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
  • Engage in critical inquiry in the examination of concepts, texts, or artifacts, and
  • Effectively communicate the results of such inquiry
• Writing & Rhetoric
  • Demonstrate the ability to compose for a variety of rhetorical situations
  • Demonstrate the ability to write within multiple research traditions
• Language
  • Demonstrate basic proficiency in a language of choice in the following skills: writing, speaking, listening, and reading
  • Demonstrate proficiency in learning about a culture associated with a language of choice
• Ways of Knowing
  • Apply formal reasoning, mathematics, or computational science approaches to problem solving
  • Understand and communicate connections between different areas of logic, mathematics, or computational science, or their relevance to other disciplines
  • Demonstrate the ability to create in written, oral, or any other performance medium or interpret texts, ideas, or cultural artifacts
  • Identify and analyze the connections between texts, ideas, or cultural artifacts and the human experience
• Advanced Seminar
  • Demonstrate the ability to integrate and apply context from multiple perspectives to an appropriate intellectual topic or issue
  • Write effectively, providing appropriate evidence and reasoning for assertions