PrincetonUniversityNew General Education Requirements
for the Class of 2000 and Beyond
Description of General Education Requirements1. The Writing Requirement
Regardless of the tools you use to communicate, writing clearly and effectively is inseparable from clear and coherent thinking. No matter how well you write, you will benefit from sustained and careful attention to both what you write and how you write. The one-course writing requirement can be fulfilled through a wide variety of courses offered by the Writing Program, the Freshman Seminar Program, or any course in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering whose number is followed by a "w." What characterizes these courses is the close attention they pay to the process of writing. You will be expected to write frequently, to hand in drafts, to rewrite, and to progress from short papers to papers of increasing length and complexity. Because you will be writing a great deal at Princetonresearch papers for your courses, junior papers, senior thesis, and design projectsit is to your advantage to take the writing-intensive course as early as possible. It must be completed by the end of your sophomore year.
2. The Foreign Language Requirement (A.B. students only)
Proficiency in a foreign language gives you the key to another culture, a way of thinking that is different from your ownbut one that also helps to illuminate what distinguishes your own interpretation of the world from those of other peoples and places. The faculty pays much attention to the newest pedagogical methods that improve both the effectiveness and the enjoyment of learning a foreign language. You may also want to look for opportunities to study a language in a country in which it is spoken. For more details about language study at Princeton, and opportunities for summer language study and work-study abroad, consult the booklet Language Study at Princeton.
If you are continuing the study of a language, you will be placed into the appropriate-level course at entrance. If you are starting a new language to fulfill the language requirement, you will have to take either three terms of a Romance language (French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) or four terms of all other languages to reach the level of proficiency required for graduation. If you have an AP score of 4 or better, or an achievement score of 740, you will have fulfilled the foreign language requirement at entrance.
3. Distribution Area Requirements
The distribution areas described below should serve as a broad intellectual map that you will follow as you work your way through the curriculum. The first thing you will notice is that there are no required courses and that the pathways we have outlined are wide, encouraging you to make choices that best suit your intellectual curiosity and academic goals. But they are far from arbitrary. On the contrary, they mark the boundaries of what the faculty believes are the important substantive fields of inquiry and methodological approaches that are integral to a rich and lasting undergraduate education.
Epistemology and Cognition
The requirement in epistemology and cognition introduces students to the critical study of the nature, sources, and bounds of human knowledge. While courses in other areas examine important modes of cognition or methods of inquiry in application to a particular subject matter, courses in this category take cognition itself as their subject matter, and explore its mechanisms, potential, and limitations from a wide variety of theoretical, historical, and empirical perspectives. The topics they examine range from the basic perceptual capabilities that humans share with other animals to the distinctively human capacity for language; from theoretical models of human knowledge to empirical models of an individual's cognitive abilities; from the historical record of collective inquiry in the sciences and elsewhere to informed speculations on the outer limits of what is knowable.
This distribution category is probably least familiar to you. The term epistemology is derived from the Greek episteme, knowledge, and logos, discourse. Though the term may be new to you, inquiry into ways of knowing has, traditionally, been the central focus of higher education. Courses in this category are drawn largely from anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. They will introduce you to the critical study of human knowledge and thought processes. Their focus is on human beings as seekers of knowledge and builders/creators of knowledge systems. These courses raise questions about the conditions, limits, and validity of our claims to "know" and approach critically the various claims about what we know and how we know.
Ethical Thought and Moral Values
The requirement in ethical thought and moral values is designed to engage students in disciplined reflection on human conduct, character, and ways of life. Through inquiry into questions of ethics and morality as presented in works from one or more cultural traditions, these courses will help students to discern, understand, and appreciate ethical issues and to articulate, assess, and defend moral judgments in an informed and thoughtful way. Source materials may include theoretical works in various disciplines, political deliberations, autobiographies, and utopian and dystopian novels, among others. Regardless of the particular genres and the traditions to which these works belong, courses in this area focus on the ethical thought and moral values that shape individual and collective life.
Every society draws distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, noble and ignoble. Courses in this category focus on ethical questions and moral deliberations, regardless of the historical, cultural, or religious context in which they occur. They are drawn largely, though not exclusively, from philosophy, politics, and religion, but you will also find courses in a number of other departments (for example, anthropology and the various languages and literatures departments) that satisfy the requirement. The aim of these courses is to help you explore and understand different value systems, to think about the possibility of commonalities across historical and cultural boundaries, and to introduce you to ways of making reasoned moral judgments.
Historical Analysis
Historical analysis begins with the problem of understanding the differences between the world of contemporary experience and the worlds of the past. Some courses in historical analysis focus on the distinctiveness of one or another part of the past, with the intention of bringing students to an understanding of political, social, and cultural configurations quite different from their own. Others stress the processes of historical change through which one configuration of institutions, ideas, and behavior is supplanted by another. Common to all courses in historical analysis is the presumption that the categories of social analysis are themselves historical and historically contingent, and that to understand the past requires entering imaginatively into languages, institutions, and worldviews quite different from those of the present day.
