Contract Courses

Contract courses include courses numbered 195-199. In these courses, students may conduct independent research under the supervision of a faculty mentor. Contracts must be created for EVERY QUARTER (including Summer Sessions) that a student decides to enroll in a directed study/independent study courses. (See also RESEARCH INFORMATION AND OPPORTUNITIES.)

Contracts (EEB 195-199 only) with faculty from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology must be submitted to the EE BIOL Undergraduate Office via Message Center by no later than WEDNESDAY OF WEEK TWO. Students must also attach confirmation that they completed the LABORATORY SAFETY FUNDAMENTALS WORKSHOP (a copy of the e-mail received is sufficient). Contracts that do not have a copy of the Lab Safety Confirmation attached will not be accepted. For information on how to enroll in a workshop, please visit:https://sciences.ugresearch.ucla.edu/courses/srp/lab-safety-certification/.

Students must have the consent of his/her/their faculty mentor prior to creating the contract.

To create an EEB research contract course:

  1. Login to my.ucla.edu
  2. Click on “Contract Courses”, which is located on the left column under “MyUCLA Features”
  3. Click on “Submit a new contract” under “My Contract Courses”
  4. Select year and term
  5. Select the course you wish to enroll in, e.g., Directed Research (199) or Honors Research (198)
  6. Select the “Subject Area,” which is the department that your faculty mentor is affiliated with
  7. Choose your faculty mentor and the number of units that you wish to enroll
  8. In “My Research Plan,” write a title for your project and a brief description of your project.
  9. Complete any other areas as requested in the contract.

To be enrolled in an EEB contract course:

  1. Obtain your EEB faculty mentor’s signature.
  2. Submit the signed contract (EEB 195 – 199 ONLY) to the EEB Undergraduate Office via Message Center by Wednesday of Week 2 of each term. In your message, please confirm your intention of being in enrolled in the designated contract course for the specified term (eg., EEB 199 for Fall 2022.)
  3. The EEB Undergraduate Office will obtain the signature of the authorized departmental representative and process the enrollment for EEB 195 – 199.
  4. Once enrollment has been processed, the EEB Undergraduate Office will send a confirmation message via Message Center.

NOTE: Students who enroll in contract courses with faculty from the School of Medicine or from the School of Dentistry must submit their contracts to the Office of the Registrar for enrollment after all necessary signatures have been obtained.

Departments have different deadlines for submission of contracts. Check with each department for these deadlines.

*** CONTRACT COURSE PROCEDURES FOR SPRING QUARTER 2020 (COVID-19 Protocol) ***

Contract Courses:

Following the University’s transition to online classes, you may submit your EEB 195, 196, 198A-D, and 199 contracts and a valid Lab Safety Fundamental Concepts (LSFC) certification, if required, online using the MyUCLA Message Center.  All documents should be submitted as a PDF attachment.  The submission deadline is 3:00 PM on Wednesday, April 8, 2020.  If you are unable to obtain the signature of your faculty mentor (our office will obtain the second signature, the Department Chair’s signature), please have your faculty mentor send an e-mail to Jessica Angus (jangus@lifesci.ucla.edu) to verify that they approve you to be in their lab.  This e-mail will be treated as an electronic signature.

When you submit the EEB 195, 196, 198A-D, and 199 contracts online, you should indicate whether or not you would like to enroll in the courses designated for lab meetings:  either or both EEB 193 and/or EEB 194B.  Please be aware that students may only enroll in these courses if they are enrolling in either EEB 198A-D or EEB 199.

Note: You may only enroll in the EEB 198A-D or EEB 199 if your faculty mentor is a full-time (ladder) faculty within the EEB department.  Names of eligible faculty mentors may be found at the Faculty page of the EEB website under the “Professors” heading (https://www.eeb.ucla.edu/faculty/#professors).

As you may be aware, students are allowed to enroll in a maximum of 19 units during a regular term, i.e., Fall, Winter, or Spring.  If adding the contract courses and/or lab meeting courses will cause you to exceed the 19-unit limit, you must do one of the following:

a)       Obtain permission from your College Counseling unit (AAP, CAC, Honors, Athletics) to enroll in more than 19 units;

b)      Indicate in your message which course(s) you would like dropped from your study list to accommodate the contract course and lab meeting course(s).

Our office only processes EEB 195, 196, 198A-D, and 199 contracts.  EEB 99 contracts are processed by the Undergraduate Research Center – Sciences (http://sciences.ugresearch.ucla.edu/).  The deadline to submit EEB 99 contracts to the URC is Friday, April 10, 2020, at 5:00PM.

If you have additional questions, please send them via Message Center.