Curriculum
Courses as an undergraduate student
Applicants for the dual-degree program should major in environmental science. The major includes a strong foundation in the basic sciences and a five-course concentration in one of the following: “Water and Climate,” “Energy and Sustainability,” “Environmental Health,” or “Ecology and Natural Resources.”
Students may begin taking courses at the master’s level as early as their third year. While they are still officially an undergraduate, they may take up to 4 master’s level courses (or 12 credit hours) that will subsequently be transferred to the master’s program. The Dual Degree will therefore be 168 credit hours:
- 120 credit hours taken during the undergraduate career:
- 84 hours of undergraduate general education courses, including courses required prior to admission to the major, requirements for a second major (if any), and requirements for a minor (if any)
- 36 hours of courses required for major in environmental studies
- 12 hours graduate level courses taken within the undergraduate credit requirements to double count towards your Master’s degree
- 48 hours of graduate-level courses that will satisfy all requirements for the MSIS:
- (12 hours transferred from the undergraduate career)
- 36 hours taken during the graduate program
The MSIS courses students take as undergraduates should be comprised of up to four of the following:
- INLS 500: Human Information Interactions
- INLS 509/COMP 487: Information Retrieval
- INLS 520: Organization of Information
- INLS 523: Introduction to Database Concepts and Applications
- INLS 560: Programming for Information Professionals
- (other MSIS core course as recommended by the advisor)
Undergraduate students interested in pursuing a second major* in Information Science or minor* in Information Systems should be made aware of relevant courses at the undergraduate level:
- INLS 089: First Year Seminar – Special Topics
- INLS 151: Retrieving and Analyzing Information
- INLS 161: Tools for Information Literacy
- INLS 201: Foundations for Information Science
- INLS 202: Retrieval and Organizing Systems
- INLS 203: Human Information Behavior
- INLS 318: Human Computer Interactions
- INLS 382: Information Systems Analysis and Design
- INLS 384: Information and Computer Ethics
- INLS 385: Information Use for Organizational Effectiveness
*Note that NONE of the minor courses can then count for the MSIS, nor can any courses used to fulfill the BS degree.
Courses as a graduate student
The MSIS graduate program requires 48 credits, which means that students could take 3 to 12 graduate credit hours as undergraduates to be transferred in. Students may take upper level INLS courses as soon as they begin the MSIS degree without having to take additional introductory skills courses. To illustrate, a BS student could take INLS 523 (Introduction to Database Concepts and Applications) as an ‘extra’ course (beyond the BS requirements) during their undergraduate years and transfer in the 3 credits upon admission to the MSIS. This would allow them to take INLS 623 (Database Systems II: Intermediate Databases) as early as the first semester of the MSIS program.