Getting Help / Advising
- Advising
- Help with Tracking Degree Progress
- Help with Issues in SIS
- Help with SIS putting a CS elective in my Capstone slot (or any other course in a particular slot)
- Help with Studying Abroad
- Help with Internships / Career Planning
- Help with Non-CS (e.g. General Education) Requirements
- Help with Getting into a Course
- Help with Adding or Dropping a Course
- Help with Taking Overload Credit Hours
- Help with Declaring a Second Major / Double Major
- Help with a 5th Year Masters / UVAccelerate
- Help with Taking a Graduate Course as an Undergrad
Advising
Every BACS and BSCS major is assigned a faculty advisor in the CS department. You can find their name when you log into SIS. This person is a good resource for CS matters but not for everything. Your CS advisor is a great person to talk to about CS and computing issues, including career plans, getting into research, sub-areas of computing, etc. Other people and sources for getting information are described on this page and also on the “Spring 2025” page linked in the next paragraph.
Advising for Fall 2025 registration: The CS department is using a new process for advising BACS and BSCS majors before course registration for Fall 2025 begins on April 7. In the past, every student was required to see their faculty advisor to get their registration hold released. But this semester things are different, so please read the info about Advising for CS Majors during Spring 2025
Before course registration, some CS majors (but not all) will have an advising hold that will prevent them from registering until it is removed. See the page link above for how this might or might not affect you when registering for next term’s courses.
You can find when your faculty advisor will be available on this page: CS Faculty Advisor Availability
What do I do if I have a hold I don’t hear from my advisor? If you haven’t heard anything from your advisor after several attempts to contact them, please email cs-office@virginia.edu.
Help with Tracking Degree Progress
To see how the courses you have taken are meeting your degree requirements, in SIS you can click “Academics” in the left navigation panel, and then select “View Academic Requirements”. This will show you each requirement for your degree(s), which requirements you have already satisfied, what requirements your registered courses will meet, and which requirements you still need to meet.
Note, the Academic Requirements page is dense and somewhat unintuitive to read. However, it is the most concise way to view which courses are meeting which requirements. The Degree Progress is more visually appealing, but requires more searching to find the same information.
Help with Issues in SIS
SIS is wrong? Missing a class from transfer, something in the wrong “bucket”, etc. please email cs-office@virginia.edu with your name, ID, and situation. It is each student’s responsibility to ensure that their academic record as recorded on the SIS is accurate.
Help with SIS putting a CS elective in my Capstone slot (or any other course in a particular slot)
A “feature” of SIS that often confuses students and faculty is how SIS will take courses and place them into certain requirements slots in the Academic Requirements (AR) report. SIS will take the list of available coures that haven’t been used yet and put a given course into the “highest priority spot” that it can fit into (and then it uses the courses with the highest grades first if there is a tie). The number one culprit of this is a CS elective that gets put against the capstone requirement instead of the CS elective requirement, because to SIS, the capstone has higher priority. Often someone (student or faculty) will ask to have the course moved down to the CS elective slot.
Nothing needs to be done in this case. Once something else is taken that fits the capstone slot better (e.g. CS 4980), the CS elective will move down to its appropriate slot automatically.
Also, if the student is doing the 6th elective option for the capstone, the actual elective that appears in the capstone slot does not matter, even if that course has nothing to do with the actual capstone paper being written for CS 4991.
Help with Studying Abroad
Start with the International Studies office - https://www.virginia.edu/academics/international. They see a lot of CS majors and know many things that CS faculty don’t. (For example, universities that match your goals in particular countries; costs; application processes; etc.)
The CS department does play a role in approving courses that satisfy CS major requirements.
- To see if a CS course will count for a CS major requirement, both BACS and BSCS majors should contact Prof. Charles Reiss @ creiss@virginia.edu. Email him with details about the course (such as a website describing the course). If you’re a BACS student he will email the BACS Program Director with his decision after he evaluates the course.
- For BACS students seeking approval for an Integration Elective, email bacsdirector@virginia.edu with details about the course. See note below about BACS students and DocuSign forms.
- Note about BACS students and the DocuSign form: The College now requires the BACS Program Director to sign the DocuSign form and no one else, and this leads to a few issues. First, the Director is not the person in CS who evaluates and approves CS courses, so be sure to contact Prof. Reiss first and get his approval; this approval then needs to be passed along to the Director so they can sign the form. Second, by signing the DocuSign form, the BACS Director is only approving the CS courses you list on your form. The non-CS courses will be evaluated and approved by the College after you submit the form, including exactly which course number a non-CS courses transfers as. Thus the BACS Director cannot say whether or not a non-CS course you list on the form will count for a requirement for general education, a minor or a second major. (If the Director does approve something as an integration elective, we’ll accept it no matter number is used when it appears on your transcript.)
