A college education requires some breadth of knowledge across diverse fields and perspectives. With this in mind, all University of Delaware students are required to complete a minimum of 12 credits from the list of University breadth courses. This includes 3 credits from each of the following categories. Students must earn a minimum grade of C- in each course to meet this requirement:
Creative Arts and Humanities (3 credits): These courses provide students with an understanding and appreciation of the visual and performing arts, of aesthetic forms, designs, or craftsmanship, or of literary, philosophical, and intellectual traditions. Courses may focus on a single aesthetic form or intellectual tradition, or cross-cultural comparisons.
History and Cultural Change (3 credits): These courses provide students with an understanding of the sources and forces of historical changes in ideas, beliefs, institutions, and cultures. Courses may address social, cultural, intellectual, economic, technological, artistic, scientific, and political development, changes in a discipline, or globalization and its effects.
Social and Behavioral Sciences (3 credits): These courses provide students with an understanding of the behavior of individuals and social groups in the context of their human and natural environments. Courses emphasize the empirical findings, applications, and methods of the social and behavioral sciences.
Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology (3 credits): These courses provide students with an understanding of fundamental and/or applied concepts and phenomena from mathematics, logic, natural or physical sciences, and technology including quantitative reasoning and methods used to approach and solve problems.
Note that students must take breadth courses from four different subject areas (e.g. the four-letter subject code WOMS, HIST, etc.). Students may not use a course that is cross-listed with a subject area that has already been used to satisfy a University breadth requirement. Students enrolled in a single major may not satisfy the breadth requirement with courses in the subject area of that major (e.g. Women & Gender Studies majors may not use WOMS courses). Students who are enrolled in more than one major or degree are allowed to meet the University breadth requirement by taking approved breadth courses from within the subject areas of their majors. The requirement may be fulfilled through a course or courses taken to complete other degree requirements, subject to the limitations above.
