General Education Program

The General Education Program ensures that all undergraduate students acquire knowledge and gain competencies in a wide variety of disciplinary areas that SUNY and the University at Albany faculty have deemed critical to success in advanced coursework and in success beyond graduation.

In 30 credits of General Education courses in 10 categories, students enhance their knowledge and skills while discovering new areas of inquiry and new possibilities. In students’ major curricula, they build on these experiences and develop advanced competencies in three critical areas: Advanced Writing, Oral Discourse, and Critical Reasoning and Information Literacy.

The learning objectives for these advanced competencies — part of the General Education Program even as they are embedded in disciplinary majors — constitute UAlbany’s institutional learning outcomes: competencies all UAlbany graduates possess by virtue of having completed the General Education Program, major, minor and elective degree requirements.

The General Education Program at UAlbany proposes a set of knowledge areas, perspectives and competencies considered by the University to be central to the intellectual development of every undergraduate.

The program provides students with a foundation that prepares them for continued work within their chosen major and minor fields and gives them the intellectual habits that will enable them to become lifelong learners.

Courses in the program are designed not only to enhance students’ knowledge but also to provide them with new ways of thinking and with the ability to engage in critical analysis and creative activity.  

Characteristics of General Education Courses

The General Education Program as a whole has the following characteristics:

• General education offers explicit understandings of the procedures and practices of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
• General education provides multiple perspectives on the subject matter, reflecting the intellectual and cultural diversity within and beyond the University.
• General education emphasizes active learning in an engaged environment that enables students to become producers as well as consumers of knowledge.
• General education promotes critical thinking about the assumptions, goals, and methods of various fields of academic study, and the interpretive, analytic and evaluative competencies central to intellectual development. 

Requirements of the Program

FOR STUDENTS MATRICULATING FALL 2023 and thereafter:

    1) A minimum of 30 credits of coursework in the following areas:

*Writing and Critical Inquiry course must be completed with a grade of C or better or S.
** No single course can be used to satisfy BOTH the Humanities and The Arts requirement.

    2) Academic Competencies of Advanced Writing, Oral Discourse, and Critical Reasoning and Information Literacy through completion of a major.

FOR STUDENTS MATRICULATING PRIOR TO FALL 2023:

    1) A minimum of 30 credits of coursework in the following areas:

*Writing and Critical Inquiry course must be completed with a grade of C or better or S.
** No single course can be used to satisfy BOTH the Humanities and The Arts requirement.

    2) Academic Competencies of Advanced Writing, Oral Discourse, and Critical Reasoning and Information Literacy through completion of a major.

Course Selection

The General Education Program is designed so that students may complete it during their first two years of full-time study. All students are required to satisfy the Writing and Critical Inquiry requirement within the first two semesters of study.

Students may not use the same course to fulfill both The Arts and the Humanities categories. Otherwise, if a course fulfills more than one category, students may use the course to fulfill all of those categories. Although such “double counting” may reduce the number of courses needed to complete the General Education program, all students must complete a minimum of thirty (30) graduation credits in courses designated as meeting General Education requirements. Courses may count simultaneously toward General Education and the major or minor.

Overview of the General Education Categories

The General Education Program is designed to provide students with a set of skills essential both for academic success and for becoming effective citizens in the 21st century. Among these skills, Writing and Critical Inquiry; Diversity: Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice; Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning; and Natural Sciences and Scientific Reasoning are considered to be important foundations for other areas of students’ academic success.

Humanities; The Arts; and Social Sciences and Scientific Reasoning are also at the core of a liberal arts education. Courses in these areas familiarize students with the objectives, assumptions, subject matters, methods, and boundaries of knowledge organized in terms of academic disciplines. The requirements introduce students to a broad range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and areas of knowledge.

Equally central to a liberal arts education is an understanding of history — the recognition that the world we inhabit today has its origins in and has been shaped by the events of the past. Of similar importance is an understanding of the origins, development and significance of human cultures, and the recognition of cultural distinctiveness and multiplicity. Courses in U.S. History and Civic Engagement and in World History and International Perspectives increase students’ understanding of the history and diverse cultures of the United States and of the histories and cultures of peoples, regions, and nations across the globe.

Required study in Languages Other Than English enhances students' global awareness and expands their knowledge of different cultures.

General Education Course Lookups

The most up-to-date information on courses approved for General Education categories can be found on the General Education website’s “General Education Lookup” page.

On MyUAlbany, the “Search Class Schedules” capability also allows students to search for courses in a term that fulfill one or more of these General Education categories. This same search capability exists from the University’s homepage to find courses that meet one or more of the General Education requirements.