General Education Requirements

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The St. Lawrence University curriculum includes certain requirements that all students must complete. These are "general education" requirements.

Although general education requirements may be fulfilled at any time during your four years, you will have better access to courses that carry general education credit in your first and second years. Additionally, because these requirements are designed so that you can explore the curriculum, it makes sense to take them early. You should be aware that some 100-level courses that meet general education requirements reserve a majority of seats for first- and second-year students, and that seniors may be barred from taking introductory courses that carry such credit. Ideally, you should plan to fulfill your general education requirements by your junior year at the latest.

For more information on General Education Requirements, see the most recent University Catalog curriculum section.   Also, students and advisors alike may find our academic planning worksheet to be useful as they look ahead.

General education requirements

These courses help students develop core skills necessary for a St. Lawrence education, including written and oral communication; critical reading and analysis; critical thinking and problem-solving; and research.

This is a breadth requirement, which asks students to take at least one course in each of the university's broad divisions: Arts (ARTS), Humanities (HU), Social Sciences (SS), and Natural Sciences with Lab (NS-L).

This requirement seeks to foster intercultural competency and self-reflection on social location. It can be fulfilled by

  • Two courses approved by the Academic Affairs Committee (signified by the DIV13 designation) OR
  • One DIV13 course and a language course certified by the Academic Affairs Committee for the LANG designation OR
  • One DIV13 course and a semester-long off-campus study program (accompanied by a pre-program workshop and reflection and post-program reflection).

Students are required to take one course meeting each of these core competencies. As with the DIV13 and LANG designations, courses must be approved for QLR and EL by the Academic Affairs Committee. Note that all courses fulfilling any of these requirements will be so designated in the course catalog and APR2 course descriptions. Only SLU courses or their direct equivalents may fulfill these requirements, because of the rigorous approval process conducted by the on-campus committee.