Research Courses
Before you even come to SOAR, you can start researching courses you might be interested in taking by exploring the Guide, our online repository for course information and academic policy. You can also research courses using the Class Search feature within your Student Center, accessible from the myUW dashboard. Here are some types of courses you can consider:
- First-Year Seminars: While it’s not your first year in college, it will be your first year at UW-Madison. There are lots of different first-year seminars, some of which have sections designed specifically for transfer students. Visit the Center for the First-Year Experience (CFYE) website for a list of first-year seminars and more information on how they can help you.
- Transfer Interest Groups (TrIGs): TrIGs are clusters of two to three courses linked together to explore a common theme and offered to incoming transfers who attend these classes together as a cohort. Most TrIGs are limited to 20 students, so you are guaranteed to get a small group experience. In addition to following a theme, they sometimes try to incorporate courses that satisfy gen-ed requirements that most transfer students have not yet fulfilled, like the Communication B requirement or the Ethnic Studies requirement. Depending on the semester, there may also be some first-year interest groups (FIGs, normally offered to incoming freshmen), open to transfers as well. Visit the FIGS website for more information on both TrIGs and FIGs.
- Service Learning Courses: These are courses across disciplines which incorporate at least 25 hours of volunteer service or community engagement. For the current course list and more information about service learning courses in general, visit the Morgridge Center’s website.
- Honors Courses: Many UW schools and colleges have their own honors programs, and many courses can be taken for honors credit. Please visit the relevant link for more information on joining an honors program in your school or college:
Love the Libraries
We’ve got 41 libraries on campus. You don’t have to wait until you get to campus to start exploring them! Our librarians have created a handy research guide specifically for transfer students to help you learn about the resources available. Be sure to check that out, and also note that if you already satisfied your Communication A general education requirement, you may not receive any formal instruction on library research in the way it’s expected at UW-Madison. In this case, we’d recommend enrolling in the Libraries Sift and Winnow tutorial through Learn@UW. You can move through it at your own pace, and it can be particularly helpful if you’ve already had a research paper assigned to you.
Buy Books
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What books do I need?
Your textbooks for each of the classes you’ve enrolled in will appear in your student center, accessible via the MyUW portal, as soon as your professors load them. This handy tutorial will show you where. You can buy your books as soon you know what they are, but many students prefer to wait until they’re sure which classes they’ll be taking and have gotten their syllabi.
How do I get them?
That all depends on you and your budget. Here are some options:
Buying: You can buy your books locally or from online vendors, and used or new. Local vendors that faculty often use include the University Bookstore, and A Room of One’s Own.
You can also investigate buying international editions of textbooks, which are often offered from online vendors at much lower prices than domestic editions. Websites that list international editions include Abe Books and Biblio.
Multiple sites such as BookFinder and the University Bookstore search for books and offer price comparisons.
Facebook groups such as UW Madison Book Exchange and UW-Madison Student Book Exchange may also be good resources.
Renting: The University Bookstore and online vendors including Amazon, Half, or Chegg offer textbook rentals as well as sales.
Borrowing: Many professors will also put copies of their textbooks (and other course materials) on reserve through the UW-Madison Libraries. If you don’t need your own copy of the book, using course reserves to access the text is also cost-effective.