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General Education

	Requirements
	Knowledge Area System
	Cluster System
	Economics Courses

General Education Requirements

 The course requirements described below must be met by everyone who will graduate on or after May 1994.

 SUNY at Buffalo requires all undergraduates to complete the University General Education Requirement. In addition, Engineering students must carefully select these GenEd courses to meet the ABET (accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology) requirements for 16 credit hours in the curricular area of humanities and social sciences; some of these credit hours must meet the ABET "depth" requirement.

 Knowledge Area System

 The General Education Program gives you exposure to a variety of areas of learning. Engineering students select courses from five knowledge areas:

1. Foreign Language and Cross-Cultural Areas

2. Literature and the Arts

3. Historical and Philosophical Studies

4. Social and Behavioral Sciences

 You must take 6 courses to satisfy the General Education requirement. Students must take 1 course from the approved General Education course list for each of the above 4 knowledge areas. The allowed courses are listed under "General Education Knowledge Area Courses" in the back pages of the Undergraduate Class Schedule*. To fulfill the ABET "depth" requirement, students must take a second course (i.e. depth in two departments). The second courses must be either sequential to the first or numbered at the 200, 300, or 400 level. The second courses from the same department may be from the approved General Education course list or they may be selected from the departments' other offerings.

 *EAS students receive a copy of the Undergraduate Class Schedule during pre-registration advisement. Other students may pick up a copy (at Registration time) in 232 Capen on the North Campus or in Hayes Annex B on the South Campus.

 Cluster System

 Transfer students must also use 6 courses to meet the General Education and ABET "depth" requirements. For certain transfer students, Knowledge Areas 1-2 above are combined into Cluster 1, and Knowledge Areas 3-4  are combined into Cluster 2. Students on the Cluster System will select 4 courses from the respective department or program for each of the 4 knowledge areas. Engineering students choose no more than 4 courses from any single cluster. In addition, to fulfill the ABET "depth" requirement, students must take a second course in two of the knowledge areas selected from Clusters 1 and 2 within the same departments as the first courses (i.e. depth in two departments). The second courses must be either sequential to the first or numbered at the 200, 300, or 400 level.

 All of these requirements can be met through very careful selection of General Education courses. For example:

1. Satisfy "depth" in Social and Behavioral Sciences: take Macroeconomics and Microeconomics (ECO181-182) to fulfill the ABET "depth" requirement in Social and Behavioral Sciences Knowledge Area 4). In addition:

2.Satisfy "depth" in Knowledge Areas 1 through 3: use World civilization I and II (UGC 111-112) to meet requirements and "depth" in any of the Knowledge Areas 1-3 or Clusters 1 and 2. Another way of completing depth requirements in areas 1-3 is to take World Civilization I and American Pluralism (UGC111-211); these courses fulfill requirements and "depth" in Knowledge Areas 2 or 3 or Clusters 1 and 2. In addition:

3.Complete UB's General Education requirement by taking three additional General Education courses from the remaining Knowledge Areas or Clusters.

 Writing skills courses, English 101 and 201, are also required. One or both of these courses may be waived by previous work, by entrance examination, or by Advanced Placement (AP) in English.

 

 Two Routes to an Economics Component in Your Education

 Many students find it useful to include some Economics in their education. The program allows you to do this in two ways:

1. Through Gen Ed. Economics 181-182 is offered by the Economics department, typically every semester.

2. Through technical electives. IE 320, Engineering Economy, is offered by the Industrial Engineering Department. While not allowed in Gen Ed, IE 320 may be used as a technical elective. (Free Technical Electives -- see page 8 in Undergraduate Manual.)

 You may take Economics 181-182 and IE 320 to cover both the social-science and Engineering approaches to Economics.