GENERAL EDUCATION
Overview
Georgia State’s general education program prepares students of all backgrounds to succeed—in their classrooms, in their careers, and in life. Core Curriculum courses represent the knowledge, skills and attitudes that students should gain to successfully complete the requirements of a course, major, and degree at Georgia State University. As students in a great city with a rich culture and history, graduates of Georgia State’s general education program:
- Produce well-organized written communications that exhibit logical thinking and organization;
- Demonstrate the ability to interpret and analyze quantitative information and use math to solve applied problems;
- Demonstrate effective critical thinking skills through interpreting, presenting and evaluating ideas;
- Effectively evaluate the role of the humanities, fine arts, and languages in the human experience;
- Apply scientific and computational reasoning and methods of inquiry to explain natural phenomena and/or analyze quantitative information and solve applied problems;
- Effectively analyze the complexity of human behavior, and how historical, economic, political, social, and/or spatial relationships develop, persist, and/or change.
-(Undergraduate Course Catalog, Section 1405, Core Curriculum Learning Outcomes).
Beyond the Core, Georgia State offers general education initiatives at every level—in undergraduate pathways and majors, graduate programs, and through college-to-career programming, high impact practices, signature experiences, study abroad, co-curricular programs, internships and more. In keeping with the American Association of Colleges and Universities approach to general education, Georgia State’s general education program
empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ... characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study.
General Education has two aims: (1) providing some exposure to the whole range of disciplines and areas of knowledge associated by traditional arts and sciences, and (2) developing a set of general critical competencies (e.g., independent thinking, critically evaluate information, writing, etc.)
Mary Dana Hinton, President of Hollins University and Chair of the American Association of Colleges and Universities Board of Directors, underscores the life-transforming potential of general education when she writes in her essay, “The Work of Moral Imagination,” Liberal Education, https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/articles/the-work-of-moral-imagination, Fall, 2022:
I did not achieve my place in life because I am smarter or better than others. I attained it because I was able to access…an approach to undergraduate education that leads to the learning outcomes that are essential for work, citizenship, and life. That education unlocked opportunities for me and enabled new freedoms, challenging me to think more deeply about life. I learned to think about life in the context of the past; I learned to explore patterns; I gained the ability to make a persuasive case even in challenging circumstances...
Georgia State’s general education program prepares students for success in college, careers, and life by providing access to the essential knowledge and skills needed by all educated citizens.
Resources
- Core Curriculum
- College to Career
- Experiential Learning
- Awards and Grants for Teaching Excellence:
- CETLOE: https://cetl.gsu.edu/programs-grants-awards/
- Office of Faculty Affairs: https://faculty.gsu.edu/for-continuing-faculty/
General Education Contacts
Contact Us
Office of Academic Affairs
Georgia State University
One Park Place, Suite 818
Atlanta, Georgia 30303