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University Studies

Pathway to Academic and Career Success

Of the 180 credits needed for a bachelor’s degree from Southern Oregon, you will earn 60 to 62 within University Studies, SOU’s general education curriculum. Built on student learning outcomes and progressively challenging courses, University Studies helps you adapt knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new challenges. The curriculum allows you to align courses, balance learning in the majors with a broader perspective of liberal arts, and foster civic, social, and personal responsibility. The curriculum is also based on student learning, with specific learning goals embedded in courses that qualify for University Studies. The purposes of the learning goals are these:

1. Foundation Learning Goals (A, B, C, D) stress developing and enhancing fundamental communication, critical thinking, information literacy, and quantitative reasoning skills.
    
2. Explorations Learning Goals (E, F, G) stress acquiring a broadly informed knowledge of the various disciplines and becoming familiar with the kinds of inquiry that occur within the aesthetic, social, and scientific worlds.
    
3. Integrations Learning Goals (H, I, J) stress the deepening, application and transfer of knowledge across the disciplines. Students explore ethical perspectives in science and technology, citizenship and community, and diversity and global awareness.
    

The main divisions of strands and goals are listed below, and they show the breadth and depth of the University Studies curriculum.

Foundation Strands

16 credits, earned through University Seminar and Math classes

1. Communication
   Communicate effectively using writing, speech, and image.
   1. Demonstrate ability to use Standard American English.
   2. Accurately comprehend written, verbal, visual, and/or symbolic communications.
   3. Communicate in ways appropriate to purpose and audience.
   4. Collaborate with others to achieve a common goal.
   
    
2. Thinking
   Conceptualize ideas holistically, logically, and creatively.
   1. Demonstrate awareness of multiple perspectives.
   2. Identify perceptions, assumptions and biases in any point of view.
   3. Apply logical thought to theoretical and practical issues.
   4. Creatively shape ideas, evidence, and experiences.
   
    
3. Information Literacy
   Access and use information resources effectively and ethically.
   1. Determine the nature and extent of information needed.
   2. Access information effectively and efficiently.
   3. Evaluate information and resources.
   4. Integrate information ethically and legally.
   
    
4. Quantitative Reasoning
   Effectively formulate and use mathematical models and procedures to address abstract and applied problems.
   1. Recognize and express relationships using quantitative symbols.
   2. Interpret, evaluate, and manipulate quantitative representations appropriately.
   3. Communicate quantitative concepts and relationships in plain language.
   
    

Exploration Strands (Lower Division)

36 credits, earned with 3 courses in each of the following categories

5. Humanities
   Recognize human accomplishments in the arts and humanities and understand their role in clarifying individual and social values.
   SOU defines study in the arts and humanities as focusing on intellectual and cultural expression approached through historical, cultural, and aesthetic investigations and interpretations.
   1. Understand basic formal elements, principles, and composition structures in written, oral, visual, or performed texts, works, and/or artifacts.
   2. Understand how cultural and historical factors impact the creation of written, oral, visual, or performed texts, works, and/or artifacts.
   3. Understand how the reception of texts, works, and/or artifacts influences individuals, cultures, and societies.
   
    
6. Social Science
   Understand fundamental concepts of social science and the inter-connections among social institutions, values, individuals, and groups.
   Social Science are disciplines that examine how individuals, groups, institutions, and societies behave and interact with one another and their environments. They provide students with the tools to analyze social, political, or economic institutions (such as families, communities, or governments), and to examine society issues and problems at individual, cultural, national, or global levels
   1. Understand connections between individuals and social, economic, and/or political institutions.
   2. Understand the interactions of and the relationships between natural and social environments and resources.
   3. Apply social science perspectives to past and contemporary issues.
   
    
7. Sciences – Physical, Biological, and Computer
   Understand the fundamental concepts, methods, and applications of the sciences and their impacts on human experience.
   SOU defines the sciences as those disciplines that focus on a systemized body of knowledge derived through objective methodologies involving repeatable experimentation, observation, verification, and study. Two courses must include labs.
   1. Understand major concepts, principles, and theories of the sciences.
   2. Understand science as a means of learning about and understanding the natural world.
   3. Apply scientific knowledge and methods to societal issues.
   
    

Integration Strands (Upper Division)

9 to 12 credits, earned by 1 course in each of the following categories; 2 of the 3 courses may be in the major

8. Science
   Understand the interactions of science, technology, and human affairs.
   1. Understand how science as a way of knowing compares with non-scientific ways of knowing.
   2. Make connections within the various fields of science and among science and technology and other disciplines.
   3. Recognize ethical dilemmas in scientific processes, methods, and technological advancement.
   
    
9. Citizenship and Social Responsibility
   Understand and apply moral standards to individual conduct and citizenship through ethical inquiry, social awareness, and civic engagement.
   1. Understand and apply the tools necessary for responsible participation in communities.
   2. Understand how ethical issues are embedded in citizenship and social responsibility.
   
    
10. Diversity and global awareness
    Understand institutions, assumptions, and values from national and global perspectives.
    1. Understand how society is complex, contested, and dynamic.
    2. Understand different world views and cultural practices.
    3. Understand how historical, economic, social, and political conditions affect cultural values.
    4. Understand dynamics of power in the world situation from global perspectives.
    
     

University Studies