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Parents & Friends

The School of Undergraduate Studies (UGS) is home to students exploring majors. We oversee undergraduate education and offer strategic advising and dynamic programs for all undergraduates.

New students may apply to Undergraduate Studies through the University of Texas’s Office of Admissions.

Information sessions for students interested in UGS are held most Friday afternoons. Learn more and register online.

The UGS Student Experience

The Vick Center for Strategic Advising helps undeclared students enrolled in UGS as well as undecided students across the university explore educational options and career plans. Our advisors have the smallest student caseloads on campus and meet regularly, one-on-one with students as they learn about their interests, identify career goals, adjust to college life, and ultimately select the major with which they will graduate.

Scholarships like the UGS Summer Exploration Grant enable UGS students to engage in summer experiences that help them explore academic interests and possible careers.

Programs for all UT Students

Students enrolled in any of UT’s colleges or schools benefit from UGS’s university-wide programs that provide a small-college experience at a major research university.

The Sanger Learning Center offers tutoring for difficult courses and staff to help students hone study skills.

In First-year Interest Groups (FIGs), small groups of like-minded incoming students take classes and help each other adjust to college-level academics and student life.

The Freshman Reading Round-Up is a two-hour event that introduces small groups of incoming students to books selected and discussed with UT’s top faculty.

Signature Courses kick off UT students’s academic experience with top faculty teaching interdisciplinary classes covering topics of contemporary interest.

Core Curriculum

The UT core curriculum requirements are part of every degree plan on campus. Core courses put students’ major coursework into a broader intellectual context, incorporating the perspectives of a wide variety of disciplines.

Students are introduced to the core curriculum, and to university studies in general, by participating in a shared intellectual experience known as the Signature Course in their first semester on campus. Signature Courses are taught by faculty from every college and school and cover a vast array of topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, while incorporating common elements that help to cultivate a community of learners.

Flagged courses, found in every department, ensure that all UT students acquire important skills in writing, independent inquiry, and quantitative reasoning, while being exposed to content relating to cultural diversity, global cultures, and ethics and leadership.