AUB is committed to offering its students a broad undergraduate liberal arts education that enables them to acquire the analytical skills and habits of lifelong learning that they will need to successfully compete in the twenty-first century. The General Education distribution requirements are intended to expose students to a range of intellectual experiences during their time at AUB. We want to give our students the opportunity to make choices and question and test what they believe are their career goals and intellectual interests.

In addition to courses in their academic majors and possible minor concentrations in specific fields, all AUB students must satisfy the General Education requirements by taking a minimum of 33-36 credits distributed as follows:

• • 3 credits in Arabic Communication Skills (unless the student is formally exempted)
  • 3 to 6 credits in English Communication Skills through ENGL 204 (ENGL 206 in MSFEA)
  • 6 credits in Natural Science
  • 12 credits in Humanities
  • 6 credits in Social Sciences
  • 3 credits in Quantitative Thought

All new undergraduate students at AUB are required to take English Communication Skills Courses. New undergraduate students are placed in one of the English Communication Skills Courses on the basis of their scores on the TOEFL, the AUB-EN, the SAT Writing or any equivalent standardized test. The Department of English offers a sequence of two core courses, ENGL 203 and ENGL 204, to all AUB undergraduates, and two specialized courses, ENGL 206 to MSFEA students and ENGL 208 to OSB students. A new undergraduate student is placed in one of the core courses in the sequence upon matriculation and has to complete the sequence in successive terms. MSFEA students take ENGL 206 instead of ENGL 204.

In addition, all undergraduate students are required to take a 3-credit Writing in the Discipline course, which is normally offered in the major.

We believe that a student who has chosen to follow a course of study at AUB leading to a degree in a professional field such as engineering should be exposed to the humanities and social sciences. By the same token, a student who plans to major in history should have the opportunity to take science courses.

While being exposed to various fields of knowledge, we also want our students to have the opportunity to experience different modes of learning (lectures, seminars, labs and independent research projects). Different modes of analysis are designed to enhance students’ verbal and interactive skills (seminars), writing and analytic skills (research projects), and hands-on experimental skills (laboratories).

These distribution requirements may be met by either required or elective courses.

Humanities and Social Sciences courses are divided into two lists which are List I and List II within each domain. Students are required to select their courses as follows:

• • Two Humanities courses from Humanities List I (FAS students are required to select CVSP courses.)
  • Two Humanities courses from either of the Humanities lists (I or II)
  • One Social Sciences course from Social Sciences List I
  • One Social Sciences course from either of the Social Sciences lists (I or II)