General Education

All degree programs require both the completion of one 3-4 credit course in each of nine categories (three Core courses and six Distribution courses) AND the completion of at least 40 total credits of General Education courses. Students can take any additional courses from any category other than FYS and FYW to get to 40 credits but no more than two courses in any course prefix can be used to meet this requirement.

Information for Transfer Students

Transfer Students may determine their status with respect to General Education requirements by inquiring with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions or at the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. 

First-Year Writing (FYW)

FYW 100 (or FYWP) is required in freshmen year. It introduces students to college-level writing and helps them develop the writing skills needed for success in college courses. Successful completion of the course (a final grade of C or better) will also meet the college's Writing Requirement. Courses are limited to twenty students.

First-Year Seminar (FYS)

FYS 100, with sections on a wide variety of topics taught by professors from departments across the college, is required in the student's first year. Students are encouraged to choose a topic that interests them. Each section is discussion-based, and focused on developing skills in critical thinking, oral communication, research and information literacy, and written communication. FYS 100 is offered only in the fall and spring semesters. Students who enter the College with 24 or more transfer credits are not considered first-year students and are exempt from this requirement. Courses are limited to twenty students.

Representative First-Year Seminars

• Music and the Social World
• Raid the Collections: Making Discoveries in Rhode Island College Collections
• Shock Therapy: Drama as Action
• Global Perspectives on Health
• Cultures Collide: Indians and Europeans in Early North America
• Language and Gender
• Performance in the First Person: This is ME!
• Food and Medicine of East Asia
• Sex Rights, Sex Wrongs
• Mountains of Power and Culture
• You, Inc.: The Business of You
• Global Imagination of Korean Media: Meanings and Significance
• Languages in U.S. Education: Whose Matter?
• Self, Mind, Heart in Eastern Philosophies
• ‘Tattoos aren't just for sailors anymore’: Men, women, & bodies
• Talkies and more: The sociology of cinema through Hollywood
• From Europe to the States: humour, friendship, and love through film remakes
• Leadership Study Through the Biography
• Native American Arts

Courses in the Connections category are courses on topics that emphasize comparative perspectives, such as across disciplines, across time, and across cultures. Students must complete the FYS and FYW courses before taking a Connections course.

• AFRI 262 Cultural Issues in Africana Studies
• ANTH 261 The Complexities of Global Health
• ANTH 262 Indigenous Rights and the Global Environment
• ANTH 265 Anthropological Perspectives on Childhood
• ANTH 266 Anthropological and Indigenous Perspectives on Place
• ART 261 Art and Money
• ART 262 Encounters with Global Arts
• BIOL 261 The World’s Forests
• COMM 261 Issues in Free Speech
• COMM 262 Dialect – What we Speak
• COMM 263 East Asian Media and Popular Culture
• ENGL 261 Arctic Encounters
• ENGL 264 American Persuaders
• ENGL 263 Zen - East and West
• ENGL 267 Books That Changed American Culture
• ENST 261 Climate Change and YOU
• FILM 262 Cross-Cultural Projections: Exploring Cinematic Representation
• GEND 261 Resisting Authority: Girls of Fictional Futures
• GEND 262 Lights, Camera, Gender!: Gender in Film
• GEOG 261 Globalization, Cities and Sustainability
• HIST 263 Christianity
• HIST 265 Post-1945 Conflicts in Africa and Globally
• HIST 267 Europe and Beyond: Historical Reminiscences
• HIST 268 Civil Rights and National Liberation Movements
• HIST 269 Jazz and Civil Rights: Freedom Sounds
• HIST 272 Globalization 15th Century to the Present
• HIST 273 Latin America and Globalization, 1492-Present
• HIST 274 History of the Dominican Republic
• HIST 275 Russia from Beginning to End
• HONR 264 Seminar in Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Issues
• MUS 261 Music and Multimedia
• NURS 262 Substance Abuse as a Global Issue
• NURS 264 Status of the World’s Children
• NURS 266 Health and Cultural Diversity
• PHIL 262 Freedom and Responsibility
• PHIL 263 The Idea of God
• PHIL 265 Philosophical Issues of Gender and Sex
• PHIL 266 Asian Philosophies: Theory and Practice
• POL 262 Power and Community
• POL 266 Investing in the Next Global Economy
• POL 267 Immigration, Citizenship, and National Identity
• PSCI 262 Space: The Final Frontier
• SOC 264 Sex and Power: Global Gender Inequality
• SOC 267 Comparative Perspectives on Higher Education
• SOC 268 Genocide, Atrocity, and Prevention
• SUST 261 Exploring Nature through Art, Science, Technology
• THTR 261 Contemporary Black Theatre: Cultural Perspectives

Distribution courses emphasize ways of thinking and methods of inquiry within various disciplines. Students are required to take one course in each of the following six areas:

• Arts - Visual and Performing
• History or Philosophy
• Literature or Language
• Mathematics
• Natural Science
• Social and Behavioral Sciences

See the specific courses that satisfy the Distribution Requirement

These courses have also been approved as General Education courses, and along with any additional courses in the categories above, may be used to meet the requirement of achieving at least 40 credits of General Education courses. Please note that some of these courses may require prerequisites.

• ASL 101 Elementary American Sign Language
• ANTH 235 Bones and Stones: How Archaeologists Know
• ANTH 237 Measuring Injustice, Analyzing Inequality
• ANTH 306 Primate Ecology and Social Behavior
• ANTH 307 Human Nature: Evolution, Ecology and Behavior
• BIOL 203 & 204 Anatomy and Physiology II (Lecture and Lab)
• BIOL 314 Genetics
• BIOL 335 Human Physiology
• CHEM 104 General Chemistry II
• CHEM 106 General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry II
• CSCI 423 Analysis of Algorithms
• DATA 245 Principles of Data Science
• ENGL 220 Introduction to Creative Writing
• FREN 101 Elementary French I
• GEOG 201 Mapping our Changing World
• GEOG 205 Earth’s Physical Environments World
• HIST 207 History through Numbers
• HSCI 232 Human Genetics
• ITAL 101 Elementary Italian I
• MATH 213 Calculus II
• MATH 239 Contemporary Topics in Mathematics II
• MATH 241 Statistical Methods II
• MATH 248 Business Statistics I
• MATH 324 College Geometry
• MGT 249 Business Statistics II
• PORT 101 Elementary Portuguese I
• PHIL 220 Logic and Probability in Scientific Reasoning
• PHYS 102 Physics for Science and Mathematics II
• PHYS 120 The Extraordinary Physics of Ordinary Things
• PHYS 309 Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
• PSCI 204 Understanding the Physical Universe
• PSCI 208 Forensics
• PSCI 214 Introduction to Meteorology
• POL 300 Methodology in Political Science
• SOC 302 Social Research Methods I
• SOC 404 Social Research Methods II
• SPAN 101 Elementary Spanish I
• SWRK 303 Social Work Research Methods II
• TECH 306 Automation and Control Systems

To complete General Education Honors, students must take a minimum of five General Education courses in specially designed honors sections. Courses chosen normally include the Honors Core, which consists of Honors First Year Seminar, Honors First Year Writing, and Honors Connections (taken in the junior year). Other honors courses are offered in various disciplines as Distribution Requirements. Although honors courses are reserved for students in the General Education Honors Program, if space permits and with the permission of the director of honors, other students may take honors sections.

Learn more about the Honors Program​