Curriculum

Understanding the Gettysburg Curriculum

The degree requirements of the Gettysburg College Curriculum are guided by an overarching aim based on four main learning goals:
- Multiple Inquiries Goal. To develop lifelong learners who are able to acquire and process information and ideas in multiple ways.
  
  Gettysburg College students should develop both an understanding of multiple frameworks for analysis and proficiency in reading texts that span the breadth of human expression. Making meaning of such texts requires an understanding of their conceptual and historical underpinnings and their modes of expression.
  
  (a). Analyze and interpret texts characteristic of each of the following: the arts, the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. (Requirement: Arts, Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science)
  (b). Produce work that effectively employs modes of inquiry, analysis, and expression characteristic of the arts, the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. (Requirement: Arts, Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science)
  (c). Produce work that effectively applies quantitative, inductive, or deductive reasoning in a substantial analysis, argument, or synthesis. (Requirement: QIDR)
- Integrative Thinking Goal.
  Gettysburg College students should develop critical and open minds that seek to adopt well-argued points of view through the active consideration and integration of alternative methodologies, perspectives, and foundational presuppositions.
  
  (a). Produce work that effectively applies the methods of one discipline to the issues of another and/or integrates perspectives across disciplines. (IDS courses or Cluster)
  (b). Articulate the relationship and the fluidity of boundaries between disciplines. (IDS courses or Cluster)
  (c). Produce work in the capstone experience of the major that integrates content, methods, and/or perspectives from across the major. (Capstone)
- Effective Communication Goal
  Gettysburg College students should develop proficiency in the skills of writing, reading, speaking, and utilizing electronic media. Further, students should be able to articulate questions clearly, identify and gain access to appropriate information, construct cogent arguments, and engage in intellectual and artistic expression.
  
  (a). Write effectively in the English language, including demonstrating appropriate context, developing content, and controlling syntax and mechanics. (Requirement: FY Writing Course)
  (b). Demonstrate information literacy, including selecting appropriate sources, providing attribution in an appropriate form, and using sources effectively. (Requirement: FY Writing Course)
  (c). Produce scholarly or creative works that effectively employ communication conventions of the major field. (Communication Conventions of Major)
- Informed Citizenship Goal. Students are prepared for the responsibilities of local and global citizenship.
  Gettysburg College students should develop skills, understandings, appreciations, and moral dispositions that enable them to be committed members of and contribute meaningfully to their local, national, and global communities.
  
  (a). Analyze effectively the culture(s) of Africa, Asia (including the Middle East but excluding European Russia), the Caribbean, Latin America, and/or indigenous peoples. (Requirement: Cultural Diversity Global Understanding)
  (b). Analyze effectively the experience(s) of groups that have been marginalized due to race/ethnicity, gender, religion, class, sexuality, age, different ability, etc. (Requirement: Cultural Diversity Conceptualizing Diversity)
  (c). Speak (in non-Classical languages), read, and write in a second language at the novice level. (Second Language)
  (d). Analyze and interpret methodologies, historical contexts, and/or social ramifications of some aspect of science or technology. (Requirement: STS)
The requirements for earning a degree at Gettysburg College are guided by four main learning goals. These goals represent those broad areas of learning, skills, and ways of being in the world that the College believes are fundamental to your becoming a liberally educated person. The College has requirements as a way of making sure you begin to address intentionally and directly each of the goals.

Each of the individual requirements is associated with one of these four goals as a particular focus, but each goal is always bigger than a particular requirement, and the requirements can enhance your progress toward meeting any of the goals. For example, completing the First-Year Writing course requirement is just one small step on the way to the Effective Communication Goal and will form a foundation for developing your communication skills in any number of successive courses. Even after you complete the basic requirements for each of the goals, you should think about your progress toward the broader aspirations the goals represent. Throughout your career at Gettysburg you should make curricular and co-curricular choices guided by these goals and your continuing progress toward truly achieving them. In short, “requirements” are not courses to “get out of the way.” They are an integral part of your education and first steps toward becoming a liberally educated person.
Completing a major is one of the requirements you must meet to earn your degree. Remember, except for students pursuing special degree programs in the Conservatory of Music, your degree -the Bachelor of Arts or the Bachelor of Science-is not “in” the particular field you chose as your major. The knowledge and skills you learn through the in-depth study your major provides also enhance your progress toward the Curricular Goals.

Using the Student Center

Through the Student Center you have access to a wide variety of academic, financial and personal information, and you will use various tools to register for classes and communicate with faculty and advisors. Here is a partial list of some of the academic information you can find in the Student Center:
- Courses: you can search for open courses, see the pre-requisites for courses, search for courses by the kinds of requirements they meet or by time of day, etc.
- Registration: you can enroll in courses and put courses on your Wish List for future semesters
- Academic Requirements: provides up-to-date degree and major/minor audit
- Unofficial Transcript
- Course History: lists courses completed with grades by semester
- Language Placement Results
- Transfer Credit Report
- Course Schedule
- Final Exam Schedule
This information is on your Academic Requirements report available to you in the Student Center. Go to the Student Center and select “Academic Requirements” from the drop-down menu on the left side. Under each kind of requirement, e.g., Multiple Inquiries or your major, you will see each of the requirements and the courses which meet them: courses completed already (with the grade earned) and courses in progress. Under each kind of requirements you will see the notation "Requirement Not Satisfied" if you have not yet completed that category of requirement.
You can find out which courses meet curricular requirements in two ways:
- In the Student Center, select the Search tab-Search for Classes-and use the Course Attribute and Attribute Value menus to find courses meeting requirements and offered in a particular semester. (You set the semester you wish to search.)
  Student Center
- Check the Registrar’s web page for the particular course to see if it is listed under one (or more) of the Goal headings. Courses Fulfilling the Gettysburg Curriculum

General Guidelines for the Gettysburg Curriculum

Cluster Questions

There are two kinds of requirements currently associated with the Integrative Thinking Goal:
- Two Interdisciplinary Courses OR a Course Cluster with integrative experience
- Capstone experience in (each) major
Through the Course Cluster option students have the opportunity to show the connections they are making about what they are learning without taking additional course work. Students choose a topic or theme addressed in two courses taken from different subject areas or disciplines. While enrolled in one of the courses, in consultation with their instructor, the student develops the ideas for this paper or project which link the current course to a topic studied in a previously taken course. The student then submits the signed Cluster Proposal Form to the Registrar. The student who successfully completes the paper or project will receive a satisfactory (S) grade for IDS 90, showing this requirement for the Integrative Thinking Goal has been met.