What is General Education?
At the University of Arizona, a Degree consists of at least 120 units of credit. General Education (GE), along with your Major and Minor, is a basic part of your Degree Requirements.
Which GE Program?
There are two General Education programs at the University of Arizona. Your enrollment in one program or the other is determined by the semester you started as a UA student. If you started at the UA BEFORE Spring 2022, then you are enrolled in the Tiers program. If you started at the UA in Spring 2022 or after, then you are enrolled in the new program.
The New GE Program
The new GE Program emphasizes interdisciplinary thinking, perspective-taking, and reflection. Through engaged learning, the new Program will elevate the relevance and transferability of GE coursework, encouraging students to build connections between courses and their professional and academic goals. Students must complete 32 units distributed across five course categories, as seen below. With the exception of UNIV 101 and 301, course categories can be taken in any order.
UNIV 101
UNIV 101: Introduction to the General Education Experience (1 course, 1 unit) helps students understand, reflect on, and be able to articulate the purpose and value of their GE courses. Students who are classified as first-year students at the point of admission will be required to take UNIV 101; all other new UArizona students (including transfer and readmitted students) will have the option of taking UNIV 101.
UNIV 301
UNIV 301: General Education Portfolio (1 course, 1 unit) helps students reflect upon and make meaning of their GE experience through the refinement of their ePortfolio. Students who are classified as first-year students at the point of admission will be required to take UNIV 301; all other new UArizona students (including transfer and readmitted students) will have the option of taking UNIV 301.
Attributes
All Exploring Perspectives and Building Connections courses carry 1-2 Attributes. Attributes do not carry additional units; instead, Attributes indicate the skills, methodologies, and/or contexts that frame the course content.
Quantitative Reasoning
While students are exposed to mathematical skills in their Foundations math courses, GE courses that carry a Quantitative Reasoning attribute aim to apply those mathematical skills to questions, ideas, challenges, and/or problems that are relevant to students, society, and/or the world.
World Cultures & Societies
Courses with the World Cultures & Societies Attribute will focus on a broad array of questions that shape our global community, both past and present. Courses with a WCS Attribute will introduce students to the values, practices, and/or cultural products of at least one non-U.S. culture and/or society (whether historically or today).
Writing
In Writing Attribute GE courses, students are expected to engage ways of doing and knowing as artists, humanists, social scientists, scientists, interdisciplinary thinkers, community contributors, or disciplinary problem solvers and innovative designers. Writing is a means for learning in Writing Attribute courses, and as such, writing activities in these courses promote principles of writing development
Credits:
The University of Arizona