What is the General Studies Program?
The mission of the General Studies Program at NAU is to advance informed, responsible, productive, and self-reflective citizens of the world who possess knowledge from a variety of disciplines and utilize a range of crucial transferable skills.
- It is a guided yet flexible set of courses covering these areas: Foundational Math and English, Arts and Humanities, Science, Social and Political Worlds, and peoples within and beyond the United States.
- Students create their own General Studies portfolio by selecting courses from each area that will provide context for their chosen major, support personal growth, and prepare them for future careers.
The General Studies Program includes courses outside your major
The General Studies Program is an interdisciplinary program that all undergraduate students complete in addition to courses for their major. Through this program, students complete 34-35 credits of coursework in English and Math Foundations and in the knowledge areas of:
- American Institutions
- Arts and Humanities
- Scientific Literacy and Scientific Methods
- Social and Political Worlds
Embedded in designated knowledge area courses are Global, US Ethnic, and Indigenous Peoples Inclusive Perspectives. Through interdisciplinary coursework, students hone their skills in writing, speaking, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, collaboration and teamwork, ethics, and critical thinking, and they integrate the habits of curiosity, intellectual integrity, persistence, and self-awareness in their personal and professional lives.
This program contextualizes a student’s major and provides them with transferable knowledge, skills, and attitudes that foster civic engagement, the ability to respond and adapt to real-world experiences, participation in an inclusive workforce, and the capacity to solve problems in innovative ways. The General Studies Program is valuable in college and beyond because it provides students with a web of knowledge and skills that increase their capacity to understand the world and shape and reshape themselves and their societies.