While this category is very familiar to you, the approach to historical analysisthe framing of the questions and the examination of historical documentsmay be less so. Courses in this category are drawn largely, though not exclusively, from classics, East Asian studies, history, Near Eastern studies, and religion. The aim of these courses is to show you the contingency, interconnectedness, and continuity of human institutions, and to introduce you to the complexities of historical interpretation. Some courses focus on a distinctive historical period or a specific region; others follow the development of ideas and institutions through time; and yet others focus on the interrelatedness of events in many parts of the world. All of them emphasize the need to create a distance, however imperfectly, between the world in which you live and the world that you are trying to understand.
Literature and the Arts
The requirement in literature and the arts allows students to develop critical skills through the study of the history, aesthetics, and theory of literature and the arts, and to engage in creative practice. Students may choose among courses in literature (in English, English translation, or other languages), visual and performing arts, music, architecture, film, and electronic media. In addition to courses emphasizing critical analysis, students may explore the creative arts through practice in creative writing; in the studio arts of architecture, painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography; in the performing arts of music, theater, and dance; and in the media of film and video.
Courses in this area fall into two groups: those that emphasize a variety of critical and analytic approaches to artistic expression and those that engage students in the creative practice of "making" art. Courses in the first group are drawn largely, though not exclusively, from the Departments of Art and Archaeology, Architecture, Classics, Comparative Literature, East Asian Studies, English, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Music, Near Eastern Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Slavic Languages and Literatures. These courses emphasize the development of the skills of reading, observing, and hearing and frequently point to the complex interplay between individual talent, artistic tradition, and historical context. Courses in the second group are drawn largely from the Programs in Creative Writing, Visual Arts, and Theater and Dance, as well as from the Department of Music and the School of Architecture. These courses emphasize the interplay between technical discipline and creative imagination in the production of works of art. While the focus of these two types of courses is different, they enrich each other.
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative reasoning is a process in which complex problems are described mathematically and solved within a structured mathematical framework. Courses in this area involve the manipulation and interpretation of numerical and categorical information and the quantification of inferences drawn from that information. Appropriate courses include those that address theoretical and empirical problems in the natural, social, computer, and engineering sciences.
The goal of courses in this category is to give students some understanding of basic mathematical methods and their applications; to provide them with an ability to understand and appreciate quantitative issues that have become part of everyday life; and to instill in them a lasting interest in quantitative methods and their applications. Courses in this category are drawn from the Departments of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Operations Research and Financial Engineering, as well as from other departments in the social sciences, the natural sciences, and engineering.
Science and Technology, with laboratory
The requirement in science and technology is designed to give all students a basic knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of scientific inquiry and technological development. Some understanding of the process by which science discovers new knowledge, and engineering applies that knowledge to practice, is essential to functioning effectively in modern society. Courses in this area are designed to foster an understanding of scientific concepts and to develop the student's ability to use experimentation and measurement in exploring and testing ideas.
A laboratory is mandatory in any course that satisfies the science and technology requirement, except that any student with two units of advanced placement in a natural science will be able to take one laboratory course, and one science or technology course without a laboratory from a list of approved courses.
The common purpose of courses in this area is to instill in students a lasting interest in science and technology; to impart some understanding of the value of scientific thinking and its relation to societal issues; to foster an appreciation of the essential role of experimentation and measurement; and to convey the excitement of doing scientific research. The laboratory component is essential to an understanding of how scientific concepts are tested and of the limitations of the scientific method, including the concepts of error and reproducibility. Courses in this area are drawn largely from the Departments of Chemistry, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geosciences, Molecular Biology, Physics, Psychology, and Civil and Environmental, Electrical, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, as well as from the offerings of the Council on Science and Technology.
Social Analysis
The requirement in social analysis is designed to familiarize students with different approaches to the study of social life and to introduce them to modes of thinking about social institutions and cultural norms and their interconnectedness with forms of human behavior. Courses in this area examine how individuals interact with, and are shaped by, social groups and institutions, including those associated with politics, economics, religion, family, the arts, health, and education; how and why particular forms of social organization and social relations emerge within a group or culture; and the origins, characteristics, and consequences of social conflict and change.
Courses in this area introduce students to some of the central concepts and methods of the social sciences and show both the variety and the interconnectedness of social institutions. Courses are drawn primarily from the Departments of Anthropology, Economics, Politics, Religion, Sociology, and the Woodrow Wilson School. Some take a comparative approach to institutions across historical, political, social, or cultural divides; others focus on the interface of several institutionspolitical, economic, artisticin a given social context; yet others analyze a single institutionbe it democratic education, a free market economy, or the nuclear family structureand assess its role in society. Courses in this category look at institutions as shaped by human behavior and at human behavior as shaped, in turn, by social institutions.