Major field electives and course substitutions
Major field electives
If your degree includes electives in the major field, courses chosen to fulfill these electives must be approved before they can count towards your degree. We strongly suggest you have your electives formally approved before you register for them because there is no guarantee that they will be approved after the fact.
First, consult with the chair of your department about appropriate courses. Once you and the chairperson have agreed on which courses are appropriate for you to take for your major field elective, ask the chair to send the Music Graduate Office a note (musgrad@iu.edu) or memo with written approval of your specific choices. The director of graduate studies will review the choices and either approve your choices or suggest that you need to consider alternatives. You will receive an e-mail confirmation either way; approved electives will be posted to your academic advisement report.
It is possible to get approval for your major field electives one course at a time. For example, if your degree requires nine credits of electives and at the moment you are sure of only three, you may ask for approval of those three now and then have the other six credits approved later.
Course substitutions
If your degree includes a course that you have already taken in a previous program at IU, you may propose a substitute course to take its place. Please follow the same approval procedure used for major field electives (described above).