Planning Your BA Programme

First Year Students | Part-time Students | Returning or Transferring Students | Choosing Papers

First Year Students

First year papers in the Arts or Social Sciences at Waikato begin at an introductory level so you don't need to have studied them at high school. It is important, however, that you have a very good standard of reading and writing skills.

At the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, student advisers are available to talk with you about your choice of degree, major and subjects, and relate these to your career goals. We like to do this when you first start planning your degree, to enhance your time at university.

Remain flexible in your first year of study so you can try out different subjects and decide which ones you enjoy - you don't need to plan your whole degree at this stage. At the start of your second year of study, you can plan the rest of your degree to meet University requirements. If you are interested in taking a double major, again you don't need to identify this in your first year.

Remember:
100 Level papers are introductory level and are normally taken in your first year of study;
200 Level papers are more advanced and are generally taken in your second year;
and 300 Level papers are the most advanced and are generally taken in your third year.

In your first year of study, you will enrol in eight 100 Level papers, consisting of three pairs of papers (two papers in each of three subjects), plus two additional papers. If you are admitted under provisional entrance regulations you may be limited to six papers (three papers per semester in the first year). This will still count as a full-time programme so you will be eligible for Student Loans and Allowances.

Choose two subjects that interest you as possible second major/supporting subjects and choose two papers from each of these subjects. For a BA, one of these subjects must be an Arts subject.

For your remaining papers, choose subjects or papers that interest you.

Your papers should be balanced evenly over both semesters (that is four papers in the A semester and four papers in the B semester).

Remember to check your timetable to make sure there are no clashes and that you have a balanced semester workload.

Part-time Students

Part-time study may involve taking one or two papers per semester or over the full academic year. However, to be eligible for student loans and allowances, you will need to be enrolled in a full-time programme.

Returning and Transferring Students

Although Arts and Social Sciences student advisers check your programme of study to ensure you are meeting the degree requirements, you are also responsible for choosing papers that will fulfil BA degree regulations (eg; compulsory papers for your major). If you follow the guidelines this should be routine, and you should be able to enrol online or by post. However, you should put aside sufficient time to plan your programme of study for the coming year, and to discuss your programme with departmental or Faculty Office staff before enrolment. If your programme isn't in order, you may end up taking additional papers, possibly paying extra fees or taking longer to complete your degree.

Check that you have a balanced semester workload; that you have no timetable clashes (or you may need to come to enrolment in person to change your papers); and that you have the prerequisites to enrol in your selected papers.