Undergraduate Advising

Before contacting an Advisor, please read the following:

• If you are inquiring about an English R1A or R1B course, please read the R1A or R1B policy overview before you email an English Major Advisor.
• Fall 2024 First-Year (Freshman), please wait to schedule an appointment until after you attend your Golden Bear Advising (June 4-June 25). Join the English Major Advisors via Zoom July 2 at 11 am to learn more about the major and answers to your English major questions.

• Fall 2024 Transfers, please wait to schedule an appointment until after you attend your Golden Bear Advising (Tuesday, June 18th) AND READ our English Major Transfer Transition message.  Join the English Major Advisors via Zoom July 2 at 11 am to learn more about the major, transfer articulated courses and answers to your English major questions.
  
• If you want to declare the major, go to Declaring the Major.

*Do not email two UMAs separately with the same question. If you want to loop in multiple UMAs, please CC them in the same email.

Scheduling Advising Appointments:

To schedule an appointment with an English Undergraduate Major Advisor, go to CalCentral. If you are not sure how to schedule an appointment, view the helpful Booking an Advising Appointment guide.

Drop-In Advising:

To view our drop-in hours hosted by Undergraduate Major Advisors and Peer Advisors, visit our UMA drop-in hour calendar.

Undergraduate Major Advisors:

Peer Advisors

Peer Advisors share their knowledge of and experiences with English major courses, extracurriculars and student groups and campus resources. For specific degree requirements/degree checks, please book an appointment with Chloe or Jacki. Peer Advisors are unavailable during campus official holidays/breaks. Peer Advisors are available for more general questions.

Topics you can get help with through Peer Advising?

• Help with using Assist.org for transfer courses
• Assist with choosing classes to declare major or to complete major requirements
• Support navigating which campus office to contact with questions
• Guidance in whether to make an appointment with advising staff

Faculty Major Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Studies

What are the differences between the Faculty Major Advisor (FMA), the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS), and the Undergraduate Major Advisors (UMA)? Good question, and here some answers:

The Undergraduate Major Advisors are here to help you with the rules and requirements of the English major and minor: only the UMAs have access to the student systems that carry out the technical and administrative processing of your records. The UMAs are the people you must go to in order to declare the major officially. You should also go to them for help with articulating community college courses, petitioning to transfer courses from other departments or schools, and questions about department deadlines and schedules.

The Faculty Major Advisor is here for different reasons and needs that you may have. The FMA can serve as an intellectual mentor for the academic year. What being an “intellectual mentor” means is that the FMA is happy to talk with you about your intellectual interests, classes that fulfill or supplement those interests, academic and curricular choices more generally, possible study after college—and more. If you have a question that the FMA cannot answer, they can usually refer you to another source. Particularly if you have not already found a faculty mentor from among the teachers of your classes—but even if you have—please feel free to contact and visit the FMA for their expert guidance.

For the academic year of 2023-2024, the department’s FMA is Andrew Way Leong (andrew_leong@berkeley.edu). His office hours will be available at the beginning of the fall term.

The Director of Undergraduate Studies, Kevis Goodman (kgoodman@berkeley.edu), welcomes you to the department and is here to discuss the same issues as the FMA and to offer you similar sorts of guidance. In addition, like the UMAs, the DUS can answer the questions you have about the details and requirements of the major or minor (but she cannot process your electronic records). She makes the decisions on student petitions for transferring courses from other departments and schools and can therefore advise you on that subject. Finally, the DUS can also talk to you about the department course offerings for the current academic year and possibly the next. Students are encouraged to drop in on her office hours, email her for an appointment, or ask questions by email.