Requirement (6 credit hours)

• A total of six credit hours from the university approved GEP Social Sciences course list.
• The selected courses must be from two different disciplines.
• Special Note:  If a student changes a General Education course except for HES courses from a letter grade to credit-only (S/U), then the course will not satisfy the GEP requirements.  Consult your academic advisor if you have questions.

Double-counting

• A course taken to satisfy a Major requirement may also satisfy this requirement if the course is on the approved GEP Social Sciences course list.
• A course that satisfies the Social Sciences requirement may also satisfy the Global Knowledge or U.S. Diversity co-requisite if the course also exists on either university approved GEP co-requisite course list.

Rationale

The study of social sciences enables students to understand individual and collective human behavior by exploring meaning within a variety of social, cultural, political, and economic contexts, analyzing the structures within which human goals are established and human choices are made, and applying theoretical and empirical models to specific cases.

Category Objectives

Each course in the Social Sciences category will provide instruction and guidance that help students to:

1. Examine at least one of the following:  human behavior, culture, mental processes, organizational processes, or institutional processes; and
2. Demonstrate how social scientific methods may be applied to the study of human behavior, culture, mental processes, organizational processes, or institutional processes; and
3. Use theories or concepts of the social sciences to analyze and explain theoretical and/or real-world problems, including the underlying origins of such problems.