You can join the Major Program in Political Science at the end of your first year in the Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree.
Requirements
Students within the Major in Political Science must complete the following courses:
| Course | Credits | Year Typically Taken | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| POLI_V 100 | 3 | 1st | |
| POLI_V 101 | 3 | 1st | |
| POLI_V 110 | 3 | 1st / 2nd | |
| POLI_V 240 | 3 | 2nd | |
| POLI_V 380 | 3 | 3rd | Prerequisite: POLI_V 110 |
| Eight 300- and 400-level POLI_V courses | 24 | 3rd & 4th | |
| 400-level POLI_V seminar | 3 | 4th | |
| Total | 42 |
*Successful completion of any 400-level POLI course will also fulfill your Arts Research Requirement (a general degree requirement).
Please note:
- POLI_V 100 serves as a foundational course for the rest of our undergraduate course catalogue. We highly recommend that students take this course before taking POLI courses at a higher level.
- In addition to POLI_V 100, 110, 101, and 240, we encourage students to take our other two foundational courses on Comparative Politics (220) and International Relations (260).
- Students will not get credit for both POLI_V 380 and any of the following courses in counting up the required 120 credits needed to graduate: STAT_V 200, 203, BIOL_V 300, COMM_V 312, 291, ECON_V 325, EPSE_V 482, 483, FRST_V 231, GEOG_V 374, KIN_V 371, PSYC_V 218, 366, SOCI_V 328. If one of the mentioned courses is a program requirement for one of your non-POLI specializations (eg. SOCI Major) or you completed one of these courses prior to being accepted into your POLI program, please get in touch with your program advisor to discuss your options.
- All our fourth-year seminars satisfy the Research Requirement for the BA degree. Students can satisfy the Research Requirement by taking other appropriate courses in Arts, but we strongly encourage Majors to take at least one fourth-year seminar in POLI.
- Space in our 400-level seminars is extremely limited. Because of this, POLI Majors are permitted to take a maximum of two 400-level POLI seminars during their time at UBC.
- Members of our Undergraduate Advising Team regularly check seminar enrolments to ensure that students do not exceed this seminar registration limit. If you have exceeded this limit, a member of our advising team will get in touch with you to better understand why you have structured your schedule in this way and confirm which of your extra seminars can be dropped from your schedule. If you are not responsive to our first or follow-up attempts to reach you, we may reduce the number of seminars on your schedule without your input.
Admission
Students who meet our program entry requirements can self-declare a Major in Political Science without having to submit an application to our Department.
Program Entry Requirements
- Enrolled in UBC-V’s Bachelor of Arts program; and
- Have second-year standing or above.
Please follow these steps to join the Major in Political Science:
- If you have yet to declare a specialization or wish to change your current specialization to the Major in Political Science, please follow the steps outlined in this Workday tutorial: Declaring or changing your primary major, honours, or specialization.
- Select: B.A., Major in Political Science (Vancouver).
- If you wish to add the Major in Political Science to your existing specialization (e.g., a student who wishes to complete the Major in Political Science alongside their existing Sociology Major), please follow the steps outlined in this Workday tutorial: Adding a program of study (second major or minor).
- Select: Major in Political Science (Vancouver).
- Self-enroll in the Department’s Undergraduate Info Hub, a Canvas course from which we send our monthly undergraduate newsletter, share important program information, and post our advising team’s drop-in advising days/times.
If you meet our program entry requirements and face any difficulty adding the Major in Political Science to your student record, please contact our advising team at: poli.ugrad@ubc.ca.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. However, our 100- and 200-level POLI courses are designed to prepare you for the content of our upper-level course catalogue and, in certain cases, are prerequisites for upper-level Major requirements (e.g., you should not take POLI_V 380—one of the main requirements of our Major Program—without having first completed POLI_V 110). With this in mind, students who join the Major in Political Science without having completed their full set of lower-level requirements should plan to complete these requirements as soon as possible. Tip: If you’re interested in completing any of these requirements over the Summer Session, take a look at our website to see the courses on offer.
Please get in touch with our Advising Team (poli.ugrad@ubc.ca) well in advance of registration/graduation-related deadlines and outline your situation. If we see reason to waive your POLI_V 100 requirement (or any other POLI program requirement) based on your academic history, we will let you know.
To take the vast majority of our 300-level courses, you are required to have third-year standing or to have completed a set number of lower-level POLI_V courses. This is the case even if you are a Major in Political Science. Please see this page of the Calendar for the specifications for each course.
Yes, as long as you meet our program entry requirements.
No. You can self-declare the Major in Political Science at any point in the year—assuming that you have not applied to graduate.