Departmental Policies

It is the responsibility of students to familiarize themselves with all course, department, college, and university policies. Questions about GVPT course and departmental policies may be directed to GVPT Advising. Unless stated otherwise, these policies apply to ALL majors within the Department of Government and Politics. "GVPT Students" refers to ALL students within the Department of Government and Politics, regardless of major.

Pre-requisite Policy

The Government & Politics Department enforces all pre-requisites. Students must successfully complete pre-requisites prior to attempting any course. The Government & Politics Department reserves the right to drop students who are missing a pre-requisite from their intended course without notice. For GVPT courses, students must have successfully completed all prerequisites with grades of C- or higher.

Course Restriction Policy

Government and Politics majors are allowed to take a maximum of 3 GVPT courses per fall and spring semester. All other majors are restricted from taking no more than 1 GVPT course per semester. 

UMD Major Credits Policy

At least 4 upper-level GVPT courses (12 credits) must be completed in residence through UMD. Please check with your GVPT advisor if you plan to study abroad or take courses at another institution to ensure that you are not in violation of this policy. GVPT counts courses by credits. One course is considered to be 3 credits. No major requirement will be considered complete until the minimum amount of credits has been reached.

Study Abroad Credits Policy

Students may apply a maximum of 6 credits of pre-approved study abroad coursework towards the 36 credits in GVPT requirements. This means that GVPT students can generally complete 2 GVPT/IR course requirements abroad. Additional GVPT credit completed abroad will be applied as general electives. Prior to studying abroad, please check in with your GVPT advisor to confirm compliance with the UMD Major Credits Policy outlined above and to discuss specifics about how your courses may be applied. 

Oversubscription Policy

In accordance with BSOS College policy, the Government and Politics Department does not oversubscribe students to any GVPT courses. Students are encouraged to sign up for all courses on their registration date, and must complete any mandatory advising or remove any other registration block BEFORE their registration appointment. Students should remain on waitlists and remember to check in every day during schedule adjustment to ensure they do not lose their spot on the waitlist. Starting on the first day of classes, the first 5 students on the waitlist for a course will be granted access to the course page on ELMs. These students should continue checking in on the waitlist until they officially receive a seat. If a seat is not gained at the end of the schedule adjustment period, the student will be removed from the waitlist and will lose access to the ELMs page.

No Double-Counting Major Requirements Policy

GVPT students will not be permitted to use one course to fulfill multiple GVPT major requirements. For example, students may not use a quantitative GVPT seminar course towards their skills requirement section and also towards the courses of choice section.

Experiential Learning Policy

There are limits as to how many experiential learning credits students may apply towards their GVPT/IR majors. This limit varies by major. GVPT considers experiential learning to consist of approved internship programs (GVPT377, Federal/Global/Maryland Fellows Fall courses [NOT including ENGL381/HONR368A]), GVPT research and independent studies (GVPT388), the GVPT Undergraduate TA program (GVPT386/389), Mock Trial (GVPT217 and 317), and Moot Court (GVPT439L, GVPT439M, and GVPT439N). Opportunities that put students beyond their major-specific limit will be considered elective credit.

Government & Politics B.A. and B.S. students are able to apply 6 experiential learning credits towards their major requirements. 

International Relations B.A. majors are able to apply 6 experiential learning credits towards their major requirements with the following limitation: GVPT departmental approval is needed to use experiential learning credits for an IR/CP course of choice requirement (up to 6 credits). Please contact GVPT Advising to request permission to apply experiential learning credits towards IR/CP-specific requirements. If you take experiential learning credits that could be applicable but do not contact us, we will assume that you wish to apply those credits towards non-IR/CP major requirements only.

• For IR - B.A. majors ONLY, Global Fellows Fall seminars may automatically count for IR/CP-specific credit with a grade of C- or higher. 
• For IR - B.A. majors ONLY, effective for Spring 2026, the first UTA experience course (GVPT386) may be applied for IR/CP-specific credit so long as the assigned course is IR/CP. 
• Instructions for requesting permission for GVPT377 to apply for IR/CP credit are included on the GVPT internship program application. Please see the GVPT internship program page for more details.

International Relations B.S. majors may apply a maximum of 3 experiential learning credits towards their major requirements with approval from GVPT's Director of Undergraduate Studies only. Please contact GVPT Advising to begin this process. If you do not request approval to apply experiential learning credits towards IR B.S. major requirements, we will assume you only wish to use those experiential learning credits as elective credits and advise you accordingly.

Switching to a new major within GVPT subjects you to the policies for your new major. Please keep in mind that if you declare a GVPT or IR major with more restrictive experiential learning policies, you may lose the ability to apply past experiential learning opportunities towards major requirements. 

Special Partner Programs

In limited circumstances, GVPT students may be allowed to substitute approved courses for GVPT courses of choice. Grades of C- or higher must be earned in order for courses to apply. It is the responsibility of the student to ensure they abide by all University and Departmental policies. Students should not assume non-GVPT courses will be allowed to apply to the major if they are not listed here, or if applying said courses will put students in violation of other policies. Questions may be directed to GVPT Advising.

Minor in International Development and Conflict Management (MIDCM)

Generally, students are able to double-count two GVPT courses between the GVPT major and the IDCM minor. Overlap between these two programs is often decided on a case by case basis. GVPT students pursuing MIDCM should plan to meet with a GVPT Advisor to confirm their plans abide by all relevant policies.

Law & Society Minor (MLAW)

MLAW courses taught by GVPT faculty members may be used as upper-level GVPT courses of choice. A maximum of two courses (or 6 credits) may double count between the GVPT major and the MLAW program.

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PHPE)

The PHPE major offers two courses that are crosslisted with GVPT: PHPE400 (crosslisted with GVPT449D) and PHPE401 (crosslisted with GVPT449E). While GVPT students are able to enroll in either of these courses under any course code, students will be limited in applying ONE of these options towards the GVPT courses of choice section. Questions regarding the applicability of these courses to the GVPT major may be directed to the GVPT advising office. Questions regarding course content should be directed to the host department, PHPE.

University Honors

University Honors (HONR) seminars taught by GVPT faculty members may be used as lower-level GVPT courses of choice.

Justice & Legal Thought Scholars Program

Justice & Legal Thought seminar courses taught by GVPT faculty members may be used as lower-level GVPT courses of choice.

Global Communities

HGLO101 (formerly BSGC101) may be applied as a lower-level GVPT course of choice.

Federal, Global, and Maryland Fellows (FGSM)

FGSM fall seminar courses (and their HONR crosslisted options) may count as upper-level GVPT courses of choice. Fall seminar courses taken specifically through the Global Fellows program may count for upper-level IR/CP credit for IR - B.A. majors. The Maryland General Assembly Writing Internship Program (ENGL381/HONR368A) does NOT count for GVPT major credit. This course instead may count towards the Fundamental Studies Professional Writing GenEd requirement.

ALL Federal, Global, and applicable Maryland Fellows seminar courses are considered experiential learning credit and are subject to the limitations outlined in the 'Experiential Learning Policy' section above.