Beginning in the Fall 2015
Your liberal education at Appalachian begins with the General Education Program. About one-third of the courses you will take during your college years will be General Education courses from across the university. In them, you will encounter new perspectives on important subjects and explore connections between different areas of study. The General Education Program is designed to help achieve four goals:
- Thinking Critically and Creatively
- Communicating Effectively
- Making Local to Global Connections
- Understanding Responsibilities of Community Membership
The Program also encourages you to integrate diverse information and skills as you try and understand things that matter in your world. You begin this practice in your First Year Seminar, where you examine a topic you are interested in from an interdisciplinary perspective. You continue with courses in the Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) and the Liberal Studies Experience (LSE). The ILE offers you a choice of integrated themes made up of from four to eight courses. Once you select your ILE theme, you will take three courses from at least two disciplines. The LSE is made up of a diverse array of courses from disciplines around the campus. You will select four of these courses from at least three different disciplines. The culmination of this practice comes in your Capstone experience in your major, where you bring together all the skills and knowledge you have learned in General Education courses and major courses and apply it to a project closely related to your future vocation.
In addition, your General Education writing courses will help you develop your writing skills and gradually tailor them to communicating more and more effectively within your major field.
The curriculum also includes courses in three other areas essential to your long term success and well-being. Your Quantitative Literacy course will help you learn how to use mathematical concepts and other quantitative concepts to think and communicate more effectively. Your Science Inquiry theme (8 total hours) will introduce you to important concepts related to the scientific method of inquiry. Your Wellness Literacy course will help you understand and evaluate how your behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your physical and emotional wellness.
For more information, visit http://generaleducation.appstate.edu/.
How this affects the transfer of credit
Beginning in Fall 2015, Appalachian State University will be moving to a revised General Education curriculum. At this time, course updates are in progress so your Degree Works audit may not reflect how all of your courses will fit in the new curriculum. Please review your audit on May 1, 2015 for an accurate reflection of your General Education requirements.