Student Undergraduate Advising FAQ

Arts & Letters and Social Science Requirement
Degree Audit and DARS
Junior Cluster
Miscellaneous
MECOP
Prerequisites, Core, Admission Into Program, Etc.
Transfers
Undergraduate Handbook
PSU Advising Schedule
Useful Links

Arts & Letters and Social Science Requirement

What is AL/SS and does it apply to me?

This requirement is only for transfer students. Students who complete Freshman Inquiry (FRINQ), Sophomore Inquiry (SINQ) and Junior Cluster (JC) courses at PSU need not fulfill this requirement. In addition to SP 100 and WR 121, the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering requires 21 credits from Arts & Letters and/or Social Sciences areas. The disciplines or courses that qualify for this requirement are given below:

• Administration of Justice (AJ 220 and 330 only)
• Anthropology
• Applied Linguistics (only up to 6 credits are applicable) - this includes Advanced and Upper Advanced course in English as a 2nd language.
• Architecture
• Area Studies
• Art History
• Black Studies
• Conflict Resolution
• Economics
• English Literature (but not writing classes that are equivalent or similar to WR 121 or WR 227)
• Foreign Languages & Literature (200 level or above courses only)
• Geography
• History
• International Studies
• Music (courses relating to the history and appreciation of music, but not performance; e.g. MUS 111 Music Theory is OK)
• Philosophy
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Theater Arts (not including performance)
• Urban Studies & Planning
• Women’s Studies

• PE/PHE classes
• Business Administration
• Sciences (e.g. Geology and Biology are not OK)
• SP 220 (used to substitute for SP 100)
• WR 122 or equivalent is not used for AL/SS. 

• you cannot use EC 314U to complete clusters other than the ones listed in the Schedule of Classes that contain it.
• some speech classes may be OK for our AL/SS requirement, but those that are skill based do not count
• if a transfer student takes some junior cluster that does not include EC 314, then we can count that EC 314 toward AL/SS requirement. Student has to take EC 314 anyway to satisfy departmental requirement.

Junior Cluster

• Each Sophomore Inquiry (SINQ) course leads to a Junior Cluster (JC). Each JC offers a number of courses from various disciplines. Students are required to choose three courses from the same cluster. Usually the name of a SINQ course becomes the heading for a JC.
• Students who complete their SINQ at PSU have to choose their JC from one of the SINQ courses they have completed. There are no exceptions to this rule and it is enforced by PSU. This rule also applies to transfer students who are transferring less than 90 credits. This is due to the fact that such students must take at least one SINQ class, which then has to "link up" with JC.
• Transfer students with more than 90 transfer credits do not have to take any course from either FRINQ or SINQ. These students are free to choose any JC of their choice. 
• It may be in the student's interest (independent of their transfer status) to choose one of these three clusters:
  • Community Studies Cluster
  • Professions and Power Cluster
  • Knowledge, Rationality and Understanding Cluster.
• EC 314U is a required course for ECE students i.e. it is a departmental requirement. This course is also a part of three JC-s mentioned above. Using this fact, students can fulfill both the university requirement and the departmental requirement by choosing one of the above three clusters as their JC. Whether they will be able to do so depends upon their choice of SINQ courses. In other words, if they have chosen a SINQ course that leads to one of the above three clusters, they can avoid taking EC 314 separately from a JC.
• students who take FRINQ and SINQ at PSU, have to be careful about their choice of courses in their junior cluster - any engineering or science courses (e.g. EAS 399) will not count towards the university AL/SS requirement (12 credits) and they may have to take some additional courses to satisfy it.
• EE or CPE students can, in general, take EAS 399 to satisfy junior cluster requirements in the clusters that offer it (but see bullet above). However, EAS 399 CANNOT be used to satisfy PSU and departmental AL/SS requirements. 
• JC and AL/SS courses can be taken for P/NP. This does not include EC 314U (public and private investment) because this is a specific departmental requirement.

