagine ECU receives a lot of transcripts
so we ask for your patience as our
Admissions and Registrar's Office staff
work hard to process all of these if you
do not see your transcript updated by
August 1st  please be sure to reach out
to your academic advisor
alrighty the moment we've all been waiting for let's
talk about fall registration as you saw
from the sample 4-year plan the
political science degrees are very
flexible it is recommended that you take
both POLS 1010 - National Government and POLS 2020 - International Relations
in the fall if you can however if one of those is
closed no worries
you can just take it in the spring as
long as you have at least one political
science course in the fall you will
still be fine as I mentioned earlier it
is not critical that you decide now
whether you wish to pursue a B.A. or a B.S.
but if you already know that's great
B.A. students can try starting their
foreign language this fall if they want
both B.A. and B.S. students should then
add on any general education courses
from any general education category
let's look at math as an example you can
take either Math 1050 - Explorations in
Mathematics or
Math 2228 - Elementary Statistics there is no minimum SAT or a ACT score
needed for either of those math
courses be sure to register for a
minimum of 12 hours for full time
purposes this impacts financial aid as
well as your progression towards
completing your degree in four years
let's take a closer look at foreign language
we offer French, German, Ancient
Greek, Japanese, Latin, Russian and Spanish
American Sign Language is not considered
a foreign language your B.A. degree
requires foreign language through level
IV
the first level 1001 is for students
who have no prior knowledge of a
language if you have prior knowledge it
would be to your benefit to take a
placement test and possibly start at a
higher level let's say you take the
placement test and place into the third
level of the language you would then
start with level 2003 and
once you complete 2003 you would automatically receive placement
credit for levels I and II you would
then need to complete level IV and
your foreign language requirement would
be complete and two semesters instead of
four for this reason we recommend
students with prior knowledge in a
language to start their language as soon
as possible so you don't forget what you
learned in high school we offer online
placement tests for French, German and Spanish
keep in mind that is required for Spanish even if you want
to start in the first level
for test information visit www.ecu.edu/foreign
alright you should have learned about the 40 hours of General Education
requirements in your orientation module
so now we're going to dive a little bit deeper into specifics
the first category of General Education courses I'd like to discuss are Natural Sciences
you must take at least seven hours of Natural Sciences in order to graduate
one of those sciences must include a lab
this slide contains suggestions for all non-science majors
if you are interested in pursuing a
health-related pre-professional program
such as Pre-Med, Pre-Dental, Pre PA,
Pre-Vet, Pre-Physical Therapy
Pre-Pharmacy then you will need to take
different science courses not listed on
this screen please consult your advisor
for further guidance
on Natural Sciences
next let's talk about Social Sciences
you must complete at least nine hours of
Social Sciences to graduate and two of
those must be from different disciplines
or areas as you can see there are a lot
of options for you to choose from we
offer many courses in African and
African American Studies, Anthropology
Economics, Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies,
Geography, History,
International Relations, Linguistics Planning, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology
because your major Political Science is a Social Science your major courses can also
count for this Gen Ed. requirement keep
in mind you do need at least one more
course outside of Political Science as
well also remember that not every course
is offered every semester so you need to
check Banner Self-Service for course
availability you'll also notice some classes have
GD or a DD listed beside them in
parentheses this means they also count
for your Global Diversity or Domestic
Diversity credit which is required for
graduation
our next categories of Gen Ed. are
Humanities and Fine Arts students will
need at least one Humanity and at least
one Fine Art plus an additional Humanity
or Fine Art to complete this graduation
requirement that means you will take one
Humanity one Fine Art and then for your
third class you have a choice between the two
students must take nine hours total to
graduate the Humanities include courses
such as English Literature, Classical
Literature, Foreign Literature, History
Religion and Philosophy
the Fine Arts category includes Art Appreciation, Intro to Dance, the Enjoyment of Music,
Jazz Appreciation and Intro to Theater just to name a few
alrighty now that you know all of your
options it's time to register use your
registration pin of 082420 to register for the courses we
just discussed remember to register for
your priority courses first and then
fill in the rest
priority courses being Political Science
1010 and 2020 you have plenty of options
you can find step-by-step registration
instructions on many places including
Peer website, the Registrar's website and
our Academic and Advising website
listed on our first slide we also have a
page listing frequent problems you may
encounter so please refer to that if you
have further questions please email your
assigned academic advisor now here are
some important reminders don't forget to
register for a minimum of 12 hours for
full-time billing purposes and keep in
mind that classes that are closed now
may open up later as students change
majors adjust schedules so keep checking
banner regularly throughout the summer
check your ECU e-mail
daily especially if you waitlist
yourself in a course and be sure to
explore our Academic Advising website
for more great resources including links
to your major departments home page and
finally get to know your undergraduate
catalog because your advisor will
provide advice but ultimately you are
responsible for following the
requirements in that catalog be sure to
follow the virtual orientation schedule
throughout the rest of summer so you can
learn all about your major and maybe
even a potential minor or double major
you'll also learn about the great
resources available to you at ECU
sure to review your admissions checklist
to make sure you have taken care of
everything and finally always
communicate with your academic advisor
if you have any questions or concerns we
are here to help
advisors will be assigned some time after you complete your orientation and register for
classes you can view your advisors name
in PiratePort, Banner or DegreeWorks
your advisor will review your schedule
and will send you an e-mail to your ECU
email account as you can imagine we have
a lot of incoming freshmen so your
patience is appreciated if you have a
question that you feel is urgent and
have not been assigned an advisor yet
please email our generic advising
account thcasadvising@ecu.edu with
your name Banner ID intended major and
your question and we will assist you
have a great rest of your summer and
above all stay safe we can't wait to
meet you this fall
