UnderGraduate catalog: 2024/25

General Education

General Education requirements expose students to the breadth of human knowledge and to the methods employed for studying it. Students focus on developing critical thinking, analysis, and communication skills; acquiring quantitative and scientific literacy; and understanding the basic tenets of civic engagement, citizenship, and the ethical dimensions of behavior. These requirements introduce students to the methods and concerns of traditional branches of knowledge — the arts and humanities, the social and behavioral sciences, and the natural sciences — and offer an historical perspective and appreciation of diversity across time, culture and national boundaries. They open opportunities to make interdisciplinary connections between concepts and ideas and provide an environment to contemplate their meaning and significance. As a common learning experience, general education requirements foster communication among students and create linkages both with the alumni who went before and with the cohorts of students who will follow. Finally, general education requirements provide an intellectual foundation for both the completion of a major program of study and a lifetime of learning.

General education is intended to impart common knowledge and intellectual concepts to students and to develop in them skills and attitudes that the faculty believe every educated person should possess. Students complete the general education requirement by taking both required and elective courses. .. Guided electives provide the flexibility to explore areas of interest while ensuring that primary academic skills are being developed. Most students complete their general education courses by the end of their third year of study.

UoPeople has eight general education core competencies: Information Literacy, Quantitative Reasoning, Communication, Values & Ethical Reasoning, Civilization Studies, Culture and Belief, Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences , and Natural Sciences. Below is the complete general education core competencies with the student learning outcomes (SLO). SLO is the skills/knowledge that student will be able to do after they finish general education.

 

1. Information Literacy

The objective is to learn to gather, organize and use information from primary and secondary sources; and begin to develop the habits of mind characterized by the ability to identify, gather, and analyze pertinent data from multiple sources using reasoning and forming a logical conclusion. Information literacy is the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, find, evaluate, and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand.

Student Learning Outcomes

1.1. SLO 1: Students will be able to identify, gather, and analyze data from multiple sources and evaluate information and its sources critically.
1.2. SLO 2: Students will be able to use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
1.3. SLO 3: Students will be able to identify reliable sources for academic works and identify plagiarism.

2. Quantitative Reasoning

Students will develop skills in quantitative reasoning. The objective is to recognize the abstract language of mathematics to apply the appropriate principles and tools to the analysis of real-life problems in diverse areas. In today’s data-driven world, the ability to gather and interpret masses of information is critical. Students learn to weigh evidence, see relationships among objects and identify patterns and order, draw conclusions, and communicate their reasoning and conclusions to others. Students learn about the common errors made in quantitative reasoning and develop an understanding that not every question can be answered based on available data.

Student Learning Outcomes

2.1. SLO 1: Students will be able to apply appropriate quantitative reasoning and/or mathematical methods to solve problems.
2.2. SLO 2: Students will be able to interpret mathematical models to support conclusions and evaluate the findings

3. Communication

The objective is the ability to be able to communicate using well organized arguments and credible supporting evidence.

Student Learning Outcomes

3.1. SLO 1: Students will be able to demonstrate an ability to develop thoughts and ideas in a logical and organized manner.
3.2. SLO 2: Students will be able to produce persuasive ideas using high quality evidence collected from appropriate, and properly cited, academic resources.
3.3. SLO3: Students will be able to execute proper delivery techniques to convey a clear message

4. Values and Ethical Reasoning

 

The objective is to possess the ability to examine and the reasoning of moral principles of human behaviors in variety of settings. Through this requirement, students will learn how to reason in a principled manner; understand the way in which value systems develop, spread and change; evaluate claims about ethical issues; and examine competing philosophies and historical definitions of good and bad, right and wrong, justice, equality, liberty, human rights, and diversity.

Student Learning Outcomes

4.1. SLO 1: Student will be able to explain ethical dilemmas across various contexts.

4.2. SLO 2: Students will be able to objectively analyze differing perspectives and value systems and relate them to their own beliefs.

5. Civilization Studies, Culture and Belief

The objective is to be able to recognize cultures and beliefs of human culture and how it shapes its social cultures. Cultures and beliefs mediate people’s understanding of themselves and the world that they inhabit. Citizenship in today’s global world requires the ability to examine how humans see themselves as members of social, religious, national, and regional groups in current and past historical eras, and how past configurations are supplanted by subsequent ones.

5.1. SLO 1: Students will be able to reflect the role of humanities and history shaping social culture.
5.2.SLO 2: Students will be able to analyze the role of humanities in understanding cultures of the world.

6. Humanities

The objective is to understand on how human experience is expressed in written, visual, aural, and other artistic forms, providing insights into the values and beliefs of others as conveyed through their art, literature, music, film, and/or theatre.

6.1. SLO1: Student will be able to recognize art history through human experience as it linked to historical events and cultural trends.

7. The Social and Behavioral Sciences

The objective is to understand how humans organize themselves into complex social, political, cultural, and economic groups and institutions that both shape and are shaped by individual and collective behavior. Students will acquire broad knowledge in the geographies, histories, and cultures of the world to develop their ability to become productive global citizens.
7.1. SLO1: Students will be able to analyze the complexity of social, political, economic, and cultural diversity throughout the world.

8. The Natural Sciences

Students will be exposed to scientific reasoning and its applications. The objective is to introduce students to the foundations of the physical and life sciences and their application to the engineering sciences and to the methods of inquiry and techniques of observation and experimentation used to advance knowledge in this arena

 

8.1. SLO1: Students will be able to describe the methods of inquiry that leads to scientific reasoning
8.2. SLO 2: Students will be able to recognize the foundation of the physical and life sciences and their applications

General Education Requirements

Credit applied to general education requirements may not also be applied toward major or elective requirements.