• 2013 Registration Dates, By Year Level
• Suggestions and Tips for Students, by Year Level
• Taking Courses Without The Required Prerequisite(s)
• Closed Courses & Waiting Lists
• LORIS error messages
• Office Hours (Main Office and Faculty)
• Worksheets

Your Year Level is determined not by the length of time you have spent at Laurier but by the number of credits you have successfully completed:

Year/          # Credits required at the end          Registration
Status of this year for this Status Begins

   5                         20.5 or more                        June 17
   4                         14.5 or more                        June 17
   3                           9.5-14.0                            June 19
   2                           4.5-9.0                             June 24
   1                           0.0-4.0                             June 27

All other continuing students (Diplomas, Unclassified, Post-degree and Returning Year 1)  may begin selecting courses on June 27.

Non-major elective registration: June 28.

• All Students

You should enrol in PO110 in the fall term and PO111 in the winter, plus however many electives you would like to take.  A typical courseload is five courses per term, two terms a year, for four years, but that may not work for you if you have, for example, a part-time job in which case four courses per term might be enough.

Your electives can be courses you think would complement your Political Science program nicely (Global Studies or History, for example), courses required for a Minor or an Option, courses you would like to take either because you enjoyed that material in high school and would like to explore it at the university level, or courses covering subjects you have no background in if you're looking for something new.

Most of you will have completed PO110 and PO111, earning 1.0 credit of the 11.0-13.0 PO credits you need in your degree.  The 10.0-12.0 remaining PO credits are, typically, spread over three years. For example, taking 3.0 PO credits (six half-credit courses) in Year 2 and again in Year 3 leaves at least 4.0 credits for your final year.  

In Year 2 you need to accomplish two things: complete some of the degree requirements and take courses which appeal to you, if the two are not the same! For example, if you are interested in studying more about the Canadian government, select PO263 and PO264, along with, say, PO217 and PO218 (statistics and research methods) and PO235 and PO236 (political theory). If international/global issues are really exciting to you, then select PO220 and PO221 (Intro to Comparative Government - Developing and Industrialized), or PO231 and PO232 (Intro to World Politics I and II), along with PO217, PO218, PO235 and PO236 perhaps. And if you're not sure, take a wide range of PO courses so that by the end of your second year you will have had enough exposure to various aspects of the discipline to know where your interests lie.

Year 2 is also your planning/positioning year.  You should take time to look at the 300-level Political Science courses. If a particular course interests you, read the prerequisite(s) for that course and try to enrol in it in Year 2 so that you can have access to the course next year.

Our third year courses have anywhere from 40-60 students enrolled, and the expectation is somewhat higher than that of 200-level courses, naturally!  You should be enrolling in at least two 300-level Political Science courses and likely will take more, but don't overdo it:  if you take five per term, you could well be setting yourself up for an unmanageable workload.  Try to choose a good balance of 200- and 300-level courses, and maybe even a 100-level if you're working on a Minor or have an interest in picking up, say, another language.   You might also give some thought to finishing off the 200-level requirements, if you didn't complete them all last year.

You should also take a moment to familiarize yourself with the department's rules on access to 400-level courses (see the next section).  If any of the 400-level courses appeal to you, then you should be positioning yourself in Year 3 to be able to take that particular seminar.  You might also wish to read the program requirements specific to Year 4 and also the Research Specialization requirements.

All Year 3 students are advised to contact the department some time before the winter term ends, and especially before summer registration begins, to arrange a meeting to review your degree requirements.  During such a meeting you will find out exactly what you need to do in Year 4 in order to meet graduation requirements, and can then better prepare for LORIS registration accordingly.  Every year there are countless students throughout the university who are surprised in the winter of their 4th year to learn they are not eligible to graduate.  You should arrange a meeting so that your name isn’t on one of those letters next February!

Courses will fill - quickly. When you encounter this, all you can do is wait for someone else to drop it if you want to sign in, and you do that by checking LORIS regularly, right up until the end of the first two weeks of classes if that’s how long it takes. We do not maintain waiting lists in Political Science; however, LORIS has a waiting list option for all courses that do not have a tutorial component. 

Keep in mind none of the courses required for your degree have to be completed in any given year. As long as you have successfully completed those courses by graduation, that's all that matters. If you aren’t able to enrol in a certain course this year, then you likely will next year. The higher your year level, the earlier your window of opportunity for course registration.

For more information on the error messages received on LORIS, please refer to this link provided by the Registrar's Office.  In most cases, the errors are very easily eliminated which means you will be able to correct the problem yourself (missing tutorial, time conflict, etc.) and register in your chosen course a lot faster than e-mailing the department for assistance.  

Faculty Office Hours:  Office hours and contact information can be found on your instructor's webpage.

Main Office Hours:  Most often Monday to Thursday, 8:30-12:00 and 1:00-4:30 p.m. I am sometimes out of the office attending meetings, so please call ahead to check on my availability before heading to campus, especially those of you who will be driving in from out of town. (Sherry at 519-884-0710, ext. 3374) 

Course Planning Worksheet

Program Requirements Worksheets: 2013-14, 2012-13, 2011-12, 2010-11, 2009-10