Skip Nav Home Page Print Page
The General Education Program is the heart of your college education. The Liberal Arts courses, which make up the General Education Program will challenge you to engage in the excitement of intellectual dialogue and discovery and foster your passion for knowledge. Well-planned, engaging courses are designed to encourage you to fully claim your power as a learner. Through the Liberal Arts, you will be prepared to be a public citizen, to evaluate and apply new information, to effectively express your ideas, and to make reasoned, thoughtful and compassionate judgments about the complex and diverse world around you. Our goal is to introduce you to a love of learning that will last throughout
your life.

Bloomfield College’s General Education Program is distinctive in that, while courses are designed to broaden your knowledge, they also are designed to sharpen your skills. We have identified seven areas of competence; which are integrated into both the General Education and major areas: Aesthetic Appreciation, Communication Skills, Community Orientation/Citizenship, Multiracial/Multicultural Awareness, Problem-Solving/Critical Thinking, Professional Skills, and Scientific Reasoning/Technological Skills. The combination of courses you will take in the General Education Program and in your major is designed to help you reach a high level of competence in each of these areas.

General Education Limited Selection (GELS) courses provide you with new information and the methods to analyze it in history, philosophy, comparative religions, art, literature, science and social science. You will learn to better understand your own and others’ cultures, to recognize social forces in history, to recognize yourself as a contributor to and potential leader in society. You will also explore formal connections between your classroom learning and your experiences as a citizen of your community. When you complete the General Education Program, you will be well prepared for the upper division courses in your major.

Common Core: 4.5 course units (c.u.)
  1. IDS 161 Freshman Seminar (0.5 c.u.)
    Required of all Day Freshmen beginning Fall 2000
    IDS 155 Pathways to Adult Learning (0.5 c.u.)
    Required of all Evening and Weekend Freshmen beginning Spring 2001
  2. ENG 106 Writing and Analysis I: English Composition
  3. ENG 107 Writing and Analysis II: Literature
  4. ENG/HUM/PSC 208 Sophomore Core–Social Responsibility
  5. ECN 102 Introduction to Economics (0.5 c.u.)
  6. CMP 102 Fundamental Computer Literacy (0.5 c.u.)
    7.

Any student with less than 6.25 course units is considered a freshman. Therefore the Freshman Seminar is required of all transfer students who transfer in with fewer than 6.25 course units. Any student with more than 6.25 course units would not be required to take the seminar, but would be allowed to take it
if the student desired.

The Freshman Seminar course will be waived for transfer students who have taken the equivalent course on a pass/fail basis and passed the course. The student will need to take 2 general education electives instead of 1 1/2.

Any student with more than 14.25 course units is considered a junior. Therefore the sophomore core is not required of transfer students who transfer in with more than 14.25 course units.

General Education Limited Selections (GELS): 9 course units
  1. Mathematics 110 or 113 (determined by major) (1 c.u.)
  2. Arts as Catalyst (AAC) (1 c.u.)
    3.
  3. Creative Arts and Technology and Humanities designated Limited Selection courses. (3 c.u.s)
    Two courses must be taken above the 100 level and two must be in the Humanities. (A list of courses offered each semester will be made available.)
  4. Social Science (2 c.u.s)
    5.
  5. Natural Science (2 c.u.s) (At least one of which must include a laboratory component)

General Education Electives: 1.5 course units

These courses must be taken outside your major discipline and outside the additional courses your major requires. (A list of courses that cannot count for General Education Electives can be found linked below.)

Exemptions for Majors

Many students–depending upon major– have additional options regarding the Common Core and Limited Selection courses. When basic competencies and themes are clearly taught and practiced throughout the student’s major discipline courses, students in that major are exempted from or have substitutions for similar courses in General Education. For example, Biology majors are exempted from the two Natural Science course under Limited Selections, Business majors are exempted from the Common Core courses in Economics and Computer Literacy; Education majors are exempted from General Education Electives. For details see specific major.

Computer Literacy Requirements: Majors other than accounting, business, computer information systems may satisfy the Computer Literacy requirement by testing out of or by selecting one of the following: CMP 100, CMP 102 (0.5 c.u.) or CAT 102.

Mathematics: 1 course as determined by major.

View list of courses APPROVED for the General Education Program.

View list of courses that DO NOT carry General Education Elective credit.