Pacific's General Education Program exposes students to areas of study outside of their major. In their General Education classes, students develop essential knowledge and skills that are transferable to other courses at Pacific as well as to their personal and public lives. The mission of Pacific's General Education Program is to promote self-understanding, citizenship, and career development.
Mission
The General Education (GE) Program is the core of a University of the Pacific undergraduate education. The GE program cultivates habits of intellectual inquiry grounded in the liberal arts tradition and enriches a specialized field of study with an understanding of its scientific, humanistic, and artistic contexts. General education courses allow undergraduate students to collaborate across diverse intellectual and disciplinary boundaries and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to succeed in a diverse, complex, and constantly changing world.
Student Learning Outcomes
The General Education Program helps students become:
- Critical and integrative thinkers: Students should be able to synthesize and transfer learning to new, complex situations within and beyond the Pacific community.
- Creative problem solvers: Students should demonstrate an understanding of what it takes to move from ambiguous goals with incomplete information to design, evaluate, and implement strategies to achieve their desired goals.
- Effective communicators: Students should be able to write, speak, and present their ideas and conclusions through a variety of mediums to diverse audiences.
- Globally aware and ethically engaged citizens: Students should be able to articulate their own cultural understandings and how they differ from others, adapt empathically and ethically to unfamiliar ways of being, and participate in society in ways that are personally enriching and socially beneficial to their communities.