GE Program Goals
Cal Poly's GE Program seeks to:
- Promote connections between the GE Areas so students and faculty perceive GE courses as interrelated rather than as isolated fragments.
- Place foundational knowledge in a larger context such that every GE course provides a vision of how its subject matter is an important component of General Education.
- Help students understand the value of a discipline being studied as well as its relationship to the students' major.
- Support faculty who teach GE courses.
Cal Poly's GE Program seeks to promote connections between the various areas so students and faculty will perceive GE courses as interrelated rather than as isolated fragments. By placing basic knowledge in a larger context, each course in the program should provide a vision of how its subject matter is an important component of GE. Students should understand the value of a discipline being studied as well as its relationship to other disciplines. Students are encouraged to complete foundational courses as early as possible.
Lower-division coursework has been designed to give students the knowledge and skills to move to more complex materials. The three-course Area A: Communications sequence, for example, provides instruction and practice in the kinds of skills in writing, speaking, and critical thinking that students will need in later courses. (Consequently, students are expected to complete this sequence during their freshman year, and by no later than the end of their sophomore year.) By the end of the sophomore year, students should also complete lower-division courses in Science and Math, Arts and Humanities, and Society and the Individual.