Planning Your Course of Study in the Major or Minor

The Philosophy Department's website is the place to go for information on major and minor requirements and information about and application forms for Honors in Philosophy. Majors will also find a handy checklist (pdf) for tracking their progress through major requirements and college requirements.

PL 231 Ancient Philosophy and PL232 Modern Philosophy are the core history courses in the major, and the minors must also take at least one of these courses. PL231 and 232 are designed to be taken in the sophomore year and should be among your first philosophy classes. Students planning to study abroad are advised to complete PL231 and 232 before they go.

The Department of Philosophy is strongly committed to keep overseas study a live option for our majors. Minors are also welcome to take courses in philosophy abroad and count them toward their minor requirements. In addition to the contributions that overseas study can make to meeting the overall goals of a liberal arts education, it provides a wonderful opportunity for our students to expand the philosophy curriculum by availing themselves of the offerings at other colleges and universities. Oxford, Cork, and St. Andrews are popular and recommended destinations for studying philosophy, but in recent years our majors have studied in over 20 different countries on six different continents engaging with an equally diverse array of philosophical traditions.

Course Substitutes
Students, especially students who study abroad, often take courses at other institutions and are then given credit toward the Philosophy major or minor. You should always have these courses approved in advance, especially if you hope to receive credit for a required course (e.g., PL231 Ancient Philosophy or PL151 Logic) or an area requirement in the major (e.g., metaphysics and epistemology). Please note, the Department will not accept any substitutes for the history sequence (PL231 and PL232) other than equivalent survey courses in these same time periods offered at another institution. You may not, for example substitute Medieval Philosophy or a Plato seminar for PL231 Ancient Philosophy. The reason for this is that ancient and modern philosophy are foundational periods in the development of western philosophy, and thus a broad exposure to thinkers in those time periods is crucial to the study of philosophy.

Conflicts with Requirements in Other Departments
The Philosophy Department is not responsible for resolving scheduling conflicts with a non-Philosophy major or minor.

         Philosophy minors. Occasionally minors in philosophy reach their senior year only to discover that in order to complete requirements for their major, they are unable to satisfy the stated requirements for the minor in philosophy. The Philosophy Department will not alter the minor requirements to accommodate this conflict. If you are minoring in philosophy, it would be a good idea to complete the history requirements before senior year.

         Philosophy majors. Occasionally majors in philosophy will discover in their junior or senior year that there are scheduling conflicts that make it impossible to complete both their Philosophy major and their non ­Philosophy major (or non-Philosophy minor). Majors may petition the department for accommodation, but this will be granted only under extraordinary circumstances. If you are double majoring, you should work with both of your major advisors to plan your schedule a year in advance. It is especially important that you start the PL201-202 requirement prior to your senior year.

Changing Final Grades
The Department is required to conform to college policy which prohibits change to final grades except those "necessitated by discovery of an error in recording or reporting" and only if approved by the Dean. This policy precludes re-evaluation of work once grades have been submitted.