Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Members of the College Honors Program who have successfully completed an Individualized Studies major may receive a bachelor's degree "With College Honors in Individualized Studies," providing the following conditions have been met: 1.) Completion of the lower-division College Honors requirements specified for all College Honors candidates. 2.) Completion of no fewer than 10 credits in an upper-division program of Honors courses specified by the Individualized Studies adviser. This will consist of two or more Honors courses in at least two fields which play significant roles in your program. (You may use the Ad Hoc Honors form to obtain Honors credit for a non-honors course.) 3.) Honors credit earned for the required Senior Study. (You must use the Ad Hoc Honors form to obtain Honors credit for INDIV 493.) 4.) A UW cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.30.
If you are not a member of the College Honors program complete but do complete numbers 2-4 above, you may complete "Departmental Honors" and graduate "With Distinction" in Individualized Studies. Consult an Individualized Studies adviser for more information.

Individualized Studies awards both B.A. and B.S. degrees. Which degree is awarded depends on the content of the major. To be awarded a B.S. degree, an Individualized Studies program must include a number of the courses typically required by other UW science majors, such as calculus, the CHEM 142 series, and the PHYS 114 or 121 series. If you are interested in a B.S. degree, discuss it with your Individualized Studies adviser.

The Individualized Studies degree is granted by the College of Arts and Sciences. Individualized Studies majors must complete all Arts and Sciences general education requirements, including Language skills (English Composition and Foreign Language), Reasoning and Writing in Context (Reasoning and Additional Writing), 75 credits of Areas of Inquiry (A&H, SSc, NSc), and Diversity.

You are allowed to include engineering courses in an Individualized Studies major, but you are not allowed to include "Engineering" in the title. The College of Engineering has interdisciplinary degree programs similar in intent to the Individualized Studies program. If you are contemplating an interdisciplinary major with substantial engineering course content, you might be better served in the College of Engineering.

No, except the Disability Studies and Ethnomusicology majors. Keep in mind, however, that students completing Disability Studies or Ethnomusicology as one of two majors in either a double major or double degree are allowed no more than 15 credits of overlap between the two majors.
Students who already hold a bachelor's degree may apply to the University to pursue a second bachelor's degree in Individualized Studies, but such proposals are very rarely accepted. The University's focus is on first degrees, and doing Individualized Studies for a second bachelor's degree is almost never appropriate.
 
If you are accepted as a post-baccalaureate student, the same method of preparing the major outlined above pertains. A maximum of 15 credits of your Individualized Studies proposal may overlap with your first major. The general education requirements of the College of Arts and Sciences must also be met, although students who have already completed a bachelor's degree are exempt from the English composition, foreign language, RSN, and additional writing (W) requirements.

Individualized Studies awards only bachelor's degrees. An Individual Ph.D. (IPhD) Program exists, but is administered by the Graduate School.

A handful of Individualized Studies majors have been designed by UW faculty; the rules for designing, proposing, and declaring these majors are different. Currently, there are three faculty-designed majors: Disability Studies, Ethnomusicology, and Public Health.