General Education Specific Requirements
General Education at SOU is made up of 39-44 credits. Students select courses that carry specific capacity designations to develop six critical skills areas:
- Purposeful Learning (PL)
- Communication and Expression (CE)
- Creativity and Innovation (CI)
- Inquiry and Analysis (IA)
- Numerical Literacy (NL)
- Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)
Purposeful Learning
Your capacity for Purposeful Learning is about building perspective and defining how your higher education relates to your life. Purposeful Learning connects learning to your life goals through meaningful self-reflection, practicing critical skills, and honing your goals. Purposeful Learning makes a case for lifelong learning while practicing the skills to create your path to success at SOU and beyond.
Communication and Expression
Your capacity for Communication and Expression enables you to identify, develop, and share ideas in diverse social settings, listen to others, receive feedback, engage in dialogue, and show up in the world proficiently and proactively.
Creativity and Innovation
Your capacity for Creativity and Innovation contributes to discovering, planning, and implementing original and valuable approaches to complex problems. Creativity and Innovation foster the curiosity, vision, and ambition to innovate boldly and confidently.
Inquiry and Analysis
Your capacity to Inquire and Analyze is the bedrock of all learning and discovery. Inquiry and Analysis prepare you to ask meaningful questions, apply research methods to those questions, analyze and evaluate data, synthesize information, formulate conclusions, and discover answers for yourself and others.
Numerical Literacy
Your capacity for Numerical Literacy prepares you to investigate quantitative questions about our world, apply appropriate mathematical data exploration methods, and effectively communicate results in various numerical formats. Numerical Literacy prepares you to speak a language essential to participating in our complex, data-driven world, where this knowledge is crucial for many personal and professional choices.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Your capacity for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion prepares you to contribute to equitable living outcomes in local and global communities, develop empathy and respect, and strengthen the communication tools needed to be a culturally competent contributing member of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society.
SOU General Education Capacity Requirements*
Total of 39-44 credits
Required Lower Division Capacities | Total 27-32 Credits
Purposeful Learning (PL) “Topics-Based Seminar” | 12 Credits
3 Sequenced Courses with PL designation – (WR 121z, 122z, 123)*
Communication and Expression (CE) | 3-4 Credits
1 course with CE designation
Creativity and Innovation (CI) | 3-4 Credits
1 course with CI designation
Inquiry and Analysis (IA) | 3-4 Credits
1 course with IA designation
Numerical Literacy (NL) | 3-4 Credits
1 course with NL designation
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) | 3-4 Credits
1 course with EDI designation
Required Upper Division Capacities | Total 12 Credits
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) | 4 Credits
1 course with EDI designation
Communication and Expression (CE), Creativity and Innovation (CI), Inquiry and Analysis (IA), Numerical Literacy (NL) | 8 Credits
2 courses from any 2 capacity designations
*Please note that courses approved for General Education (GE) will have a capacity designation, and courses taken to fulfill GE capacities must be selected from different disciplinary prefixes. In other words, students do not repeat disciplinary prefixes when selecting courses to fulfill GE capacities. For example, students may not take three COMM courses to complete three different GE capacities even though each of those COMM courses may have a different capacity designation. The one exception to this rule would be the Purposeful Learning Seminar sequence of courses, each course in the sequence having the WR disciplinary prefix.