College of Liberal Arts
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Undergraduate Program

A Government major is an intellectual jack-of-all trades who is fitted for any career that demands thought, analysis, reading, writing, and speaking about complex organizational and public matters. They can write a business memo, understand and evaluate a Supreme Court decision, analyze a chain of command, comprehend the impacts of government policies on public and private domains, and see how the private and the public are entwined in all modern societies. Armed with such knowledge and skills, Government majors go on to become leaders in many arenas - the law, a host of governmental and non-governmental organizations, academia, the media, the military, political parties, and a great many social and political movements.

Degree Plans:

To earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government, students must complete all degree plan requirements for their appropriate catalog.

Major Requirements:

A major in Government requires 30 semester hours of GOV coursework, 18 hours of which must be upper-division. Additional major-specific requirements include:

  • GOV Research Seminar or Internship Course Requirement: 3hrs from this approved list of courses. 
  • GOV Tools Requirement: choose one of the following options:
    • Option 1: 3hrs from these GOV courses:
      • GOV 339L - Research Methods in Government
      • **GOV 350K - Statistical Analysis in Political Science
      • GOV 326D- Data Science for the Social World
      • GOV 355N - World War I in Real Time
        • Note: Only Option 1 (GOV courses) will count toward the 30 hours required for the major.
    • Option 2: 3hrs from these non-GOV statistics-based options:
      • **AFR 302M
      • **EDP 308
      • **PSY 317L
      • **SDS 301
      • **SOC 317L
      • ECO 329
      • EDP 371
    • Option 3: 6hrs of upper-division coursework in one foreign language, excluding courses conducted in English.
    • ** The ** courses also count for Core/COLA Math
    • Notes on catalog rules:
      • For students on the 2022-2024 and beyond catalogs, the GOV Tools requirement must be fulfilled in-residence or with transfer credit; AP credit cannot be used to fulfill it.
      • Students on the 2020-2022 catalog or any older catalog can use AP or transfer credit to fulfill the tools option. Students on these catalogs can also use any of the following Logic courses to fulfill the tools option: PHL 312, PHL 313, PHL 313K, PHL 313Q, or T C 310.
         
  • The 6 hours required for the Core Legislative GOV Requirement can be included in the hours counted toward the major.
  • A grade of at least a C- is required in all major courses.

Fulfilling the Legislative Requirement in Government [For All UT Majors]:

The Texas Education Code (Subchapter F, ยง51.301) requires Texas public university and community college students to complete six semester hours of coursework in government/political science; study of the US and Texas constitutions and related subjects is specified as the required course content.

It is strongly recommended that students complete both required government courses at one institution to avoid problems in completing the core curriculum 070 requirement. Students who choose to take the required courses at two different institutions should be certain they transfer
as one of the following combinations:

Acceptable Credit Combinations Comparable Texas Community College Numbers
GOV 310L + 312L GOVT 2301 + 2302 
GOV 310L + 305C GOVT 2301 + 2305 
GOV 310L + 306C GOVT 2301 + 2306 
GOV 305C + 306C GOVT 2305 + 2306