General Education Requirements
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise provides a comprehensive liberal arts education designed to cultivate responsible citizens and effective leaders. The curriculum combines a broad-based liberal arts core with specialized major requirements to develop essential competencies in communication, analytical thinking, and critical reasoning. This approach aims to impart accumulated knowledge, enhance cultural awareness, develop key skills, and inspire lifelong learning. The program prepares students to engage meaningfully with society, understand interconnections between various disciplines and the world around them, and participate actively as informed citizens and leaders.
View the entire Liberal Arts Core requirements in the College Catalog.
The Liberal Arts Core was designed with these guiding principles in mind.
- Intentionality - The Core will acquaint students with academic disciplines, but more significantly, create awareness of the bigger questions, both contemporary and enduring, of the global world in which they live.
- Interdisciplinarity - The Core will develop students’ ability to understand the interconnections among disciplines, the environment, society, and the world.
- Communication - The Core will provide students with the oral, written, and digital skills to construct clear and concise messages for a variety of contexts and audiences.
- Critical Thinking - The Core will enable students to evaluate experiences, information, and sources critically by recognizing explicit and tacit assumptions, as well as the consequences of those assumptions.
- Diversity - The Core will familiarize students with diverse perspectives and with the value of equity and inclusion in class, in the community, and in the larger world. Students will form moral and ethical judgments based on an appreciation of a diverse set of cultures and cultural practices with intercultural sensitivity.
- Engagement - The Core will encourage students to engage in experiential learning activities (civic engagement, community service, research, etc.) that connect students to the world around them and prepare them to participate in society as responsible citizens and effective leaders.
Liberal Arts Core Requirements
All students pursuing a baccalaureate degree will complete 48- 49 credit hours of the liberal arts Core curriculum. Many of the courses which meet these requirements are prerequisites for advanced study in the various majors. All students, including transfer students, should consult their academic advisor and the Catalog concerning the requirements of their prospective majors and select their liberal arts courses accordingly. Students can track their progress on their Degree Audits in the student portal. Note: One course may not be used to satisfy more than one of the listed area requirements.