General Education
Our new skills-based and outcomes-focused General Education curriculum allows every student to graduate with a minor.
Personalized, Outcomes-Focused General Education
Chart a course through the GenEd with academic advisors to create an experience that is uniquely your own. This ability to create your own powerful combination of courses is designed into the GenEd program.
The RWU GenEd does not require specific subjects to be taken (e.g., philosophy, history). Rather, it is designed around six academic themes: Writing, Creativity & The Arts, Global Perspectives, Systems Thinking, Social Inquiry, and Quantitative Inquiry. The six learning themes of our GenEd provide you with the top in-demand skills that will set you apart with employers across all industries.
Embedded Minor
A unique feature of the GenEd at RWU is the ability for you to complete one of 41 minors within the GenEd program requirements. An embedded minor allows RWU students, by design, to easily graduate with a major and a minor. You can combine your interests and stand out in the job search process.
Right-Sized
The RWU GenEd takes 40-43 credits to complete. And with a bachelor’s degree requiring 120 credits, GenEd represents just about one-third of the overall graduation requirements at RWU. This leaves lots of room to explore diverse interests, take risks, and complete a second major.
Flexibility & Choice
At some colleges, a “Core” curriculum requires all students to take the pre-defined set of courses. Alternatively, in a General Education approach, specific themes are required but a wider variety of courses can meet the requirement. The new RWU General Education (GenEd) program embraces this approach, giving you more choice in an open curriculum across all our schools of study.
First-Year Seminars
Our first-year seminars stir intellectual curiosity and invite you to college-level learning where you will question and explore an engaging, important, and fun topic with a small cohort of new peers. These courses are thoughtfully designed to teach the habits of mind that will enable you to enter the RWU community of academic inquiry. First-Year Seminars also include field trips, films, guest speakers, workshops, and community service projects.
Senior Seminars
Senior Seminars are interdisciplinary courses that allow you to draw connections between ideas and knowledge gained throughout your college experience. They feature unique and interesting topics, small class sizes and active student involvement. Examples of Senior Seminar offerings include Cultural Creations: Women Across Time; Environmental Ethics; Great Powers and Great Responsibilities: Superheroes, Politics, Society and Identity; Monster Ball: The Dance of Great Arguments About Evil.
Learning Themes
At RWU, students will take courses in each of the following themes:
| RWU Learning Theme | Outcomes Desired by Employers |
|---|---|
| Writing | Introduces students to the context of writing for academic, professional, and public audiences. Skills learned: Ability to form arguments and reason and communicate through the written word |
| Creativity & The Arts | Helps students appreciate the importance of the arts as forms of expression of culture, society, and the human condition. Skills learned: Creative thinking, design, and application of knowledge |
| Global Perspectives | Helps students understand the dynamics of global systems and appreciate our interconnectedness as engaged citizens of the world. Students will draw on historical and contemporary resources as well as marginalized narratives. Skills learned: Ability to communicate and work with people from different cultural backgrounds. |
| Systems Thinking | Teaches students how a diversity of perspectives is required for understanding relationships within a complex system. Skills learned: Ability to integrate ideas and information across settings and contexts. |
| Social Inquiry | Explores how people’s lives are connected to systems of politics, culture, and media through the humanities and other subject areas. Skills learned: Work effectively in teams; work with people from diverse cultural backgrounds; integrate ideas across contexts; grow and develop civic skills and engagement |
| Quantitative Inquiry | Hones students’ ability to work with numbers and statistics. They will learn critical thinking, problem solving, and effective communication and apply mathematical and statistical reasoning in both abstract and real-world problems. Skills learned: Ability to analyze and interpret data |