To earn a master's degree through the Individual Option program, you must fulfill the following requirements:
Students must choose a total of 46 hours of 400- to 500-level coursework. 400-level courses are generally offered to undergraduate students, but graduate student may also obtain credit for these courses if they complete one or two additional graduate-level assignments arranged by the instructor.
Students in the program may choose courses from a wide variety of majors and minors at UIS. To help students decide which courses would best fit into their intended degree plan, it is wise to discuss options with an advisor as soon as possible after admission into the program.
UIS requires four semester hours of coursework focusing on public affairs and services topics. Each semester, a number of different PAC courses are offered to provide interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary public issues. There are no prerequisites for any of the colloquia.
To help make the INO degree suit students’ specialized interests, they may register for independent study. Before doing this, students will need to make sure they have an approved INO degree proposal. This independent study should be listed in the degree plan.
Students planning to incorporate independent study into their degree plan should complete the following steps:
Draft an initial outline using categories from the INO Independent Study Proposal. This is a blue form available in the INO Program Office, or you can download the Word document here .
Identify a faculty sponsor for your project. Identifying an external resource may also be appropriate. Meet with this sponsor using the draft outline as a starting point.
When you and your sponsor have agreed on the nature of your project, complete the final version of the proposal and have your sponsor sign the INO blue form and fill out a WPD (With Permission of the Dean form) which initiates the permission to register process.
The WPD, with faculty signature, should be forwarded to the INO Director with the original blue form and a copy of the INO Independent Study Proposal; both should be signed by your faculty sponsor. You and your sponsor may each want to keep a copy of the proposal for your records.
The INO Director will then forward the WPD and copy of the INO Independent Study Proposal to the Dean of the college of your faculty sponsor for this project. The Dean's office will sign off on the WPD form and return both the WPD and Independent Study Proposal to the INO/LIS Program Office where the course can then be entered in the computer system to the Office of Admissions and Records.
You will need to call or go to Registration to register for the course after being entered into the computer system.
Plan ahead. It is not easy to get all of these signatures at the last minute. Begin to work on your proposal in the semester before you plan to actually register.
