The Associate Degree provides a framework within which students complete patterns of learning experiences designed to develop capabilities and insights to support their academic and career goals. Among these capabilities and insights are competencies that are germane to all aspects of higher education and comprise a “general education” curriculum, such as the ability to think critically and to communicate clearly and effectively both orally and in writing, to use quantitative reasoning, understand the modes of inquiry of the major disciplines, to be aware of other cultures and times, to achieve insights gained through experience in thinking about ethical problems, and to develop the capacity for self-understanding.

Furthermore, general education introduces students to the variety of means through which people comprehend the modern world. It reflects the conviction of colleges that those who receive their degrees must have mastered principles, concepts, and methodologies both unique to and shared by the various disciplines. A general education program should create coherence and integration among the separate requirements and involve students actively in examining values inherent in proposed solutions to major social problems.