More Room in Your Schedule: The New Gen-Ed Changes for Fall

Everyday, Purchase floods our inboxes with messages about wellness, athletics, study abroad opportunities and phishing scams. And while I can get a little too move-to-trash happy when sifting through my inbox, one particular email caught my eye.
 
Seemingly insignificant, a piece of virtual mail entitled, “General Education/Core Curriculum Requirements: Effective Fall 2011” caught my eye on February 15. Normally I’d skim through and click the delete button – especially after reading Effective Fall 2011 – but there was something very unsettling to me about this.
 
According to the email sent by Damian Fernandez, Provost, the changes, “gives students more flexibility to complete a general education program with both breadth and depth, tailored to their personal and professional interests.”
 

I couldn’t help but shake my clenched fists in the air. As a transfer to Purchase, I spent a good chunk of my time playing catch-up on all of SUNY Purchase’s general education requirements. Now, as a second semester senior, I am still finishing up the foreign language requirement as one of my four classes in addition to interning. Did I want to spend my time dans la classe de français? Not necessarily. So you can imagine my shock and disappointment when I deduced I would have been off the hook if these changes took place just ONE semester earlier.
 
Though the changes were not specifically outlined in the email there was a link to Purchase’s Academic Programs page. Instead of requiring one humanities, one western civilization, and one American history course, there is now a humanities group, allowing students to choice between those subject areas.
 
In addition, instead of requiring two semesters of a foreign language and one other world civilization course, there will be choice between one or the other (regardless of language level).
 
Adam Brown, Director of the Academic Resource Center, says the new requirements “have changed in accordance with the recently changed SUNY standards.”These changes are designed to make it easier for students to transfer within the SUNY system.
 
Despite these changes, there is still a 30-credit requirement for general education requirements., which makes it a little easier for me to digest. However, for anyone not graduating this year, now’s the time to check your degree progress report. Hopefully, with these changes, you will find yourself enrolled in more classes you “want” to take rather than classes you “have” to take.