Transfer of Credit Toward the Major
The law and society program will accept up to the equivalent of two full courses of transfer credit to count toward the law and society major requirements. Two types of approval are needed. (1) Approval from the Office of the Registrar that the transfer course meets Oberlin’s transfer-of-credit eligibility standards and (2) approval from the department/program chair that the course(s) may count to the major. Current students taking post-matriculation credit must secure this approval before registering for course(s). Students who enter Oberlin as transfer students will have their pre-matriculation credit evaluated by the Office of the Registrar for elective credit, and they can later seek approval from the department/program for applying coursework to major requirements.
Course of Study
The recommended core courses, core research seminars, and law-related courses explore philosophical, political, economic, historical, sociological, ethical, scientific, and religious issues that are central to understanding the role of law and legal institutions in society.
Core courses and seminars are selected with the following objectives in mind:
- center on law and legal institutions directly
- explore the historical, philosophical, and ethical underpinnings of the development of law, thought, and institutions
- provide the analytic skills necessary to understand the logic and bases of legal thinking as a language in legal institutions, the broader society, and the profession of law.
Law-related courses have sections within them that meet at least one of the three objectives listed above or provide students an opportunity to write a term paper in which the scholarly issues of the course may be applied to legal institutions, thought, and/or the logic of legal inquiry.
