New GE degree requirements for incoming freshmen
Out with the old, in with the new degree contract, courtesy of the merger with Utah State University.
This year’s USU-Eastern’s students are used to having English, mathematics, American institutions, computer literacy, humanities, fine arts, social science, science and oral communication intensive as part of their veracular when discussing classes toward their associate’s degree. They are required to pass 63-credit hours.
This archived article was written by: staff
Out with the old, in with the new degree contract, courtesy of the merger with Utah State University.
This year’s USU-Eastern’s students are used to having English, mathematics, American institutions, computer literacy, humanities, fine arts, social science, science and oral communication intensive as part of their veracular when discussing classes toward their associate’s degree. They are required to pass 63-credit hours.
Next year USU-Eastern students will have a competency requirement, breadth requirement and exploration requirement as part of their general education requirements. Students will be required to pass 60-credit hours.
The competency requirement requires 9-10 hours of English 1010, 2010, and quantitative literacy (math).
The English 1010 course can be fulfilled by either taking the required course or passing either the ACT English test (score 29 or higher), SAT verbal test (score 640 or higher), AP English language test (score three or higher), CLEP English composition test (score 53 or higher) or IBO English A1 test (standard-level score four to seven).
The English 2010 (intermediate writing: research writing in a persuasive mode) can be fulfilled by either taking the required course or passing the IBO English A1 test.
The quantitative literacy courses include math 1030 (quantitative reasoning), math 1050 (college algebra) or statistics 1040 (introduction to statistics).
Or a student can take one mathematics or statistics course requiring math 1050 as a prerequisite such as math 1100, 1210, 1220 or statistics 2300.
Or a student passes the ACT math test (score 25 or higher), SAT math test (score 580 or higher), AP calculus AB test (score three or higher), AP calculus BC test (score three or higher), CLEP calculus test (score 50 or higher), CLEP college algebra test (score 50 or higher), or IBO mathematics test (higher-level score of four to seven). A current score is defined as a score from an exam taken within the Math Prerequisite Acceptability Time Limit (MPATL) or in other words, the score is only good for one year. If it exceeds the one year limit, the test will have to be re-taken.
The breadth requirement requires 18-20 credits with one course from each of the six breadth area including American institutions, creative arts, humanities, life sciences, social sciences and physical sciences.
According to the USU-Eastern degree contract, the general education breadth requirements are intended to introduce students to the nature, history, and methods of different disciplines; and to help students understand the cultural, historical and natural context shaping the human experience. Breadth courses also focus on the important cultural, social-economic, scientific and technological issues of today’s global community.
The exploration requirement requires a three- or four-hour course from one of the general education categories. Depending on which courses you take, you will have enough elective hours for a degree total of 60 semester hours. For the associate of science and associate of arts degree, the computer literacy and oral communication intensive requirement will no longer be required. For the associate of arts, eight hours of the same foreign language will be required.
Students who started prior to fall 2011, may choose the degree requirement under which they started (which includes the computer literacy, oral communication intensive, earth science and nine hours from the humanities or fine arts area) or they can elect to opt to the new USU Eastern GE.
