This website lists the courses in the Colleges of Arts & Science and Agriculture & Life Sciences that are marked in the Acalog Courses of Study (online version, summer 2011) as being in one of the liberal studies categories. The list was extracted and these webpages were produced using a program written in the programming language Java. It took about 15 hours to write the program (using some existing material). Take CS1110 and CS2110 and you could do it yourself.
Click the links in the horizontal navigation bar near the top of the page to view courses —you can view them by college (A&S, CALS) and by category (CA, HA, KCM, LS, SBA). For category CA (and similarly for the others), an A&S course entry contains "(CA-AS)", while a CALS entry contains "(CA)".
This website was constructed for the use of Engineering students, but all are welcome to use it.
These courses can be used to satisfy the College of Engineering distribution requirement in liberal studies:
- At least six courses chosen from at least three of seven categories (see below).
- At most one course from category CE (which is not an A&S or CALS category).
- At least two courses numbered ≥ 2000.
- For a total of at least 18 credits.
In addition, these courses (pdf file) are approved and these courses (pdf file) are not and will not be approved.
Here are the 6 A&S/CALS categories; their descriptions are given further below, along with the Engineering category CE.
Category CA. cultural analysis
Courses in this area study human life in particular cultural contexts through interpretive analysis of individual behavior, discourse, and social practice. Topics include belief systems (science, medicine, and religion); expressive arts and symbolic behavior (visual arts, performance, poetry, myth, narrative, and ritual); identity (nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality); social groups and institutions (family, market, and community); and power and politics (states, colonialism, and inequality).
Category HA. historical analysis
Courses in this area interpret continuities and changes--political, social, economic, diplomatic, religious, intellectual, artistic, and scientific--through time. The focus may be on groups of people, a specific country or region, an event, a process, or a time period.
Category LA. literature and the arts
Courses in this area explore literature and the arts in two different but related ways. Some courses focus on the critical study of art works and on their history, aesthetics, and theory. These courses develop skills of reading, observing, and hearing and encourage reflection on such experiences; many investigate the interplay among individual achievement, artistic tradition, and historical context. Other courses are devoted to the production and performance of art works (in creative writing, performing arts, and media such as film and video). These courses emphasize the interaction among technical mastery, cognitive knowledge, and creative imagination.
Category KCM. knowledge, cognition, and moral reasoning
Courses in this area investigate the bases of human knowledge in its broadest sense, ranging from cognitive faculties (such as perception) shared by humans and animals, to abstract reasoning, to the ability to form and justify moral judgments. Courses investigating the sources, structure, and limits of cognition may use the methodologies of science, cognitive psychology, linguistics, or philosophy. Courses focusing on moral reasoning explore ways of reflecting on ethical questions that concern the nature of justice, the good life, or human values in general.
Category SBA. social and behavioral analysis
Courses in this area examine human life in its social context through the use of social-scientific methods, often including hypothesis testing, scientific sampling techniques, and statistical analysis. Topics studied range from the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes of individuals to interpersonal relations between individuals (e.g. in friendship, love, conflict), to larger social organizations (e.g. the family, society, religious or educational or civic institutions, the economy, government), to the relationships and conflicts among groups or individuals (e.g. discrimination, inequality, prejudice, stigmas, conflict resolution).
Category FL. foreign languages (not literature courses)
Courses in this area teach language skills, including reading, writing, listening, and spoken non-English languages, at beginning to advanced levels.
Category CE. communications in engineering.
The two courses in this category are
ENGRC 3350 Communications for Engineering Managers
ENGRC 3500 Engineering Communications
They are not category LA, as stated in the online CoS for 2010-2011.
Courses in this area explore communication as a way of acting in the world. The primary aim is to provide students with the opportunity to practice performing a range of engineering-related communication skills within specific genres (e.g. proposals, reports, and journal articles, oral presentations). Each of these genres potentially engages a wide variety of audiences and, depending on the particulars of context, each may have multiple purposes. The secondary aim is to enable students to be aware of the choices they make as communicators and to be able to articulate a rationale for those choices.