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COURSES OF STUDY
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Explorations Curriculum Requirements
The Explorations Curriculum at Birmingham-Southern emphasizes
what students will be able to do as a result of their education. In our view,
students who successfully complete a program in the liberal arts from
Birmingham-Southern College will be able to do the following:
(1)
communicate effectively
(2)
solve problems creatively
(3)
engage their social and political world
(4)
connect their coursework to the wider world
(5)
engage in self-directed teaching and learning
These five values embody a liberal arts educational experience and
cannot be accomplished through any one discipline or by any one
academic area. Many areas share similar approaches or examine similar
content; at the same time, disciplines and areas of study are different
precisely because they study different materials and approach those
materials with different methods.
These similarities and differences in content and methods, we believe,
provide generative ground for purposeful exploration and renewed insight.
Learning in a liberal arts context is a creative endeavor, one that is best
understood as an exploration, whether that exploration addresses ongoing
problems considered for many millennia or identifies new, emerging
problems unique to citizens of the twenty-first century.
Because we assume these five values require familiarity with multiple
disciplines—both the knowledge accumulated in those disciplines and
the approaches taken by them—students in the Explorations Curriculum
are expected to explore a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary
approaches. Likewise, we invite students to seek out connections between
the coursework required for general education, the coursework required for
a disciplinary or interdisciplinary major, and the wider community.
In order to assist students in their purposeful exploration, we have
designed a general education curriculum around each of the five values
mentioned above. There is no one way to satisfy these requirements.
Students should use this framework to craft their own unique exploration.
Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) credits
may not be used to fulfill Explorations Curriculum Requirements, but may
be used towards graduation requirements, including the academic areas
requirement. For additional information, see the Transfer Credit section of
this catalog.
Students may use individual courses to fulfill only one requirement,
regardless of the number of designations assigned to a specific course. The
following is a list of the course designations described in the requirements
and indicated in course registration materials: