Undergraduate Education

Overview

At Stanford, students enjoy an unusual degree of academic freedom.  The Stanford curriculum will not force you into specific courses that do not interest you. Instead, it will remind you at every turn why you wanted a strong liberal arts education.

General Education Requirements

Our General Education Requirements (GERs) introduce students to a broad range of fields and areas of study. In order to graduate, students must fulfill a set of requirements designed by the University, which serve as the backbone of undergraduate study at Stanford. All programs of study should achieve balance between depth of knowledge acquired in specialization and breadth of knowledge acquired through exploration.

The GERs Purpose:

  1. Introduce students to a broad range of fields and areas of study within the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, applied sciences, and technology.
  2. Help students prepare to become responsible members of society.
  3. Launch student thought into the major social, historical, cultural, and intellectual forces that shape the contemporary world.

Students build an intellectual foundation for future pursuits through the freshman year Introduction to Humanities course, a writing requirement, and a one-year foreign language requirement.

The Disciplinary Breadth requirement allows students to explore the various disciplines that excite them by taking one course in each of the five areas of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Humanities, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences.

Gaining the skills and knowledge necessary for citizenship in contemporary, national and global cultures of the 21st century is accomplished by taking one course from two of the following four areas: Ethical Reasoning, the Global Community, American Cultures, and Gender Studies.  This fulfills the Education for Citizenship requirement.