General Education

General education requirements can be confusing and a lot to take in. I hope with this page the rules and requirements for fulfilling the general education can be understood and minimize the number of extra classes that you have to take.

Course requirements to graduate can be broken down as follows:


 * University of California Requirements (ELWR and American History)
 * General Education
 * Major Requirements

As implied, the UC requirements and general education requirements are universal across all majors, while major requirements depends on the major that you are enrolled as. Courses that you take for your major requirements usually overlaps with general education requirements, and can be counted for both. How many general education requirements it can be counted for is a bit more complicated and will be explained.

There are two types of general education requirements, the regular GE's (non-badge), and the Intellectual Experience Badge. Courses can only be filled for 1 requirement from non-badge requirements, and 2 badge requirements.

Lower Division Common Course

 * Spark Seminar
 * Written Communication
 * Quantitative Reasoning
 * Language

Upper Division Common Course

 * Crossroads
 * Writing in the Discipline
 * Culminating Experiences

Approaches to Knowledge Area A (Natural and Engineering Science)

 * Natural Science
 * Engineering Science
 * Natural or Engineering Sciences

Approaches to Knowledge Area B (Social Science, Arts, and Humanities)

 * Arts and Humanities
 * Social Science
 * Arts and Humanities or Social Sciences

Intellectual Experience Badges

 * Diversity and Identity
 * Ethics
 * Global Awareness
 * Literary and Textual Analysis
 * Media and Visual Analysis
 * Quantitative and Numerical Analysis
 * Scientific Method
 * Societies and Cultures of the Past
 * Sustainability Badge

Example
CSE Major, taking BIO043: Biodiversity and Conservation

Part of the CSE major requirements is biological or environmental system, and BIO043 fills that. Additionally, BIO043 has several requirements it can fill including:


 * Approaches to Knowledge: Natural Science
 * Badge: Ethics
 * Badge: Global Awareness
 * Badge: Quantitative and Numerical Analysis
 * Badge: Sustainability
 * Badge: Scientific Method

This means in total, BIO043 fills the CSE bio/enve requirement, Approaches to Knowledge: Natural Science, and two of the five badges. (one major, one non-badge GE, and two badge requirements). Which badges it fills depends on which badges have been already filled.

NOTE: You can find what req a course fills using the UC Merced Catalog. You can also use the filter to find courses that fills a req.