General Education Curriculum Map

Appalachian's General Education Program has excited faculty, students and staff and has provided a new vision for accomplishing goals and outcomes employers tell us are the skills they are looking for in Appalachian graduates.  You will find a program that—rather than relegating subjects to discipline-specific categories such as social sciences, humanities and natural sciences—explores the interconnected nature of knowledge and learning across disciplines.  By engaging in the discovery, interpretation and creation of knowledge, students learn to adapt to new environments, integrate knowledge from diverse sources, and continue learning throughout their lives. 

Appalachian’s General Education Program is both interdisciplinary and vertical, with requirements that span the four years of a student’s academic career.

This interdisciplinary program begins with a topical First Year Seminar that promotes critical thinking, effective communication and community involvement, providing a strong gateway to an interdisciplinary and writing intensive curriculum that links students to service learning, student research and international experiences. 

The Writing Across the Curriculum program will enhance students’ writing skills through the First Year writing course, the Sophomore level writing course, a Junior level writing course in the major, and a writing intensive Senior Capstone experience.

There is a four credit quantitative reasoning requirement, a two credit wellness literacy, and 29 credits found in four perspectives – aesthetics, historical and social, local to global connections, and scientific inquiry that are made up of overarching themes such as How We Tell Stories, The Blue Planet, Revolutions and Social Change, Origins and Migrations, and other broadly significant topics. Within the perspectives, students are required to select one fine art, one literary and one historical studies course.

Appalachian is committed to providing its students with a liberal arts-based education that will prepare them for the knowledge demands and careers of today, while also equipping them with transferable skills that will help them discover the knowledge of tomorrow and the careers in which they will respond to the societal needs of the future of the global community.

Curriculum Description

This includes the following required coursework:

3 s.h. First Year Seminar
3 s.h. First Year Writing
3 s.h. Sophomore Writing
4 s.h. Quantitative Literacy
2 s.h. Wellness Literacy
29 s.h. Perspectives (including; 3 s.h.; each in fine arts, historical studies, literary studies)
_____
44 s.h. TOTAL 

First Year Seminar  (FYS)

• is a required course for all ASU students, to be taken in their first year of enrollment. The seminar engages students and faculty in a shared process of inquiry around a broad, interdisciplinary topic or question and assists students to meet entry level learning outcomes of thinking critically and communicating effectively and to make connections with faculty, peers, the university, and the curriculum.

Three writing-intensive courses are required in general education:

• First year composition and rhetoric
• Second year composition and rhetoric with Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) focus
• Third year Writing In the Discipline (WID) course in the major

General Education coursework in the major:

• Junior Writing in the discipline - designed to give students instruction on the forms and conventions of written discourse in their major field.
  
• Senior Capstone Experience - The capstone experience represents the culmination of the university educational experience by linking the content and methods of the major with the goals of general.