Advising Guide

Click for a listing of the URST Spring 2025 Courses offered that count toward the Urban Studies major and minor.

Find a listing of internships that may be of interest to Urban Studies majors here. 

Students who intend to major in Urban Studies are advised to begin with URST 101, Introduction to Urban Studies. It is highly recommended that this course be taken during one of the first three semesters at Trinity. It is equally highly recommended that students take URST 201: From Hartford to World Cities by their third semester (fall of the sophomore year). These are the two foundational courses of the major.

The Urban Studies major has 4 core courses. URST 101 and 201 are the first two of these, and the Senior Seminar, URST 401, is the 4th. For the 3rd core course, students must take an urban-focused Community Learning (CL) course or participate in the Liberal Arts Action Lab. There are several such courses in any given year under Urban Studies, for example, URST 206: Organizing by Neighborhood, URST 210: Sustainable Urban Development, URST 301: Community Development Strategies, URST 211: Politics of Real Estate, and URST 321: Geographies of Transport. However, there are many other courses designated as CL classes in other departments which have urban content, and these will also fulfill the CL component of URST’s core course series.

Students interested in the Urban Studies major should also meet early in their college career with Prof. Xiangming Chen, and/or URST’s Director, Prof. Garth Myers, Director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies. Their advising can help students to effectively shape the other 8 courses in the major – 4 of which are general electives with urban content, and 4 of which must take shape as a coherent concentration or cluster of courses within the field.

Find a one page advising checklist here.