General Education Requirements (GER)

"GER" stands for General Education Requirements. These are required courses for everyone obtaining a BS degree. There is a list of approved GER courses that students may take to satisfy GER requirements. The courses are listed under 8 categories:

• Oral Communication Skills
• Written Communications Skills
• Quantitative Skills
• Humanities
• Fine Arts
• Social Sciences
• Natural Sciences
• Integrative Capstone

For a list of approved courses that may be used as GERs, see the UAA catalog at: http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/schoolofengineering/advising/upload/2011-12-GER-Sheet.pdf

** THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT ***
The following information can save you from having to take extra classes to graduate

INTRODUCTION
For students graduating prior to the 2008-9 year (or under the UAA Catalogs prior to 2005-6), all Bachelor degrees (including the B.S. degree) at UAA required a minimum of 34 credits of General Education Requirements (GER) in 7 different catagories: 1)  Oral Communication Skills-3 credits, 2) Quantitative Skills-3 credits, 3) Written Communication Skills-6 credits, 4) Fine Arts-3 credits, 5) Humanities-6 credits, 6) Natural Sciences-7 credits, 7) Social Sciences-6 credits.

Starting with the 2005-2006 UAA Catalog, substantial changes were made to the GER requirements. Starting with those students graduating in the 2008-2009 academic year, an 8th category titled "Integrative Capstone" course requirement was added. This makes the total GER course credits required for graduation to be 37 (instead of the previous 34). The following is a list of Integrative Capstone courses for the School of Engineering showing which course is required for each major.

ENGINEERING MAJORS
The Civil and BSE (Mechanical, Electrical, or Computer Systems Engineering) B.S. engineering degrees automatically more than satisfy 5 of the 8 catagories with required courses.  But there 15 credits of GERs in the three catagories of 1) Social Sciences, 2) Humanities, and 3) Fine Arts that are not automatically satisfied by named required courses. So the student must select these courses. The 15 credits show up on the course flowcharts and course schedules as 5 courses (usually 3 credits each) labeled as "GER" or "Social Science/Humanities/Fine Arts" electives.

The 15 GER elective credits consist of the following: Social Science (6 credits), Humanities (6 credits), and Fine Arts (3 credits). Only 15 total credits will count toward the B.S. degree (CE or BSE) i.e if you take more than 15 credits to satisfy this requirement, only 15 will count toward the total credits needed for the BS degree. These 15 credits are already included in the total credits required for the B.S. engineering degrees (about 130-132) and are not additional credits.

Some GER courses are listed under more than one category in catalogs prior to 2005-6. For example, HIST A101, HIST A102, HIST A131, HIST A132 are listed under the categories of both Social Sciences and Humanities. However, under the catalogs starting with 2005-6, history is no longer listed as a Social Science and is only listed under Humanities.

SPECIAL RULES
There are a few special rules that must be satisfied when selecting the 15 credits of GERs. A summation of the rules is provided here but students are strongly advised to review the appropriate UAA catalog for the rules pertaining to their year of graduation (see website for catalogs below). Students may graduate under the rules of the catalog year that they were accepted into the program or the year that they graduate.

A sequence can only be used in the Humanities and not in the Social Sciences. Courses selected for the 6 credits of Social Sciences must be outside the major AND from two different disciplines i.e. Cannot take two ECON courses to satisfy the Social Sciences requirement, if you take one ECON class then you cannot take another ECON course. Instead you must select a different prefix such as SOC or PSY to satisfy the 2nd Social Science course. However, you can satisfy the 6 credits of Humanities requirement with two courses with the same prefix such as two HIST, or two PHIL courses.

History courses can only be used as a Humanity.

6 out of the 15 GER credits must be at the 200 level or above. However, if you take a course sequence at the 100 level, then half the credit can be used towards the 200 level requirement. For example, if you take the sequence HIST A101 and HIST A102, then it would count as 6 credits toward the 15 credit GER requirement and 3 credits toward the 200 level requirement.  

Example satisfactory selections for the 15 credits of GER elective courses

Example #1
a.    Humanities: HIST A101, HIST A102 (6 credit sequence)
b.    Social Science: PSY A111, SOC A201 (6 credits)
c.    Fine Arts: ART A160 (3 credits)

Example #2
a.    Humanities: HIST A101, PHIL A201 (6 credits)
b.    Social Science: PSY A111, SOC A201 (6 credits)
c.    Fine Arts: ART A160 (3 credits)