FAQ

Click here to view CS&E and you will be able to search for all of the courses being offered for the current and upcoming semester. Keep in mind it is the Office of the Registrar who sets the dates on when a semester courses open for public view and enrollment. You can always find these dates here.

Click here for the courses that will be taught by the Econ Department.

In Course Search & Enroll you will find the full schedule of classes. You can utilize the filters to search for the specific ‘mode of instruction’ including in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous), etc.

If a course has variable credit, Course Search & Enroll will note how many credits all undergraduates must take the course for. This information will be listed under the “Course Prerequisites” section on Course Search once it is live. (For example, it may say: “Undergraduates must enroll for 4 credits.” As a general rule, classes with a discussion section are 4 credits (the 4th credit is your discussion section).

Check out this page for an in-depth description of the differences between these two classes! If you are pursuing or interested in pursuing the Econ with Math Emphasis major, you have to take Econ410- no exceptions! 

Econ 390 is an Economics elective topics course with sections/discussions that change each semester. For example, there could be two sections of Econ 390—so, there would be two different 390 courses to choose from. Econ 390, Section 001 is The Chinese Economy and Econ 390, Section 002 is Microeconomics in Popular Culture. 

The Course Search and Enroll App listing for intermediate and advanced level is NOT the same as what used to be known as “Advanced Economics Electives” that are required for the major! Due to this confusion, we have re-named our “Advanced Econ Electives” to now be called “Core Econ Electives” starting Fall2023. You can look to your DARS, the Guide, your Econ Academics Advisor, or the list of Core Econ Electives (offered in a current or upcoming semester) here to identify what classes are, or are not, required Core Econ Electives.  You will see that some Core Econ Electives are intermediate, and some are advanced. 

Core Economics Electives are courses that require completion of one or both intermediate economic theory courses, or a foundational economics stats course, and are taught in the Department of Economics; they do not include cross-listed courses, or courses taught by other departments. Other applied electives in economics are courses that require at least Econ 101. They may originate in our department or be cross-listed with our department. 

Once a class fills up, our waitlists open. Once the waitlist is full, the class will show as “closed”. If a student already enrolled in a course drops the course during this time period, Course Search & Enroll shows it as having a seat “available”. However, this seat will go to the next person who is already on the waitlist. With this, it may appear that one spot is open in the class, but in reality it is reserved for the first person on the wait-list. That person may not have accepted their spot in the class, which is why it still shows as available. You can also refer to our waitlist policy in Economics. 

DARS is your degree audit report system-it tells you what credits you’ve completed, and what you have left to complete your major and degree requirements. Click here to run a DARS.

New to DARS (degree audit)? Check out these video tutorials and step-by-step instructions:

• DARS for a declared major/certificate
• What If DARS for a major/certificate not declared
• How to read a DARS

You can also begin to plan your schedule by adding courses to Degree Planner. You can learn more about degree planner, here.

Click here for instructions on how to view your holds and who to contact to resolve them.

Check out the Office of the Registrar’s how-to page for tutorials on enrollment.

These classes are owned by the Wisconsin School of Business and are cross-listed with Economics. As such, these courses have their enrollment managed by their respective BBA office (for example, enrollment for Finance/Econ 300 is managed by the Dept. of Finance). Priority enrollment is given to students declared in Wisconsin School of Business with their major or the Business Certificate. Undeclared students must wait to enroll until a certain date, this can be found under the Business School listing (for example, Econ 420 would be listed as REAL EST 420) under Subject Notes. 

You need permission from the instructor (or instructors) of that particular course. For Masters level courses, you should email that approval to both EconAdvise (econadvise@ssc.wisc.edu) and Tchai Veu (veu@wisc.edu) to have your permission entered in the system. For PhD level courses, you should email that approval to both EconAdvise and gradpro@ssc.wisc.edu. If you are not sure which level the course is, please contact us at through EconAdvise.  Remember, this is an ASK of the professor, not a guarantee.

You must contact an economics advisor (econadvise@ssc.wisc.edu) to obtain permission to enroll in such a course. You must specify your campus ID number, class lecture and preferred discussion section too. A permission into a class in this case is NOT a guarantee of enrollment. We cannot enroll you into a full class. 

The best thing you can do is email econadvise@ssc.wisc.edu with your campus ID number and situation. From here, an advisor will either give you a permission or inform you of the next steps to take before a permission can, or could, be given. Remember, this is just a permission to enroll in the course. YOU (student) must enroll in the course through Course Search and Enroll, like with any other course. A permission may not guarantee you a spot into a course. We cannot enroll you into a full class. 

Economics Core Electives and other high-demand courses many times do have wait lists that students may register for. Students are not guaranteed a seat in the class if they enroll on the waitlist. As space becomes available, graduating economics seniors will have preference. You can see our policy here. 

For courses that are cross-listed with other departments, the wait list will be maintained by the primary department offering the course (for example, Finance/Economics 300 is owned by the Finance Department-so, the waitlist for this class is managed by the Finance Department).

If you are offered a spot off of the waitlist, you will receive an email from our office instructing you to enroll in the course within 48 hours of receiving this email.

Questions regarding the waitlist for an economics course may be directed to econadvise@ssc.wisc.edu.

Questions about the general use of a wait list should be referred to the Enrollment Helpline in the Office of the Registrar.

You are likely getting this error message because you didn’t select to take the class for 4 credits. This is an extra step you’ll need to take to be able to successfully add this course to your cart. With our example of Econ 455, you can see below a screen shot of where in Course Search you’ll be able to select to take it for 4 credits (click on Econ 455, click “see sections”, then click on the discussion section you want. You will then see a drop-down menu under “course options” where you can select 4 credits).

All deadline and timeline information can be found here.

There could be two reasons here. 1) You didn’t declare Economics as your major OR 2) your other major is outside of the College of Letters and Science (example: if you are majoring in finance and economics you will only see finance. Finance is in the WSB and, as such, your home school where you are earning your degree from.) Additionally, you will NOT see your certificates listed under your application for graduation. 

Students must apply for graduation via their Student Center to indicate that they are nearing completion of their degree. See the Office of the Registrar’s website for information and instructions about this process. In addition, we advise students to do the following:

1. Look at your DARS report via MyUW. Read it over carefully to find deficiencies-if you are meeting all requirements to graduate, everything will be GREEN. Be aware that each major (if you have more than one) will have its own DARS report
   1. *Keep in mind that your DARS is showing in-progress classes (for Fall 2021) as classes you will keep and pass. If you do not pass your classes, or get the GPA you need, this could influence your graduation date.
2. Check to make sure your major(s) is/are declared correctly. That is, make sure you have officially added and/or dropped majors so that the list of majors on record is exactly what you want for graduation. If not, go to the individual departments to add or drop a major. This also applies if you have declared Honors in the Liberal Arts (L&S students) or Honors in the Major.
3. Talk to an advisor about questions you have about meeting requirements.

Economics does host our own Economics graduation the Thursday before all-UW graduation. This graduation welcomes family and friends to honor the accomplishments of our undergraduate and graduate students. Find out more info here.