Course Requirements for the Minor

Course Requirements

  • Students must complete at least six courses (18 credit hours) from the list of courses posted in the General Announcements.

  • Students must complete one core course and five elective courses. Additional core courses count toward the elective course requirements.

  • At least four courses (12 credit hours) must be at the 300-level or higher.

  • With the exception of core courses, no more than two courses (6 credit hours) from the same department may be used to fulfill the requirements of the minor.

  • At least four of the courses (12 credit hours) applied towards the minor should be taken at Rice University. Students may apply up to 6 transfer credit hours from coursework taken outside Rice, if those transfer credits come from U.S. or international universities of similar standing.

  • Requests for the application of transfer credit towards PLST minor requirements will be considered by the PLST directors on an individual case-by-case basis.

  • Students may count one internship with 3 credit hours toward the requirements for the minor, as long as the internship substantively reflects the thematic focus of the minor in PLST. As general guidance, acceptable internships are concerned with the public dimension of law or fall into the area of public policy. Proposed internships have to be approved by the director before the official start date of the internship. Internships must adhere to the requirements and policies governing internships as they have been established by the School of Humanities and/or the School of Social Sciences.

  • Transfer credit coursework received via the articulation of AP, IB or A- level credit will not be considered. Additionally, transfer credit from online-only courses cannot be used to count toward the minor.

CORE COURSES

  • PLST 301 Modern Political Thought: From Machiavelli to Rawls
  • PLST 302 Contemporary Political Theory
  • PLST 303 How Democracy Fails
  • PLST 316/CLAS 316 Democracy and Political Theory in Ancient Greece
  • POLI 321: American Constitutional Law: Structures and Powers
  • HIST 373 19th-Century Social and Political Thought
  • HIST 392 Pre-Modern Political Thought from Cicero to Locke

ELECTIVE COURSES

No more than two courses, or 6 credit hours, from the same department may be used to fulfill the minor requirements.

A list of the elective courses may be found in the General Announcements Course Catalogue. Because PLST lists courses from so many other departments, and departments update their General Announcements pages every year, it is possible that some electives are not listed. Please contact the director of PLST if you are uncertain about whether a course counts as an elective.

For more information, feel free to contact us at ep28@rice.edu.