PrincetonUniversityNew General Education Requirements
for the Class of 2000 and Beyond
Overview of General Education RequirementsRegardless of your intended area of concentration, you are, first and foremost, a Princeton undergraduate. While each department and school has its own requirements, the University requirements for graduation transcend the boundaries of specialization and provide you and your peers with a common language and common skills.
It is as important for a student in engineering to engage in disciplined reflection on human conduct, character, and ways of life or to develop critical skills through the study of the history, aesthetics, and theory of literature and the arts as it is for a student in the humanities to understand the rigors of quantitative reasoning and to develop a basic knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of scientific inquiry and technological development. Nevertheless, because the curriculum in the School of Engineering and Applied Science is more structured than the one in the humanities, the social sciences, and even the natural sciences, students in the engineering program have fewer distribution area requirements to fulfill, and they are exempt from the foreign language requirement. But a substantial core of distribution requirements is applicable to all students.
On the next page you will find a schematic representation of the general education requirements. While you can see at a glance what you will have to do, you will need to read what follows to understand why the faculty has selected these areas, and how you should think about your choices.
General Education Requirements for A.B. Students
Writing(w)--one course
Foreign Language--This requirement can take one to four terms to complete, depending on the language you study and the level at which you start it.
Epistemology and Cognition (EC)--one course
Ethical Thought and Moral Values (EM)--one course
Historical Analysis (HA)--one course
Literature and the Arts (LA)--two courses
Quantitative Reasoning (QR)--one course
Science and Technology, with laboratory (ST)--two courses
Social Analysis (SA)--two courses
A course that fulfills the writing requirement may also satisfy half or all of one of the distribution area requirements.
General Education Requirements for B.S.E. StudentsIn addition to the School of Engineering and Applied Science requirements of four terms of mathematics, two terms of physics, and one term each of chemistry and computer science, candidates for the B.S.E. degree must fulfill the writing requirement and take a minimum of seven courses in the humanities and social sciences. The humanities and social science courses must include one course in four of the six areas listed below:
Epistemology and Cognition (EC)
Ethical Thought and Moral Values (EM)
Foreign Language (at the 107/108 level or above)
Historical Analysis (HA)
Literature and the Arts (LA)
Social Analysis (SA)
A humanities or social science course that fulfills the writing requirement counts as one of the seven required courses in the humanities and social sciences and can also fulfill a distribution area. Language courses beyond the first year (for example, German 105, Slavic 105, Japanese 105) also count toward the seven; a language course at the 107/108 level or above counts toward the seven and satisfies one of four distribution requirements.
You will be able to identify the distribution area that a particular course satisfies by the two-letter abbreviation that appears next to the course title in the Undergraduate Announcement and in the Course Offerings booklet. A "w" after the three-digit course number indicates that the course satisfies the writing requirement.
The Undergraduate Announcement lists all permanent courses in the undergraduate curriculum. The Course Offerings booklet, printed for preregistration each term, includes all of the courses available to you in that term, both permanent courses and occasional courses (called "one-time-only" courses). You will find a list of all courses that fulfill the new distribution requirements, categorized by area, in the front section of Course Offerings.