General Education - Links to Learning
GE Courses can be perceived as LINKS in your curriculum that are part of an integrated whole at Cal Poly. The combination of GE courses, major courses, and extracurricular activities provides YOU, the student, with an educational experience that fosters intellectual skills and personal development. The outcome of a General Education empowers you with core knowledge and transferable skills to cultivate social responsibility and a strong sense of ethics and values. Characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, a general education prepares you both for socially valued work and for civic leadership in society.
"A contemporary general education may be the most useful career preparation of the knowledge-based economy.” (AACU.org)
"General Education is regarded as a central feature for professions as diverse as business, education, nursing, and engineering.” (AACU.org)
Cal Poly's GE courses will help YOU learn:
Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
- Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts
- Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring
Intellectual and Practical Skills
- Including Inquiry and analysis
- Critical and creative thinking
- Written and oral communication
- Quantitative literacy Information literacy
- Teamwork and problem solving
- Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance
Personal and Social Responsibility, Including
- Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global
- Intercultural knowledge and competence
- Ethical reasoning and action
- Foundations and skills for lifelong learning
- Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges
Integrative Learning
- Including Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies
- Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems
GE Office Information
If you do not find the information you need on the GE web site, please contact us by email .
- GE Director: Doug Keesey
- GE Administrative Support Coordinator: Katie Tool
- Phone: (805) 756-2228
- Fax: (805) 756-7498
- Address: Cal Poly State University, One Grand Avenue, Fisher Science, Building 33, room 290A
San Luis Obispo, 93407 - Office Hours: 8:30 am to 2:30 pm Monday through Thursday