SUNY Brockport will start to change its general education program (GEP) to include less credit requirements with more diverse courses in the upcoming fall semester.
“The current general education program is about 31 to 47 credits, depending on what students bring with them,” SUNY Brockport senior academic advisor Pam Setek said.”
The college’s own general education requirements will not be changing in the fall, but SUNY requirements will. The current SUNY general education program has more requirements towards courses like Math, Science and English, but their requirements aren’t as diverse.
“The current general education program I have not found to be helpful in my overall degree, and I have not found that they include a lot of diverse and socially relevant topics,” SUNY Brockport sophomore Emma Allen said. “My communication classes that are not a part of the GEP have taught me the most about communicating with people who may have different backgrounds and identities than I do, but I have not received any of that within the GEP so far.”
The new GEP works to include more socially relevant topics that will hopefully be more helpful towards students’ degrees, as well as life outside of college. The program will also have less credits, so students will have more opportunities to take courses they find interesting and applicable towards their degree.
“Starting in the fall, the new GEP takes place, even though current students will see a change in their degree audit now,” Setek said. “The reason is because the new one is less credits, so students can opt into that new one, and now would only need one English, Math, one natural science with a lab, any fine art, a social science, a humanities, a foreign language, an American history-which is new-a world history and a diversity course. They still have to take the Brockport requirements as well; This is more like 30 credits.”
Students enrolled in the current program may see changes in their degree audit this semester, depending on if they’ve already satisfied these requirements or not.
“I do think my education would definitely benefit from a more diverse and inclusive general education program. I think it will help me to be able to tackle real world situations and communicate more effectively with people who may not be the same as me,” Allen said.
These new requirements are meant to help students be better equipped to enter the world after college and to communicate with those more effectively around them. They may even find themselves finding a career path based off these requirements.
