Undergraduate Advising

 

The Director of Undergraduate Studies is Professor Kenneth Calhoon. Students should meet with him at least once each term, and at all the important thresholds of the major: declaring, deciding on courses that require departmental approval, preparing for graduation, considering graduate study or employment, and so on. He is generally available for advising on any aspect of the major or undergraduate study in general. Other members of the program faculty will provide advising informally as needed.

How to declare a major in Comparative Literature

Students wishing to declare a major in Comparative Literature meet with Professor Calhoon to discuss their plans and program. When the student decides to declare the major, Professor Calhoon submits the required notification to the registrar.

Students wishing to change their major should
1) Drop their current major with that department, and
2) See Prof. Calhoon for advising and to declare the Comparative Literature major.

The New Comparative Literature Major

The new Major in Comparative Literature will take effect beginning Fall Term 2008.

Which set of major requirements apply to my degree?

Students declaring a major in Fall 2008 term or later will be in the new major. However, students who declared a major in Comparative Literature prior to that time will have the option of using the old major or the new major. If you declared a Comparative Literature major prior to Fall '08 and would like to enroll in the new major, please see Prof. Calhoon.

Description of Courses

The program issues an annual publication, Description of Courses , that gives full accounts of all comparative literature and cross-listed courses for a given academic year. The Description of Courses for the current year as well as the past several years also appears on the program's website. Since a certain number of your courses will be taken from other departments and programs, you should pick up the descriptions from the relevant departments each quarter. For example, a student whose main foreign language is Spanish should stay informed about the course offerings in the Romance Languages department. Reference copies of other departments' curricula are maintained in the Comparative Literature office.

Cross-published courses

A cross-published course is one with a prefix other than COLT that is recognized by the Comparative Literature Program as equivalent to its own courses within the major. Such courses are listed under Comparative Literature in the Course Schedule.

Incompletes

By university policy, a student who requests and is granted an incomplete has one year within which to finish the course work. Extensions beyond a year require a petition.

In general the Comparative Literature Program discourages students from taking incompletes, because they are much like credit cards: it's easy to incur a balance and difficult to pay it off. As the course recedes further into the past, the effort required to complete the term paper increases.

Applying to Graduate

Students should talk to Professor Calhoon when making plans for graduation. He can determine whether the student will have completed the necessary course work, including general education requirements. There is a deadline early each quarter for submitting one's application to graduate.