Please see the School Calendar| for full details of all LSE's taught courses available to General Course students.
The General Course application form asks you to identify up to six courses of particular interest - to assist us in making an initial departmental assignment. Prior to your arrival you will be asked to select four courses for the purposes of pre-registration. However, your final selection of four course will be confirmed after your arrival at LSE and in consultation with your personal tutor. Our aim is to give you full access to those courses that you wish to pursue. Thus, whilst LSE cannot commit itself to guarantee the availability of course selections, every effort is made to do so. Again, there are more than 250 courses available to General Course students and you have the right to change your course selections up to the end of the fourth week of the first term. In more than 99 per cent of cases, students get all of the courses they want - and time to explore and to change their minds. Successful applicants are assigned to a place in one of the academic departments at LSE, and that department will subsequently nominate a member of their faculty to act as the student's personal tutor (adviser) during the year.
On the application form we ask you to indicate three departmental preferences, which should correspond with one of the School's academic departments. Before making such an assignment we will try to weigh up the balance of your proposed course interests and the demand for places in particular departments from one year to another. The key issue is that you have the right to choose the courses you wish to follow; the departmental assignment does not restrict your right to pursue courses in any field of study. Please note, once accepted, you have every right to change your course choices, but it is not possible to change your departmental allocation without the permission of the Associate Dean for the General Course.
The Undergraduate course guides| represent what will be taught in 2010-11 and should be referred to when you complete the course preferences section of the application form. They name the key academic responsible for each course, a description of its coverage, basic bibliographies and any pre-requisites. The three-digit codes used indicate whether the course is normally followed by our own three-year degree students in their first (100), second (200) or third (300) year of study, but access is not restricted for General Course students.
The course descriptions should be read carefully as many assume a level of aptitude in the subject. 300 level courses, for instance, are the equivalent of senior year courses at a four year institution and should consequently only be take by those with a strong background in the field. We encourage new students to sample a range of courses in the first four weeks of the session and to discuss with lecturers and class teachers their own level of skill and the course expectations before confirming their choices for the year.
The designation 'half-unit' ('H') means that the course in question counts for only half the 'weight' of a full-year course: typically, all of its teaching is contained in just one term and students would take two of such half-units instead of one full year course. All courses, including half-unit courses, are examined at the end of the Summer Term.
Timetabling details for lectures for the new academic year will be available on the Timetables| web page from late August. Please note, it cannot be guaranteed that every course on the timetable will be available, as some may be withdrawn at the last minute due to changes in staff availability. However, this will happen only in exceptional circumstances.
A list of departments, a brief description of each of them and a list of the courses that they currently have available to General Course students can be found on the Academic departments| web page.