Arts and Science advising
2023-2024

Welcome new students!

Advising is REQUIRED for all newly admitted students to the Faculty of Arts and Science and must be done to access the registering system.

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

Information on accessing the FAS Touchstone is in the advising email you received after accepting your offer of admission 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.”

• 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 the specific programs of the department offering the program 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). If you see students on the wait list, and you are in the program that requires the course, that is an indicator to you that the course has reserved seats.
• Course load
  The normal fall/winter course load for full-time students is 12–15 credits per term. 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. To obtain permission, please fill in a Student Request form. Students must have at least 24 Concordia credits on record with a cumulative GPA of at least a 3.00.
• 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 these degree requirement, students should contact their department advisor, or an advisor in Student Academic Services (514-848-2424, ext. 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, and are a great way to satisfy your elective component of your degree. 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 of 24 credits outside your program. For more information, telephone 514-848-2424, ext. 2104 or see Elective Groups.