Juniors

You registered last spring for the fall semester.  Now is the time to review your selections, discuss your schedule with your advisor, and make whatever changes are needed.  If you are abroad, keep in touch with your advisor by email.  Please keep in mind the requirements and other considerations given below. 

Your advisor for this year will normally be the same as last year, but due to sabbatical leaves, your CSS advisor may have changed over the summer. Please check your portfolio to see if your advisor has changed and to whom you may have been reassigned.  Go to him or her for advice and authorization at preregistration time in November and April.

Choosing Courses for the Junior Year

You are required to take CSS 371, Contemporary Social and Political Theory, the junior colloquium in the second semester and will be pre-registered for this automatically during the spring pre-registration period in early November.  In addition, you will take a two-­tutorial sequence equivalent to two course credits choosing two junior tutorials from the three on offer  (in economics, government, and history) which can be previewed in Wesmaps. Please send Mickie Dame mdame@wesleyan.edu> your tutorial preference by Monday, October 17th. Once the tutorials have been assigned, you will be notified and enrolled automatically.

Here are some factors to consider and to discuss with your advisor when choosing your electives:

General Education Expectations.  If you have not done so already, you should fulfill Stage I expectations by the end of your junior year and Stage II by the end of your senior year.  Students in the College of Social Studies who have not completed the General Education distribution expectation of Stage 1 by the end of the Sophomore year must, by the start of preregistration that spring for Junior year, submit a plan to their advisor and the CSS co-chairs for approval for completing the expectations of both Stage 1 and Stage 2 by graduation.  Before graduation, each student in the College of Social Studies is required to have taken courses that meet the specifications of both Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Research papers.  Experience shows that students who arrive at senior year without having written long research papers may have difficulty with theses and senior projects.  While the junior tutorials make a small start, you should plan to take some outside courses such as upper-level seminars which require a major research paper.

Additional skills.  Students of the social sciences interested in pursuing further research should generally be familiar with some basic quantitative and critical interpretive techniques used in describing and explaining social phenomena.  You might consider taking one of the following courses during your program of studies:  ECON 300, GOVT 201/SOC 257/PSYC 280/QAC 201, HIST 362, PSYCH 200, or SOC 202.  Students may also want to go deeper into the philosophical and historical bases of the social sciences by taking courses in the philosophical classics, and/or ancient and modern history.

Preparation for thesis.  You may not know your thesis or project topic a year ahead of time, but it is wise to be thinking about it and, if you have some ideas, to take some appropriate courses.  Without the basic courses in a particular discipline (especially if it is one like sociology that is not in the CSS), you may find it not only hard to do good work, but also hard to find a supervisor.  Especially if you have a particular thesis advisor in mind who is not in the CSS, plan to make contact with him or her well before your senior year.  Be aware of the announcement of the Davenport Grant applications in the spring semester-a well-written thesis proposal could get you up to $3,000 in summer research funds.

General Notes

Grades.  Unlike sophomore work, your CSS courses in the junior year are graded on the usual scale of A to F.  You may take your other courses either graded or CR/U if the instructor gives you a choice.  The results in all courses will be recorded on your transcript by the Registrar's Office in the usual way.

Absence and late papers.  Junior and senior tutorials and colloquia are graded and operate under normal University rules, meaning that absence or late work will normally adversely affect your final grade.  The University requires the submission of all outstanding work at the latest by the first day of the following semester; the instructor, however, has the option of imposing more stringent requirements. The CSS takes these rules seriously, and failure to meet them may result in failure in the course and separation from the major.

Double Majors. Discuss this with care with your CSS advisor and the CSS co-chairs.

Summer Letter