A&S Course Explorer makes it easier for students and advisors to discover courses across majors, minors, and the IQ Curriculum.
Beginning in Fall 2025, Arts & Sciences students and advisors will have a new tool that makes it easier to see which classes count toward a major, minor, or the IQ Curriculum — no matter which department offers them.
The idea grew out of feedback from Arts & Sciences students, advisors, faculty, and leaders during the university’s transition to Workday Student. Many pointed out how challenging it could be to track down course sections across different departments and programs, especially with the move away from cross-listing. Since exploring courses across disciplines is central to the Arts & Sciences experience, the school saw an opportunity to create a tool that simplifies the process.
“Exploration is at the heart of an Arts & Sciences education,” said Sara Ryu, director of academic initiatives and special advisor to the vice dean in the College of Arts & Sciences. “This tool makes possible the kind of browsing for students who may not know exactly what they’re looking for and are trying to discover something new.”
Multiple staff members in Arts & Sciences collaborated across IT, data analysis, and registrar teams to pull course data, build the application, and integrate it into the Arts & Sciences website. They also coordinated with departments to ensure the tool reflected program requirements as accurately as possible. For Fall 2025, the tool covers 221 programs of study, 1,108 academic requirements, and 5,032 course sections, highlighting its comprehensive scope.
“This isn’t only about exploration across disciplines,” Ryu said. “It’s also about showing students how a specific major or minor contains knowledge from many different areas, which is, after all, the kind of inquiry integral to the liberal arts and sciences. The tool lets them see that interdisciplinarity in action.”
Students and advisors can use the tool in several ways. For example, a student considering majoring in global studies can see all course sections in a semester that count toward that major, even if they’re offered in other departments. Those needing to fulfill requirements of the IQ Curriculum — an individual combination of courses across the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities — can search by one or more IQ attributes to view all eligible Arts & Sciences course sections.
The tool also supports cross-disciplinary discovery, allowing students to see how courses in one field, like environmental science, might fulfill requirements for another program, such as political science. Advisors can use it to help students plan their class schedules, ensuring they meet major, minor, and IQ Curriculum requirements efficiently. It also protects sensitive information, including class locations and instructor names, while still giving students the ability to easily explore course sections.
The tool will first be introduced during Fall 2025 advising meetings to help students prepare for Spring 2026 registration. It can be accessed on the Arts & Sciences website.
“From a student perspective, this is a way to find new options, plan ahead, and understand how any Arts & Sciences course weaves into their larger academic journey,” Ryu said.
