FAQ's Undergraduate

The Honours program requires 42 credits of specific courses, versus 36 credits for the Major Concentration. Most of the courses required for the Honours program are different from those that can be taken for the Major Concentration. Calculus I and II are prerequisites for joining the Honours program, in contrast to the Major Concentration, whose required courses usually only use basic operations in high school algebra. Prior to making a choice between the Honours and Major Concentration, students should consult the departmental handouts on these programs available on our website.

You declare your program in economics by specifying it yourself on Minerva. The department does not enter or modify this specification. Before registering for either Honours or a Major Concentration in economics, you should read the department's handouts on these programs, which are available on our website. In addition, if you wish to do Honours in economics, you must consult an Honours advisor prior to registration. Note: The Honours program requires a background in Calculus I and II prior to joining the Honours program. MATH 133 (Vectors, Matrices and Geometry) is required for this program and should be taken in U1. A few of the more advanced Honours courses have a recommendation for Calculus 3 (MATH 222).

If you switch from Honours to the Major Concentration, the credits for the Honours courses in economics that you have passed (with a grade of C or better) will be allowed to count towards the Major Concentration. However, if you switch from the Major Concentration to Honours, the Majors courses that you took will not be counted towards the Honours program. You will have to take the courses required for the Honours program; however, you will be able to count the Majors courses for elective credits. See below for the switch between ECON 250 and ECON 230. Also consult the advisor for the program you wish to switch to.

ECON 208 and 209 do not count toward the Major Concentration or Honours in economics – they only count towards a Minor Concentration. However, if you later register for the Major Concentration or Honours, the credits you received for ECON 208 and 209 are treated as electives.

You may choose to do so, but it is not required. In fact, you should not take ECON 208 and 209 if you are in a three‐year (90 credit) program. However, if you are in the Freshman Year (U0) of a four‐year program, taking them will give you some exposure to ideas and their presentation in economics. These two courses combined satisfy the prerequisites of some other courses in economics, which will allow you to take higher level Econ courses in U1. Note that you cannot take ECON 208 if you have passed, or are registered for ECON 230/250 and cannot take ECON 209 if you have passed, or are registered for ECON 332, 333/353, 354.

You can only take ECON 250 after completing ECON 230 if you switch your registration to Honours, provided that an Honours advisor approves this switch. If you do so, you will retain the 6 credits for ECON 230 but they will become elective credits and not be counted towards the Honours in economics.

During the fall add/drop period you can make the switch on Minerva from ECON 250 to ECON 230 by yourself. Beyond the fall add/drop period, you must register your switch with Student Records (see Arts or Science Students; Late Course Change - Honours to Major) via their online form. You will be allowed to switch from ECON 250 to ECON 230 during add/drop starting in the Winter term. Therefore, prior to registering for one of these courses, you should carefully consider your decision on whether you should register for Major Concentration or Honours in economics and should consult your advisor. There are specific regulations on the procedures for switching courses. Please review the department's handout on the Honours Programs for these regulations.

In general, 6 credits of statistics are required for the Major Concentration and Honours in economics. In some cases, they can be taken in a unit other than the department of economics. The specific regulations on statistics courses can be found in Rules on Statistics Courses for Economics Students.

You should consult the websites of the Faculties of Arts and of Management for the regulations and courses for these Minor Concentrations. The Faculty of Management has appointed a specific advisor for their various programs.

Whether the class you want to take is full or not, the department (your advisor, chairman, instructor etc.) cannot register you in the course. Check Minerva frequently to see if a place has opened up in the course, which does happen frequently during add/drop since some students who registered for it, later withdraw from it. If there is a waitlist for the class, you must register for the waitlist and be patient. However, if you are a graduating student and the class is full when you try to register for it on Minerva, you can then indicate to the instructor your desire and reasons for taking the course, so that the instructor can determine whether the course cap could be raised. In most cases, the cap cannot be increased due to the size of the room and fire regulations.

You can only switch on Minerva between the different sections of full‐year courses during the add/drop period in the Fall term but must remain in the same section for both Fall and Winter terms. You cannot automatically switch between the different sections of full year courses after this period, Minerva does not allow this and you may end up withdrawn from your full year course if you try to switch sections. Different sections of these courses are normally taught by different instructors, often with different textbooks and approaches, and may not cover the material in the same order.

To get credit for economics courses taken at another university (for example, prior to joining McGill or during an exchange or visit to another university) you should consult the department's document Economics Course Credit on the regulations on transfer credits and then consult the advisor in charge of transfer credits and course equivalency approvals. Prior to or at the time of this consultation, you should provide the name of the university, the courses you want considered, their course descriptions and their reading lists. For complete information see Arts OASIS Study Away website.

Prior to registering for ECON 399 you should consult the Faculty of Arts Internship Office website. Once you have lined up an appropriate job but prior to starting it, you need to fill out the Arts Internship Academic Credit Application Web Form available in the Economics Section of the Faculty of Arts Internship Office website and have it signed by a faculty member who approves the Internship and is willing to supervise the required term paper as well as obtaining the other required signatures. The supervisor will specify the topic of the term paper and any other requirements. Please Note: This course does not count for credit for honours, major or minor programs.

The department designates different advisors for the Major/Minor Concentration, the Honours program, and a specific advisor to approve transfer credits for courses taken away from McGill. Their names and email addresses are listed under the Advising Information webpage and they can be contacted any time by email for advising.

The Faculty of Management appoints an advisor for its Concentrations and programs for students, including those registered in the Faculty of Arts.