Arts and Science advising

Advising and registration information for new students

Welcome new students! Advising is REQUIRED for new students and must be done before registering. How advising take place depends on your department or college. Below you'll find information about the how to access advising depending on your department.

All new students must participate in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s FAS Touchstone Advising Information session. At this session, students will hear from a SAS advisor and their department advisor.

Information on how to register for the FAS Touchstone is in the advising email you received after accepting and paying your confirmation fee. A few days after this session, you will gain access to the registration system.

Many programs may have a list of suggested first-year courses. Some departments have these listed on their department webpages. For other departments, links to these pages are provided below. For those departments that do not have suggested first-year courses, you can learn more about the courses you’ll need to earn your degree, by consulting the undergraduate calendar or your “academic requirements report.”

General information

Course prerequisites

The registration system will not permit you to register for a course that has a prerequisite if you have not completed that prerequisite. If a course has “permission of the Department” as a prerequisite, you must obtain authorization from the department offering that course to register for the course.

Course entry restrictions

Many courses in the Faculty of Arts & Science are reserved, in whole or in part, to students enrolled in specific programs and are not available as elective courses to non-program students. Please look at class capacity to see if the course has reserved seats (class schedule, click on the “section” to open a new page that has capacity information).

Course load

Full-time students who wish to take a course overload (i.e., more than 12 credits) in the summer term must receive permission from their academic adviser and Student Academic Services in the Faculty of Arts & Science. The normal fall/winter course load for full-time students is 12–15 credits per term. To obtain permission, please fill in a Student Request form.

General Education requirement and 24-credit rule

Students in the Faculty of Arts & Science are required to satisfy the General Education requirement and 24-credit rule. For more information regarding this degree requirement students may contact the department advisor, or an advisor in Student Academic Services (extension 2104). Detailed information can also be obtained by consulting Section 31.004 of the Undergraduate Calendar for the year in which you were admitted to a degree in Arts and Science.

Elective Group

Elective Groups are a group of courses focused on a given theme, but they are broad in the sense that courses are taken in a range of disciplines. Elective Groups allow you to take your electives in a more structured and meaningful way. An Elective Group can be used to partially satisfy the Arts and Science requirement for 24 credits outside your program. For more information, telephone 514-848-2424, ext. 2104 or see Elective Groups.