List of General Education courses most recommended and commonly taken successfully by Engineering Students
Humanities, Literature, and Fine Arts
Humanities (HU)
AMS 150: Introduction to American Pop Culture. Exploration of the relation between the arts – popular, folk, and elite – and American culture in four selected periods: Victorian America, the ’20s and ’30s, World War II and the Postwar Era, and the ’60s.
CL 222: Greek Roman Mythology. Introduction to classical mythology itself and the principal Greek and Roman myths.
COM 100: Rhetoric and Society. The impact of public discourse on the ideas and issues of culture and history.
COM 121/122: Critical Decision Making (121=Honors). Introductory course in thinking critically for the purpose of participating in the process of public decision making and understanding how discussion, argumentation, and persuasion function as communication forms for that process.
COM 123/124: Public Speaking (124=Honors). Theory and practice of basic principles of public speaking, with emphasis on the compositional and presentational aspects of communication in formal speaking situations.
JCM 112: Motion Picture History and Criticism. Development of the cinema, with emphasis on relation of technical advances to film content and style.
PHL 104: Critical Thinking. Introduction to the concepts and methods used to identify, construct, and assess arguments as they appear in editorials, articles, ordinary speech, etc.
PHL 211: Ancient Philosophy. This course will focus on the major themes of ancient Greek philosophy, from the earliest pre-Socratic philosophers, through Plato and Aristotle, to the later Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics.
REL 102: Religions of World. This comparative study of religions highlights complexity in world religions. Topics, such as texts, practices, and deities, organize the study of different pairs of religions.
REL 103: Religion in the News. This introductory level course examines the place and function of religion in modern culture by examining the way stories are (or are not) identified as religious in news media.
WS 200: Intro to Women Studies. An interdisciplinary course examining the roles of women in patriarchal society, with emphasis on how factors such as race, class, gender, and sexuality contribute to the oppression of women and ways they can be challenged through feminist critical practices.
Literature (L)
EN 209/219: American Literature I (219 = Honors). Survey of American literature from its beginnings to 1865, including, work by Poe, Thoreau, Emerson, Melville, and Whitman, among others.
EN 210/220: American Literature II (220 = Honors). Survey of American literature from 1865 to the present, including, work by Dickinson, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Morrison.
EN 249/EN 251/AAST 249: African American Literature (251 = Honors). Survey of African American literature from its earliest expressions to 1935. The course material includes spirituals, slave narratives, poetry, drama, autobiography, fiction, and nonfiction.
Fine Arts (FA)
ARH 151: Intro to Visual Arts. Introduction to the appreciation of art through an examination of the nature, themes, and purposes of art, the exploration of visual arts media and methods; and a survey of art history and artistic masterpieces.
ARH 252: Survey of Art I. Survey of major examples of painting, sculpture, and architecture from the prehistoric through the medieval periods
ARH 253: Survey of Art II. Survey of major examples of painting, sculpture, and architecture from the Renaissance through the modern periods.
BA 205: Introduction to Book Arts. This course will primarily focus on the history and appreciation of Book Arts traditions and contemporary practices, emphasizing the book as a form of cultural expression.
EN 200: The Living Writer: Introduction to Creative Writing. Prerequisite: EN 101 or 120. Introduction to the craft of imaginative writing, the landscape of contemporary literature, and the writer as artist. Students will engage UA’s literary arts culture and regularly attend readings and author events.
FA 200: Introduction to Fine Arts. An introduction to the fine arts, drawing especially on campus and community cultural events.
JCM 112: Motion Picture History and Criticism. Development of the cinema, with emphasis on relation of technical advances to film content and style.
MUS 121/122: Intro to Listening (122=Honors). The course presupposes no musical training on the student’s part. Emphasis is on what to listen for in music.
Natural Science (N)
may not apply to every engineering degree
GEO 101: The Dynamic earth w/ Lab. Three lectures and one laboratory. Study of the earth including materials, internal and external processes, deformational events, and plate tectonics.
GEO 102: The Earth Through Time w/ Lab. Three lectures and one laboratory. Survey of earth’s history including origin of the earth, plate tectonics and evolution of the continents and ocean basins, and the development of life.
GEO 105: Sustainable Earth w/ Lab. Lecture and laboratory provide an understanding of important earth resources (rocks and minerals, soil, water, fossil fuels, alternative energy) and how their utilization by humans impacts the environment.
GY 102: Earth Surface Processes w/ Lab. Three hours lecture and one two-hour laboratory period. Study of earth-surface processes, with consideration of human interaction with the physical environment.
History and Social Behavioral Sciences
History (H)
HY 103/107: American Civilization to 1865 (107=Honors). A survey of American history from its beginning to the end of the Civil War, giving special emphasis to the events, people, and ideas that have made America a distinctive civilization.
Social and Behavioral Sciences (SB)
AAST 201/AMS 201: Intro African American Study. A basic outline of the diversity and complexity of the African American experience in the United States.
ANT 100: Anthropology: The Study of Humanity. This course introduces subfields of anthropology and demonstrates a holistic approach to understanding globalization, multiculturalism, and cultural diversity.
ANT 102: Intro to Cultural Anthropology. An introduction to the discipline of cultural anthropology, the branch of anthropology that examines the rules and behaviors of contemporary human cultures.
CJ 100: Intro Criminal Justice. An overview of the criminal justice system with emphasis on the roles and problems of law enforcement, courts, and correctional components.
EC 110/112: Principles of Microeconomics (112=Honors). Prerequisite: MATH 100 or higher. Introduction to microeconomic analysis concentrating on consumer and producer behavior, competitive and imperfect markets, public policy and regulation, and income distribution.
EC 111/113: Principles of Macroeconomics (113=Honors). Prerequisite: EC 110 or 112. Introduction to macroeconomic analysis concentrating on national income, price levels, employment, monetary and fiscal policies, and international trade and development.
GY 110: People, Places, & Environment. Introduction to geography as a science for learning the fundamentals of human behavior and decision making.
HD 101/102: Life Span Human Development (102=Honors). An introductory survey of basic principles of human development across the life span.
NEW 140: Sexuality and Society. This course engages debates around sexuality as central to human behavior and to social structures, in both America and the world.
PSC 101: Intro American Politics. Survey of the principles, political institutions, and practices of American national, state, and local politics.
SOC 101: Intro to Sociology. Introduction to the scientific study of human social behavior
SOC 202: Social Problems. Study of contemporary social problems, including definition, description, and analysis. Emphasis is on social change perspectives and cultural complexity.