Help with Internships / Career Planning
For issues related to internships or finding a job that the faculty can’t answer, all computing students should visit the website or office of the Center for Engineering Career Development in Thornton Hall A-wing. They work with both SEAS and BACS students.
You can also take advantages of the resources at the UVA Career Center. Make sure to create a Handshake profile to get even more informaiton!
For students particularly interested in pre-med / medical careers, please see https://career.virginia.edu/Students/Connect/PreHealth.
Help with Non-CS (e.g. General Education) Requirements
BACS majors: Any questions that’s NOT related to CS requirements, students should ask their association dean. (This is like a 2nd advisor for College students who handles issues not related to their major subject such as College foundation requirements, etc.)
SEAS majors: SEAS students will need to work with the SEAS Deans Office for Undergraduate Programs for inquiries regarding non-CS SEAS foundational requirements.
Help with Getting into a Course
Enrollment in a course is ultimately up to the instructor, so reach out to them first. There are instances where an instructor cannot let you into a course (e.g. the course is already at fire code limit, there are limited resources for teaching the course, etc.). The department will not override a faculty member’s decision on letting a student into a course that is already full or if the student does not meet the prerequisites.
If a course must be taken in a specific semester in order for a student to graduate on time, email the instructor and the appropriate program director - bscsdirector@virginia.edu or bacsdirector@virginia.edu - with your situtation.
Help with Adding or Dropping a Course
All CS courses follow SEAS deadlines for add, drop, and withdraw regardless of the school of enrollment of the student. Add, drop, and withrdaw deadlines can be found on the appropriate academic calendar on the Registrar’s website..
More information about how to add, drop, or withdraw from a course using SIS can be found on ITS’ SIS help pages. Similarly, faculty should reference the help page for faculty for specific questions.
Help with Taking Overload Credit Hours
BACS
College students are restricted to 15 credit hours during initial registration. This limit increases to 17 at the beginning of the semester. Please see the University Registrar’s website for the specific dates. For a College student to do more than 17 hours, they need to do an overload form through the College. These are only processed at the beginning of a semester.
BSCS
CpE
SEAS students should aim to take 15 credit hours a term on average to complete their degree on time. SEAS students are limited to 19 credit hours in a semester without special permission. This limit does not change like the College limit does. To take more than 19 credit hours in a semester, a SEAS student should fill out the Over 19 Hours form from the SEAS forms website.
Help with Declaring a Second Major / Double Major
BACS
The College has restrictions on sharing courses between two majors and between a major and minor. The student should see the College website on declaring a minor or major to learn about these, or see their Association Dean.
BSCS
CpE
See the SEAS page on Declaring a Major or Minor.
Help with a 5th Year Masters / UVAccelerate
The CS contact for this is Prof. Felix Lin and the website is https://engineering.virginia.edu/future-grads/graduate-programs/uvaccelerate.
For if you have CS-specific questions, please email cs-UVAccelerate@virginia.edu to reach all program directors and the CS office staff. For more SEAS-related questions, please email the contacts on the UVAccelerate page.
Help with Taking a Graduate Course as an Undergrad
BSCS
CpE
See the SEAS Undergraduate Forms page for the form to use to request to take a graduate-level course as an undergrad in SEAS. Note that graduate courses taken that are not in any way used toward an undergraduate degree (neither degree requirements nor overall credits) can be transferred over to a graduate program post-graduation.
BACS
For a 5000-level course, we’re told you do not need special permission to enroll.
For a 6000-level course:
College students enrolled in UVAccelerate: You should receive instructions from that program about the process you should use. Essentially you will follow the procedure for SEAS students (see above), and the UVAccelerate and SEAS will coordinate with the College to make this happen. Also, see Note below.
College students not in UVAccelerate: The College has a policy described on their College Forms page. To enroll in a 6000-level course students must complete and submit the “6000 Form”. However, the form will not be made available until a few weeks before classes start, so it’s not possible to enroll before that time. (The CS department has no control over this policy.)
Note: The College won’t approve enrollment if the course is listed as full in SIS when they get the form. It will get rejected when it makes it to the College person who signs it, so you’ll need to wait until a place opens up and then hope the process moves quickly enough. (About 3 people have to look at the form, so it sometimes doesn’t. ) This is an awkward process and frustrating, but it’s the College’s way and we in CS don’t have any control over it.