For any degree in the School of Arts and Sciences (formerly known as the College or Arts and Sciences, or CAS), courses must be taken in a broad range of fields; these courses provide breadth to your undergraduate education. Consult our Departmental advisors for guidence in fulfilling these requirements. For more detailed information on the following Arts and Sciences requirements, as well as links to courses that fulfill these requirements see the Arts and Sciences Degree Requirements page.
Writing Requirements
1. An Introductory Composition Course
This is a college-level composition course such as the Seminar in Composition offered by the Department of English, or one of the approved freshman seminars. Students who need to strengthen their writing skills may be required to take Composition Tutorial, Workshop in Composition, or Intensive Workshop in Composition. To fulfill this requirement, students must pass introductory composition courses with a grade of C- or better by the end of the first two terms of full-time enrollment. The director of composition may exempt students who have superior writing skills from the introductory composition requirement.
2. Two Writing Intensive Courses
After completing an introductory composition course each student must complete two writing intensive courses (W-Courses) or one W-course and a second English composition course. Each student must satisfy one element of this requirement within his or her major field of study.
Quantitative and Formal Reasoning Requirement
All students are required to take and pass with a grade of C- or better at least one course in university-level mathematics (other than trigonometry) for which algebra is a prerequisite, or an approved course in statistics or mathematical or formal logic in a department of the School of Arts and Sciences.
Requirements within the Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and the Arts
Several courses in our curriculum may simultaneously fill more than one of the following requirements.
1. A Course in Literature
The student will be introduced to the techniques of literary analysis through a broad range of literary texts. (If the course is also to count for W-course credit, the student must have satisfied the Composition requirement before enrolling in the literature course.)
2. A Course in the Arts
This course introduces the student to the modes of analysis appropriate to music, theatre, or the visual arts, and might be a survey, genre, period or artist course.
3. A Second Course in Literature, the Arts, or in Creative Expression
This will be a second course in literature or the arts, or a course in which the student is given training in creative expression in writing, the theatrical arts, studio arts, filmmaking, photography, musical performance, musical composition, or dance.
4. A Course in Philosophy
The course will emphasize close reading, analysis, and evaluation of classic works of philosophy.
5. A Social Science Course
A course that treats topics considered of fundamental importance in the social or behavioral sciences (including social psychology).
6. A Course in Historical Change
A course dealing with a crucial human time sequence, such as: economic, political, social and cultural change within a society, or from one society to another; change in science, and the idea of science; change in literature and the arts.
7. Three Courses in the Natural Sciences
These will be courses that introduce students to scientific principles and concepts. The courses may be interdisciplinary, involving faculty from at least two departments in their development and implementation, and no more than two courses may have the same department as the primary departmental sponsor of the course.
8. A Sequence of Two Foreign Language Courses
Each student is required to complete successfully two terms of university-level study in a single foreign language, unless they can demonstrate elementary proficiency in a foreign language.
9. Three Foreign Culture/International Courses
Each student must complete three foreign culture/international courses chosen from at least two of the categories within the regional, comparative, or global classifications used for these courses.
10. Non-Western Culture Requirement
At least one of the courses used to satisfy the international culture requirement or another General Education Requirement (e.g. historical change) must address a culture or cultures other than those of the Mediterranean, Central and Western Europe, and French or English-speaking North America.
Dancing with a Skeleton Requirement
This rarely-enforced requirement is specific for majors within the Department of Biological Sciences, and may be fulfilled by personal interview or by authorized videotape.