General Education Program

2025 Update

Students with a catalog year of Fall 2025 or after will follow the new Essential Education program requirements. The information on this page pertains to the prior General Education Program.

Requirements are effective for students with catalog years Fall 2015—Fall 2024.

For students enrolled prior to Fall 2015, the registrar's office keeps historical records. Anequivalency chart at the bottom of this page shows the how the pre-2015 version of GenEd relates to the more recent version.

GenEd Requirements (2015-2024)

The General Education curriculum consists of the following general requirements. Detailed requirements are in the table below.

Core courses (12 credits)
HASS Electives (12 credits) |Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
STEM (15 credits) | Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
Co-curricular activities (3 semester units)

Required Courses and Goals

For each requirement, there are lists of approved courses.

Please note that only courses on the approved HASS lists will count for General Education. This means, for example, that all HU courses are not eligible for the HU component of the HASS requirement. Students should verify that they are taking approved courses to complete their General Education requirements -- some courses not approved for HASS may have similar titles.
Some courses appear on more than one list (multiple HASS lists, HASS and Core lists, or on the HASS and STEM lists). Each course can only be used to satisfy a single requirement.
- For example, courses that appear on both HASS and STEM lists can count toward either HASS or STEM requirements on a student's degree audit, but not both.

Each General Education course is selected to help build student competencies towards the Undergraduate Student-Learning Goals. The "Target Goals" identified for each main general education requirement are outlined in the table below.

Identifying General Education Courses for Registration

Each General Education course is tagged with a attribute representing what list(s) it is on. This "Attribute Type" can be used to find courses being offered in a semester that meet certain classifications.

Note: Students using Experience's "Browse Classes" or "Register for Classes" would need to expand the "Advanced Search" option to see and select "Attribute Type".

Transfer Credits.

Students will be permitted to transfer courses from other institutions to satisfy these requirements. Students must check with the Michigan Tech Transfer Services Office to find out which courses qualify before a class is taken off-campus.

General Education Requirements Summary Table

Total of 39 Credits. Specific lists of courses for more information is available.

CORE Requirements Summary
Credit	Courses	USLG Goals	Attribute Type	Notes
3	Composition: UN1015	5 and 6	(none)	required prerequisites for 3000-4000 level HASS electives
3	Global Issues: UN1025 or Modern Language Option	3 and 6	(none)	required prerequisites for 3000-4000 level HASS electives
3	Critical and Creative Thinking	4	Critical/Creative Thinking CORE	Courses on these lists may be used as HASS electives.
3	Social Responsibility and Ethical Reasoning	8	Soc Resp/Ethical Reason CORE	Courses on these lists may be used as HASS electives.

HASS Requirements

Course must be on HASS or HASS Restricted lists.
Only 3 credits from the HASS Restricted list can be used for credit.
6 credits must be upper division 3000-4000 level - UN1015 and UN1025 are prerequisites for all upper division HASS courses.

HASS Requirements Summary
Credit	Courses	USLG Goals	Attribute Type
3	Communication and Composition	5	Composition or Communication
3	Humanities/Fine Arts	3, 4, 5, 8	Humanities and Fine Arts
3	Social/Behavioral Science	3, 4, 5, 8	Social and Behavioral Science
3	Can be taken from any HASS List or HASS Restricted List	3, 4, 5, 8	HASS Restricted or any other HASS code

STEM Requirements

No more than 4 credits can be from the Restricted STEM list.
Programs may specify STEM Gen Ed courses as part of their major requirements.

STEM Requirements Summary
Credit	Courses	USLG Goals	Attribute Type
4	Mathematics List	2	STEM Mathematics
7	Science List must come from at least two different disciplines at least one must include or be taken with an accompanying laboratory	2	STEM Science or STEM Lab Science
4	Can be taken from the Mathematics, Science, or Restricted STEM lists.	2	Any of the STEM Codes

Co-curricular Requirements

3 semester units required.

Includes PE courses, Army/Air Force ROTC, band, and music lessons.
USLG Goals: Co0curricular FA Activity or Co-curricular Phys Activity
3 semester units = equivalent of 3 credits
These credits are not included in the GPA calculation or in the overall credits required for the degree
Most PE classes are 0.5 units and last for 7 weeks. Six such classes would fulfill the requirement.

Prior Requirements (2000-2014)

Students who enrolled prior to the 2015-2016 academic would have originally followed the former General Education program. Michigan Tech's graduation requirements stipulate that students may not graduate using a catalog that is more than seven years old.

Students who started under this model of GenEd and return to Michigan Tech would operate under the catalog active at their time of re-enrollment.

Course Equivalency Chart

Students enrolled before the 2015-16 academic year who re-enrolled under the newer General Education program may make the substitutions noted below to meet the General Education requirements.

Course
Current Requirements	Credits	Prior Requirements (allowed substitutions)
Composition: UN1015	3	UN2001 Revisions*
Global Issues: UN1025	3	Modern Language Option or UN1002 World Cultures*
Critical and Creative Thinking	3	UN1001 Perspectives on Inquiry* HUFA List (2013-14, 2014-15)
Social Responsibility and Ethical Reasoning	3	UN2002 Institutions* SBS List (2013-14, 2014-15)
HASS	12	Any 12 credits from any current HASS list, or HASS list from enrollment year 6 Credits must be upper division 3000-4000 level courses No more than 3 credits from any of the following HASS lists, for a maximum of 6 credits total: HASS Restricted (current) HASS Creative Endeavors (prior to 2015-16) HASS Supplemental (prior to 2015-16)
STEM	15	Mathematics: 4 credits (minimum) Science: 1 course with an associated laboratory (as part of the course or as a separate course) No more than 4 credits from the STEM Restricted (current)

*These courses are no longer offered at Michigan Tech