General Education

General Education

The General Education curriculum applies to students entering under Catalog Year 2007 and later (see Catalog Year).

Education at USP is founded on the philosophy that educated persons attain a broad understanding of the human experience through exposure to diverse ideas, perspectives, and modes of thinking and attain a depth of knowledge, skills, and abilities through specialized study in their chosen discipline. Education at USP fosters development of values important to students as responsible citizens and professionals. The USP experience enables our students to take responsibility for their continued learning throughout their professional and personal lives.

General education at USP is a developmental process of intellectual and personal growth. Students work with faculty and other members of the University community toward achieving a set of educational outcomes including:

• Knowledge in and familiarity with varied ways of thinking and scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
• Fundamental skills and abilities in oral and written communication, mathematics, and technology, as well as the development of aesthetic sensibility.
• Appreciation and understanding of diversity to promote respect for individual and cultural differences.
• Ability to engage in ethical and moral reasoning and a capacity for ethical behavior.
• Informed citizenship and the ability to actively participate in a democratic society and to be both engaged locally and aware of the world at large.
• Skills for effective leadership, teamwork, and group participation.
• Critical thought and inquiry, problem solving, and reasoning skills.
• Ability to identify the need for information and to access, evaluate, and use it legally and ethically.
• Intellectual curiosity essential to creative, reflective, self-directed, and purposeful learning.
• Integration of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors through multidisciplinary modes of inquiry.

General Education Disciplines

Students must complete a minimum of 41 credits of coursework in general education, distributed among the following seven areas of the arts and sciences:

General Education Discipline Requirements

General Education Electives

Students must take 12 credits of General Education Electives in addition to the General Education Disciplines. Of these, at least three credits must be completely unrestricted that is, taken in any department and in no way required for the major, although these courses may be used toward a minor or certification program. The other nine credits must be taken outside the academic discipline of the major and may be used to satisfy prerequisities or a minor field of study or to fulfill personal interests.

General Education Skills, Values and Attitudes

In addition to the disciplinary and elective coursework, students must demonstrate that they have had contact with a total of 13 areas encompassing skills, values, and attitudes. This requirement is designed to ensure student exposure to important elements of General Education. “Skills” is a shorthand reference to “skills, attitudes, and values.”

Students are expected to fulfill their Skills requirements within the context of the fifty-three (53) credits taken to meet the Discipline and Elective course requirements.

Oral Communication, Written Communication, and Multidisciplinary Inquiry are particularly important parts of the general experience. Therefore, students are required to augment the Oral Communication, Written Communication, and Multidisciplinary Inquiry Disciplinary courses by completing different courses with Applied Oral Communication Skills, Applied Written Communication Skills, and Applied Multidisciplinary Inquiry Skills.

General Education Skill Requirements