Planning Your First-Year GE Courses

The 2007 General Education program combines student choice and breadth of learning.  You’ll work with your advisor to develop a personalized academic plan that lets you integrate GE courses with your major, decide on a minor or second major, make time for experiential learning, and monitor your progress toward graduation.  As you begin your studies, use the GE program to

• explore possible areas of interest for a major or minor
• take a course or courses that connect to your major in an interdisciplinary way
• pursue a subject that you enjoy and would like to learn more about
• establish a strong liberal arts foundation
  

To gain the greatest academic benefit from the 2007 GE program, you should read and understand the GE program guidelines.

Before you register for fall term courses, you’ll work through the New Student Guide.  In it you’ll find information on recommended first year courses by major.

You can also visit the “First Year Stories” page of the First Year Program web site.  Read how some current Chapman students, all of them 2008 Orientation Advisors, planned their first year.

Use the Advising Worksheet to sketch out a working four-year plan and to create a first-year course list.

Personalizing Your GE Program

• Choosing a Freshman Foundations Course Section (see below)
• Sequencing Courses (see below)
• Exploring Areas of Interest (see below)
• Creating Interdisciplinary Connections (see below)
• Establishing a Liberal Arts Foundation (see below)
• Including a Physical Activities Option (see below)
• First-Year Plan Advising Worksheet
  
• Sample First Year Courses (covers topics below):
• Undeclared Major
• Psychology Major
• Accounting/Bus Admin/Economics Major
• Film Production Major

Choosing an FFC Section

Begin shaping your academic plan with your choice of FFC section.  We offer over 25 different FFC course topics.  Read through the descriptions to see the many options.  All FFC sections engage you in the intellectual life of the academy and give you experience with critical inquiry, in discussion and written form.  Identify 3-4 that fit with your specific academic interests, by major area or area of potential major interest, or that cover a topic that you’d like to learn more about.

See FFC website for details...

Sequencing Courses

Success in some subject areas depends on sustained study—in languages, for example, and in mathematics.  The required GE course level in these areas may mean you’ll take one or more prerequisite courses.  You should plan on taking these courses in sequence, so you should consider taking prerequisite courses in your first term. 

o         The 2007 GE program language component calls for a course at or above the 200 level, which means some students will need to take one or more 100-level courses to develop their abilities in the language.  Check the language placement policy.

o         Some students may want to study a language that was not available in their high schools—Arabic, for example—and so will start at the 101 level.  Again, plan on taking the courses in sequence, by level and academic term.

o         The Quantitative Inquiry category includes a range of courses in mathematics and statistics taught from different disciplinary foundations, as well as courses in computer science and philosophy.  Read about your options.

o         Remember that as a first-year student, you can enroll only in 100 and 200 level courses without special permission.  If you’re interested in the Quantitative Inquiry courses offered at the 300 level or above, you should plan on satisfying this part of the GE program after your sophomore year.  Otherwise, you should check the math placement information at http://math.chapman.edu/placement.html.

o         As with language courses, QI courses may have prerequisites.  Find out where you place and plan for a possible prerequisite for your QI choice.

Exploring Areas of Interest

One of the goals in the flexible GE plan is to enable students to use the Shared Inquiry and other categories to explore an area of interest and develop new knowledge.  All of the SI categories therefore include a choice of courses at the introductory level, in addition to more advanced-level options. 

Read through your choices in the Shared Inquiry categories.

Many of the courses are in disciplinary areas typically not offered in the high school curriculum, such as anthropology, communication studies, food science, athletic training, philosophy, political science, peace studies, or film history.  Shared Inquiry courses at the 100 and 200 level are available in all of these subjects.  Consider using some or all of the Shared Inquiry categories in your first year to find out about subjects that are new to you.

You can read brief course descriptions in the Chapman University Undergraduate Catalog.

Creating Interdisciplinary Connections

Your major program involves developing in-depth knowledge in a single subject area.  The 2007 GE program encourages you to expand your area of specialization in interdisciplinary ways, through the choices you make in Shared Inquiry, the Global Citizen Cluster, and the Inter/Multidisciplinary Cluster.

If you plan on declaring a major, then you should think about how your choices in the Inter/Multidisciplinary Cluster might help build on your major studies.  Review the I/M Cluster topics and courses in each of the clusters.

If your major has an international focus—in Business Administration, Political Science, History, or Film Studies, for example—you may want to explore the Area Studies clusters, and you might take a first course in the cluster during your first year.  Or you might want to take a Global Study course in the Global Citizen Cluster that would let you study about a culture outside of the U.S.

Remember that you have flexibility in deciding how a given course fits into your overall GE plan.  That’s one of the special features of the program designed to give you a chance to learn about a field and then pursue it in greater depth, if you choose to do so.  You can take a course in the Values and Ethical Inquiry category and, if you want to study the subject further, apply that course instead as part of an Inter/Multidisciplinary Cluster (you’d then take a new course for the Values and Ethical Inquiry category). 

Establishing a Liberal Arts Foundation

A liberal arts education typically means a grounding in the classical or humanistic tradition, and that means the study of language arts, mathematics, music and the arts, and philosophy.  A traditional liberal arts first-year curriculum might consist of the following choices:

Including a Physical Activities Option

The Chapman Athletic Education Program offers many Physical Activity courses, each of which carries 0.5 credit.  Adding a Physical Activity course to your schedule each term builds in time for physical exercise, a critical part of wellness.  Consider making one of the following courses a regular activity for your first term.

For more course information, see the Athletic Training portion of the catalog.