Undergraduate Common Curriculum

The Common Curriculum provides students with a well-rounded education, creates context for major or minor course of study and introduces students to new areas of interest. The Common Curriculum is grounded in a breadth of experiences and ways of inquiry congruent with the University's goal of providing an outstanding educational experience that empowers students to integrate and apply knowledge from across the disciplines and imagine new possibilities for themselves, their communities, and their world.

Understanding the Common Curriculum

Consistent with the University's mission, the Common Curriculum promotes learning by engaging with students in advancing scholarly inquiry, cultivating critical and creative thought, and generating knowledge.

From students' initial First-Year Seminar to the culminating Advanced Seminar, the curriculum encourages connections across modes of learning. By engaging in course work across diverse experiences and areas of knowledge, DU students cultivate critical thought and creative thought, preparing them for leadership and citizenship in our global society.

An undergraduate at the University typically takes 52 to 60 credits in the Common Curriculum:

• First-Year Seminar - 4 Credits
• Writing & Rhetoric - 8 Credits
• Language - 4 to 12 Credits
• Ways of Knowing - 32 Credits
• Advanced Seminar - 4 Credits

Because certain programs have slightly different requirements to the Common Curriculum and because AP/IB/transfer courses from other universities and colleges may change the distribution of the requirements for individual students, always consult a staff academic advisor in the Office of Academic Advising regarding Common Curriculum planning for courses at the university and abroad.

Common Curriculum Learning Outcomes

• First-Year Seminar
  • demonstrate what it means to be an active member of an intellectual community by meeting rigorous academic expectations through critical reading, discussion, research and/or writing;
  • practice newly acquired skills in an active learning environment where writing, performing, laboratory experiments, quantitative analyses or other forms of experiential and/or creative activities will shape the goals and activities of the seminar
• Writing & Rhetoric
  • analyze strategies used in a variety of rhetorical situations and employ those principles in their own writings and communications;
  • analyze research and writing strategies used in a range of academic traditions and use those strategies in their own writings;
  • adapt, to specific situations, a strong repertory of writing processes, including generating, shaping, revising, editing, proofreading and working with other writers.
• Language
  • based on writing samples at the start and end of the first year of language, students will demonstrate increased proficiency in a language of choice in a specific skill (e.g., writing, speaking, listening or reading);
  • demonstrate proficiency in learning about a culture as embodied in a skill (e.g., writing, speaking, listening or reading) in a language of choice.
• Ways of Knowing: Analytical Inquiry, Natural & Physical World
  • apply formal reasoning, mathematics or computational science approaches to problem solving within mathematics or computational science, and other disciplines;
  • understand and communicate connections between different areas of logic, mathematics or computational science, or their relevance to other disciplines;
  • communicate formalisms in logic, mathematics or computing sciences.
• Ways of Knowing: Analytical Inquiry, Society & Culture
  • demonstrate the ability to create or interpret the texts, ideas or artifacts of human culture;
  • identify and analyze the connections between texts, ideas or cultural artifacts and the human experience and/or perception of the world.
• Ways of Knowing: Scientific Inquiry, Natural & Physical World
  • apply knowledge of scientific practice to evaluate evidence for scientific claims;
  • demonstrate an understanding of science as an iterative process of knowledge generation with inherit strengths and limitations;
  • demonstrate skills for using and interpreting qualitative and quantitative information.
• Ways of Knowing: Scientific Inquiry, Society & Culture
  • describe basic principles of human functioning and conduct in social and cultural contexts;
  • describe and explain how social scientific methods are used to understand these underlying principles.
• Advanced Seminar
  • integrate and apply knowledge and skills gained from Common Curriculum courses to new settings and complex problems;
  • write effectively, providing appropriate evidence and reasoning for assertions.