Orientation - General Education Courses | Academic Advising Center

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Here you’ll find a number of available courses organized by General Education Program category.

Depending on your program of study and any credit you’ve already earned, you might not need to fulfill every category during your time at The University of Iowa. It can still be helpful to browse through every category, because you can also take these courses as electives or to explore possible majors and minors.
You do not need to take all of your Gen Ed courses in your first semester or first year. These requirements just need to be fulfilled by the time you graduate, and they will probably be part of multiple semesters’ schedules that also include major courses and electives.

General Education Courses List

Use the following list of available general education courses as a guide to help build your Fall schedule. Follow the links below to read more about each course and put them in your Schedule Builder course cart.

AFAM 1020/AMST 1030 Introduction to African American Culture (3)

ARTS:2100 Printmaking and Politics of Protest (3)
CCCC 2220 Foundations of Critical Cultural Competence (3)

COMM 1168 Music and Social Change (3)

DANC 2065 Performing Power/Performing Protest (3)

GWSS 1001 Intro to Gender, Wmn & Sexuality Studies (3)

GWSS 1003 Introduction to Social Justice (3)

HIST 2280 Introduction to Latina/o/z Studies (3)

JMC 2600 Freedom of Expression (3)

POLI 1900 Introduction to the Politics of Race (3)

SOC 2830 Race and Ethnicity (3)

Talk with your advisor about which of these (if any) you need.
RHET 1030 Rhetoric (4)
RHET 1040 Writing and Reading (3)
RHET 1060 Speaking and Reading (3)

Optional writing or literature courses for those taking rhetoric later

CW 1800 Creative Writing Studio Workshop (3)
CW 2100 Creative Writing (3)
CW 3107 CW 3107 Creative Writing for Health Professions: Narrative in Health Care (3)

ENGL 1200 The Interpretation of Literature* (3)
* CW 1800, CNW 1620, and ENGL 1200 are not intended for English majors

Talk with your advisor about which course is an appropriate choice. Choose from:

American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, or Swahili

For those who have completed the World Language requirement, and wish to continue with language consider Furthering Language Incentive Program (FLIP) courses

FLIP French Courses
FREN 3000 Third-Year French (3)
FREN 3060 Intro to Reading & Writing in Literature (3)
FREN 3300 French Grammar (3)

FLIP German Courses
GRMN 3103 Composition and Conversation I (3)
GRMN 3501 German Writers Engaged (3)

FLIP Spanish Courses
SPAN 2000 Spanish Language Skills: Writing (3)

SPAN 2040 Spanish for Heritage Speakers (3)
SPAN 2500 Readings in Spanish American Literature (3)

(A 4 s.h. course indicates a lab course)

ASTR 1070 Star, Galaxies, and the Universe (4)

ASTR 1080 Exploration of the Solar System (4)

BIOL 1140 Human Biology: nonmajors (4)

BIOL 1141 Human Biology: Health Professions (4)

CHEM 1070 General Chemistry I (3)
CHEM 1110 Principles of Chemistry I (4) (see advisor for placement)
EES 1030 Introduction to Earth Science (3 or 4)
EES 1040 Evolution and the History of Life (3 or 4)
EES 1050 Introduction to Geology (4) (see advisor)
EES 1070 Age of Dinosaurs (4)
EES 1400 Natural Disasters** (3)
ENVS 1080 Introduction to Environmental Science** (3 or 4)
ENVS 1085 Fundamentals of Environmental Science** (4) (see advisor)

GEOG 1020 The Global Environment (3)

GEOG 1021 The Global Environment Lab (1)
PHYS 1200 Physics of Everyday Experience (3)
PHYS 1400 Basic Physics (3 or 4) (see advisor)

Mathematics Courses: (see advisor for placement)
MATH 1020 Elementary Functions (4)

MATH 1350 Quantitative Reasoning for Business (4)

MATH 1440 Mathematics for the Biological Sciences (4)
MATH 1460 Calculus for the Biological Sciences (4)

MATH 1550 Engineer Math I Single Variable Calculus (4)

Math 1850 Calculus I (4)

Statistics Courses:
STAT 1010 Statistics and Society (3)

STAT 1020 Elementary Statistics and Inference (3)

STAT 1030 Statistics for Business (4)

Other Courses for Quantitative & Formal Reasoning
CS 1020 Principles of Computing (3)
CS 1110 Introduction to Computer Science (3) (see advisor)

DATA 1015 Introduction to Data Science (3)
LING 1050 Language and Formal Reasoning (3)
CPH 1600 Public Health Science (3) (see advisor)
PHIL 1636 Principles of Reasoning: Argument and Debate (3) (see advisor)

POLI 1050 Big Ideas: Information, Society, Culture (3)

Other possible math placements (elective and not Gen Ed credit):
MATH 1005 College Algebra (4)
MATH 1010 Trigonometry (3)