1. Take the required SINQ course and then take the xyz junior cluster, or
2. Take the JC that you are eligible for (i.e. you have taken the SINQ class that is a "prerequisite" for that JC) and take EC 314U outside of the cluster.

Note that in both cases you will need to take an additional course, simply because you did not plan your SINQ and JC properly. Students who transfer more than 90 credits are not subject to this rule since all of their SINQ requirements are waived.

Degree Audit and DARS

• DARS Report:
  • Every + on the DARS report means that the requirement for that section is complete.
  • The sections with a – sign have one or more course deficiencies.
  • Two sections on DARS report will initially, always be "–" since they relate to departmental requirements. One of them is a check for Arts & Letters/Soc. Sciences requirement and the other one is a check for adviser approved courses. Both of these sections become "+" only when the department informs DR that these requirements have been completed.
  • DR office will officially inform the student of his standing.
  • you can get more information at http://www.dars.pdx.edu/faq.html .
    
• Grades and GPA
  • as of Fall 2005, we are following PSU policy of calculating major GPA. This means that ALL courses with "engineering" prefix (ECE, CS, ME, CE, EAS) will be included in the calculation. This policy may change in the future.
  • Courses that are transferred as "generic" courses, e.g. ECE LD (for "lower division") cannot be "replaced" for the purpose of GPA calculation, so whatever student transfers will be counted in their major GPA, as well as overall GPA.
  • If student is repeating the course because he got a F, D-, D or D+ and wants to "replace" the course for the purpose of calculating cumulative GPA, the original as well as the repeated course MUST be at PSU. However, for calculation of the MAJOR GPA, DARS will use substitute course from any institution.
  • Grades of  D+, D, D- and F can be replaced once for the purpose of GPA calculation, but they stay on the transcript
  • In some situations, it is to the student's benefit to have a course transferred as a regular "numbered" course (e.g. ECE 221) even though it cannot be counted towards a degree. Once the course has a regular PSU number, the above policies on replacement come into effect so that whatever grades student gets when repeating that course will replace the transferred ones (if the grade was D+ or bellow).
  • as of Fall 2005, Schedule of Classes states that students MUST submit a form ("Notice of Repeated Course" or "Notification of Repeat of Course) to explicitly ask for the PSU policy on repeating courses be implemented and correct GPA shown on their transcript. According to DR office, DARS is implementing the university policy as stated (with the exception for the major GPA calculation) but the BANNER system does not do this unless explicitly told which courses do not count for GPA. That is why students need to fill in the "notification of repeat of course" form, otherwise they can have two different GPA-s: one on DARS and another on transcript.

Transfers

• any physics courses that you want to transfer have to be calculus based.
• if student takes courses outside of PSU after they are admitted, those courses cannot be counted as transfer (but they can be used as "substitution" if such is established).  
• if you go to other departments (Math, Physics...) and they approve a certain course transfer, that does not automatically guarantee that we will accept that as a part of your graduation requirements. In other words, all course transfers are subject to approval by the ECE UG adviser.

Prerequisties, Core, Admission into Program, Etc.

1. It will be done only ONCE for the students who are taking double degrees and want to finish up their other degree(s) first and come back to finish ECE degree later.
2. They have to put their request in writing and state:
   1. Name and ID number
   2. reasons for the request
   3. starting quarter for the withdrawal
3. Students have to be in "good standing" before they can be granted a temporary withdrawal
4. It will be made clear that the return into the program is not automatic, so that if the requirements for re-admission change, they may have to satisfy the new set of conditions.
5. If approved, their request will be forwarded to MCECS (Don Mueller) and the appropriate person who can change the "code 24" (MCECS code).
6. A copy of the student's request and action taken will be placed in their folder.

• Currently, our CpE students are required to take CS 333 Intro to Operating Systems which lists (2004/05) CS 200, CS 201, and CS 311 as prerequisites. Our students typically don't have those courses so they need to be "signed in" by the CS department.
• CpE student MUST take CS upper-division elective, i.e. it cannot be substituted by some ECE senior elective. 
• Starting with 2005-06 catalog, CS 340 is required course and there are no Math/Science electives for CpE students.
• EE students cannot use some Physics courses to substitute them for senior electives. 
• you cannot substitute senior electives for junior electives (EE students only).

