General Education at ETSU

Benefits for You

ETSU's faculty and staff want every student to experience certain benefits of an undergraduate education, regardless of his or her career goals or major. The purpose of ETSU's general education program is to help you gain these benefits:

• Learn to think for yourself, support your opinions, and be a more insightful reader and listener.

• Keep learning and growing throughout your life.

• Gain greater understanding of your life and the world in which you live.

• Be able to resolve conflicts nonviolently and solve problems creatively, often by working with others.

• Appreciate the value of living in a diverse society.

• Be an active, involved citizen in your community and the larger world.

• Find greater joy, meaning and fulfillment in your life and help others do the same.

Program Design

To gain these benefits, you need a foundation of skills and knowledge which you can apply at work, in your personal life, and in your community. ETSU's general education program teaches critical thinking, reading, writing, oral communication, mathematics, and information technology skills. It acquaints you with ideas, information, and ways of thinking you can use in every area of your life. The program encourages you to perceive relationships between different fields of study.

The general education curriculum consists of core courses in areas of proficiency and areas of familiarity, a humanities requirement, and courses taken across the curriculum that reinforce important skills.

Core Proficiency Courses

Writing proficiency courses help you develop your skills in critical reading, critical thinking, and writing.

Using Mathematics proficiency courses help you understand and apply basic mathematical concepts and tools that are useful in many professions and in your personal life.

The Using Information Technology proficiency course helps you learn howto use information and creative resources that are available electronically.

Areas of Familiarity

Science courses help you

• learn about scientific principles and technological accomplishments that have shaped our culture and others

• understand how science is used to discover the fundamental laws of our natural world

• recognize the power and limitations of the scientific method, quantitativethinking, and technology

Heritage courses help you

• understand major components of our nation's history, including its people, ideas and cultural diversity

• gain a fuller awareness of literary traditions within your own culture and other cultures

• recognize how your heritage influences your life today and for the future

Arts and Artistic Vision courses help you

• understand how the arts and humanities influenceyour ability to perceive and appreciate beauty

• explore the relationship between art and other elements of culture

• recognize how art expresses and influences the complex fabric of assumptions that underlie any society

Identity, Ethics and Social Responsibility courses help you

• encounter some of the great thinking about personal identity, social relationships, and social and personal responsibility

• explore varied perspectives on these topics

• identify your own beliefs, values, ethical basis for decision‑making, and sense of social responsibility

Institutions and Society courses help you

• understand varied value and belief systems and the historical and cultural processes that produce them

• think critically about how we are influenced by political, economic, cultural, and family institutions in our own or other cultures

• consider how social institutions might be directed toward constructive ends

Humanities Elective

By completing a humanities elective, you will gain greater insight into ideas, art and people in your own culture and other cultures.

Across-the-Curriculum Programs in Oral Communication, Writing, and Using Information Technology

To succeed in your career and personal life, you need to speak and listen effectively, write skillfully, and use information technology. You will begin to develop these skills by taking courses such as English composition and computer science in the general education core. However, it is important to keep building and using these skills throughout your academic career. For this reason, ETSU students take courses in their majors and across the curriculum that offer concentrated experience in oral communication, writing, and using information technology.

Every academic department at ETSU offers oral communication-intensive (OCI), using information technology-intensive (UITI), and writing-intensive (WI) courses. Each proficiency-intensive course must pass a careful review to ensure that it will challenge students and give them the specialized instruction they need to build these skills. Proficiency-intensive courses generally enroll less than 30 students, so students can receive individualized attention.

ETSU provides special training for instructors of proficiency-intensive courses, and we review the syllabi of already approved courses to make sure they continue to offer students excellent educational opportunities.

ETSU's Writing and Communication Center, staffed by a full-time director and more than 20 student consultants, offers daytime, evening and weekend assistance to students wanting to build oral communication and writing skills.

Build Your Future

Whatever your career goals or major, ETSU's general education program can help you succeed. Your general education courses will help you develop skills, knowledge and insights for a lifetime of professional success, personal fulfillment, and active involvement in your community.

For More Information

• Visit ETSU's General Education website at http://www.etsu.edu/gened/

• See your advisor

• Visit the Advisement, Resources, and Career Center, 2^nd level, D. P. Culp University Center, 423-439-4210

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This page updated on November 14, 2002