Your student will graduate from Penn State with a major, and all majors require that students complete at least 120 total credits. Within those 120 credits, your student will take 45 credits of General Education courses. These courses are designed to be taken throughout all four years of your student’s Penn State experience.These General Education courses are not considered electives.
You can use the Undergraduate Bulletin and General Education website to explore specific requirements in more detail.
The Purpose of General Education
Penn State’s General Education requirements are meant to ensure that all students are exposed to a breadth of subjects and perspectives needed to be effective contributing citizens. It’s important to note that General Education requirements were recently revised. If you are a Penn State alumni, or the parent/family member of an upper-division student or recent graduate, your incoming student will be required to complete different General Education requirements.
General Education is designed to let students explore their curiosities and make connections with skills needed for their career. General Education is also what lets students combine multiple areas of interest or even change academic direction without losing time.
Through General Education, students are challenged to develop more sophisticated skills in:
- critical and analytical thinking (such as, analyzing evidence before drawing conclusions);
- integrative thinking (making connections across topics);
- creative thinking (applying what they know to create new ideas);
- global learning (understanding the past and present relationships among different cultures and current issues); and,
- social responsibility and ethical reasoning (how each individual plays a role in creating and maintaining healthy, civil, and thriving communities).
These courses are designed to challenge your student, so general education courses should not be regarded as “easy.” They are an integral component of their Penn State education.