Miscellaneous

• Even though this is not a graduation requirement (it is an admission requirement), students will not be able to graduate until this requirements turns to "+" instead of "-".
• The requirement is that they need to show two years of foreign language on their High School transcript. This should be automatically satisfied for Oregon HS students.
• Anybody who graduates from US high school needs to fulfill this requirement
• if they don't satisfy this, there are two ways out of it:
  • take two quarters of college level foreign language, or
  • take exam at Foreign languages department
• For any further details students should contact university advisers (IASC) or Foreign Languages department.

I would like to substitute "XYZ" course for WR 227 - can I do it?

Students are discouraged from taking some "substitutes" for WR 227 Technical writing. However, on very rare occasion an exception can be made for courses dealing with writing of research papers or similar. Students should NOT take any "substitutes" after they have been admitted, and any exceptions will be considered only for transfer courses that were taken before the first advising session.

I would like to take a graduate only level course (500/600) and use it as a senior elective - can I do this?

Students do this for two reasons:

• a) to get a head-start on their graduate studies, or
• b) to substitute this course for one of the ECE senior electives.

For part a) they have to inform Office of Graduate Studies that they are reserving the credit for graduate degree by filling out GO-10 form. The form must be approved by the department (i.e. UG Adviser) and is then submitted by student to Graduate Studies. Graduate studies takes it from there and notifies and checks with DR. For b) they need to have instructor's permission and UG adviser's permission. If they take this course while they are UG students, i.e. they enrolled in PSU as EE or CPE students and have not obtained a BS degree yet, and are using the credits for UG degree, they will pay undergraduate tuition. 

I have done all the material that is covered in course xyz - can I take it by exam?

It is possible to do this and it has been done for a variety of ECE classes (171, 271, 371, 221, etc). It is up to the instructor to determine if the student has some background that would indicate that they can successfully challenge the class. Other arrangements are also up to the instructor (e.g. grading policy and time of the exam). You do not have a "right" to demand this exam and this is entirely up to the instructor.

Here are some additional pointers:

• Western Undergraduate Exchange program undergraduate education provides nonresident students with the opportunity to enroll in academic programs at Portland State that are not readily available from their home state institutions. When you're admitted to Portland State as a WUE participant, you pay 150 percent of the university's resident tuition plus any fees that all students are required to pay. Students are not required to demonstrate financial need to participate in the WUE program. Details and application forms can be found at http://pdx.edu/admissions/ugrad_wue.html. 
• multiple degrees: if student wants to get two different degrees (say BS in EE and BS in some other discipline, say Social Work) then it is best if these two are conferred simultaneously. If one of them is given before the other, then PSU requires student to complete another 36 credits before the 2nd can be given. What student needs to do is to contact the Degree Requirements department and let them know that he/she will be applying for both degrees but that one of them will not be finished until a later term (needs to specify when). DR will then take care of it. 

MECOP

Details on MECOP program are available elsewhere: http://www.pdx.edu/cecs/mecop.html. Participation by eligible students is strongly encouraged. Further details can be obtained from ECE UG Adviser.

I am an international student - can I participate in MECOP?

In theory they might be able to participate, but in practice this is next to impossible. They need to maintain full time student status, i.e. 12 credits, and that is simply not possible the way things are set up right now.

Useful Links (Documents, etc.)

• Electrical Engineering BLUE SHEET
• Electrical Engineering Course Prerequisite Guide (may need fixing)
• Computer Engineering BLUE SHEET
• Computer Engineering Course Prerequisite Guide (may need fixing)
• MCECS Advising web page
• MCECS Admissions web page
• Transfer Course Applicability System (CAS)
• Registration and Records Forms
• Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE)
• MECOP