Individual Study and Directed Reading

Highly motivated students who would like to further expand or apply their study beyond the normal course offerings can undertake Individual Studies or Directed Readings if they fulfill the minimum overall GPA requirement of 3.0.

No more than 3 credit hours for any one or any combination of the following three courses may be counted toward the major. These courses may be repeated for credit, however only three hours of the total of Directed Reading, Individual Study, and Internship can count towards the major.

It is the student’s responsibility to contact a faculty member to sign up for one of the courses during the fall or spring semester.

The specifics about work load/assignments will be determined by the faculty member. General guidelines are provided below:

• Individual Study (POL 387)
  • 2 hours: 20 Page research paper
  • 3 hours: 25 page research paper
• Directed Reading (POL 388)
  • 2 hours: the student reads 3-4 books (or an equivalent number of articles), writes a 1-2 page analysis of each book prior to meeting with a faculty mentor to discuss each book, and writes an 8-10 page paper on a topic stemming from the readings
  • 3 hours: the student reads 5-6 books (or an equivalent number of articles), writes a 1-2 page analysis of each book prior to meeting with a faculty mentor to discuss each book, and writes a 10-12 page paper on a topic stemming from the readings
• Internship (POL 389)
  • Please visit the Internship page.