More credits for Poli Sci majors

Prospective political science majors might have a whole new set of requirements to complete in… Prospective political science majors might have a whole new set of requirements to complete in order to receive their bachelor’s degrees starting this summer term.

Pending approval from the Office of the Provost, the new political science major will require the completion of at least 33 credits, including a capstone seminar, which will count as a writing course and will culminate in the completion of a 20- to 25-page paper.

Currently, the political science major requires the completion of only 24 credits.

Along with the philosophy major, which also demands just 24 credits, it is one of the smallest majors at Pitt in terms of required credits.

The person in charge of updating the major requirements is Associate Professor of political science Michael Goodhart, who is also the director of Undergraduate Studies for the department.

“All across the board we’ve made the requirements more robust,” Goodhart said.

Any sophomore or freshman who declares political science as a major after this semester will fall under the new major requirements.

Though the department has not yet received final authorization, Goodhart expects the changes to be approved this month.

Members of the Political Science Department have recently felt the need to update the undergraduate program.

“We’ve felt [the requirements] were deficient in a couple respects,” Goodhart said.

For example, a political science major may currently take an upper-level course in the international relations field without having completed the core international relations course, world politics.

The new major requirements would make it necessary for students to complete the core courses in all political science fields, which include American politics, comparative politics, world politics and political theory.

This is so students have a solid understanding of the branches of political science before they take upper-level courses in the various divisions.

The department’s current option to complete an honors major in political science will be dropped.

This wasn’t much of an issue according to Goodhart, who said that only about two students a year opt to go for an honors major.

In its place, majors will have the option to take additional and more advanced courses to achieve a bachelor’s degree in political science.

This includes writing a “mini-thesis” on a topic of the student’s choosing, as long as it is approved by a faculty sponsor.

Also, students with an overall GPA of at least 3.0 and a minimum GPA of 3.7 in political science will automatically receive departmental honors.

“It turns out most majors take more than 24 credits anyway,” Goodhart said. He sees the change in requirements as a natural one.

“We have good students in political science,” he said. “We felt it just made sense to do that.”