General Education – Your Approach

General education is a required set of courses for all students. There are several creative approaches to completing your general education requirement series. Here are a few things to consider:

• Each person earning an Associates or a Bachelors degree in the U.S. completes the general education requirements once in their lifetime. This means that qualifying courses taken at any time qualify toward meeting the requirement. If one or twenty years pass, the courses count.

• Take the time to carefully consider the list of courses that meet each section within the general education guideline. Look for the class that best meets your learning interest, something you either are interested in learning or have an affinity for. As an example, History of World Civilizations resides in the same group as Introduction to Mass Media. One looks at the 1600s, the other at new and emerging media; the classes are significantly different. Your consideration may relate to your personal life; are your working or taking a lot of units, know something about media and want to complete the class with a minimal time investment? Or, have you always enjoyed history, love to read fiction tales of medieval times, and want to learn more about the world and how we came to be who we are?

Let’s take a closer look at each requirement:

The purpose of general education is to provide a common educational experience for students, regardless of major field of study. The general education program cultivates knowledge, skills, and values that are characteristic of a learned person. Examples from universities include:

1. Communication Skills (9 units minimum) with an Oral Communication Requirement
2. Natural Sciences and Mathematics (9 units minimum) with a laboratory course
3. Humanities Requirement (9 units minimum)
4. Social, Economic, and Political Institutions and Human Behavior (12 units minimum)
5. Upper Division General Education Requirements (9 units minimum)
6. Multicultural Requirement (3 units minimum)
7. Language Requirements (varies)

Your approach to meeting your General Education requirements is to:

• Go to the catalog of your college/university and take the time to print or copy the full requirements list
• Highlight or mark the classes that seem the most interesting to you (descriptions of what the courses are will also be in the catalog)
• Go in the catalog to your major and determine of some of your prerequisite courses match up to general education courses. It’s good to take the general ed courses that also count within your major rather than take one science, for example, for general ed and then find out you need another science to meet your major requirement

As soon as you can, mix in a couple of your major classes with general ed. Don’t spend your first three or four semesters on general education only. For one thing, you’ll be bored, and for another, when you get into your Junior and Senior year of college, it may be difficult to get the classes you need due to budget issues. Spread your major classes over the 4-5 years you will be in school and spread your general ed courses across as well. That way, you have more semesters/quarters in which to get the major classes you need and you can fill holes in your schedule with general ed. There are many students who take only a couple of classes per semester because they’re so limited as to which classes are left for them to take.

In summary… you need to complete general education requirements once in your lifetime. Take the time to study the options at your college/university, there are many more choices than you might think there are. Spread general ed courses across the years you’ll be in school, start taking major classes as soon as you can. This way you’ll have more semesters available to secure enrollment in your major courses and you’ll backfill with general ed.