Fifth-Year Plan for Northwestern Undergraduates

As a Northwestern student, you may be able to take courses toward a master's degree and teaching certificate while you are still an undergraduate. The Master of Science in Education Program at Northwestern University is normally a 15-unit program, but with a little planning, you may be able to reduce the length of the program to as few as 10 units by taking certain classes during your undergraduate career. The table below provides specific detail on the five MSEd classes that may be waived if you take an approved substitute class during your undergraduate career at Northwestern.

Admission and Illinois Certification Requirements

All regular admission requirements apply to Northwestern undergraduates; admission to the master's program is not guaranteed.

Candidates are encouraged to refer to the Elementary Teaching and Secondary Teaching sections of this website to learn more about the program. Please note that in addition to the core degree curriculum, there are also specific content area certification requirements depending on the subject that you wish to teach (you can't be a math teacher if you haven't taken enough college-level math courses!). You are strongly advised to review these certification requirements carefully — they are similar to, but not the same as, undergraduate major requirements. Content area courses required for certification may be taken either as an undergraduate or as a graduate student. Content area courses taken as a graduate student will be in addition to the core degree curriculum.

Possible undergraduate substitutions for MSEd courses

If you take the following as an undergraduate ...	... it will count toward the following MSEd requirement:
TEACH_ED 302 Social Contexts of Education	MS_ED 402 Social Contexts of Education
One of the following: SESP 201 Human Development: Childhood & Adolescence PSYCH 218 Developmental Psychology	MS_ED 403 Early/Middle Childhood Development (elementary teaching) or MS_ED 404 Adolescent Development (secondary teaching)
TEACH_ED 313 Philosophy of Education	MS_ED 413 Philosophy of Education
One of the following: TEACH_ED 327 Educating Exceptional Children CSD 336 Field Experience in Special Education	MS_ED 427 Educating Exceptional Children
One of the following: COG_SCI 207 Intro to Cognition Modeling COG_SCI 210 Language and the Brain COG_SCI 211 Learning Representation & Reasoning LOC 313 Learning in Organizations LOC 346 Psychology of Technology and Instructional Design LOC 351 Special Topics (when the topic is related to learning sciences) PSYCH 228 Cognitive Psychology PSYCH 335 Decision Making	Learning Sciences elective