Undergraduate education seeks to develop productive, creative, and responsible citizens who both shape society and lay the foundation for tomorrow.  In addition to exploring areas of specialization, the university experience must provide a venue for investigating the origins and natures of cultures, ideas, and the physical universe and endow graduates with the ability to analyze critically, think sustainably, learn creatively, and express themselves clearly and cogently.  Diversity and breadth of experience are essential characteristics of both education and success in our global community.
  The University Core Curriculum (UCC) provides the broad, well-defined curriculum that enables graduates to think critically, analytically, and creatively, with a passion to learn and with the skills and ability to assemble, assess, incorporate, and synthesize new knowledge and information; organize and clearly express their knowledge and ideas; and determine the importance and relevance of new ideas through a synthesis of both broad and narrow contexts and the integration of seemingly disparate pieces into a meaningful whole.
  The UCC rests upon the belief that a foundational curriculum, shared by students, fosters intellectual development and enhances personal, social, intellectual, and academic relations.  Together with concentration in major fields of study, the UCC builds the base that makes future academic and professional excellence possible.
  First Year Experience (one, one-credit course required): The transition to a university environment is a unique one for first-time university students.  FIU's orientation course is designed to facilitate this transition.  The First-Year Experience course provides a forum for integrating the FIU experience and for discussing issues promoting intellectual, personal, academic, social growth and success as a member of the University community.  The course introduces students to University policies, procedures, and services; addresses academic and career choices; and enhances study and time-management skills. All students entering the University with fewer than 30 semester hours are required to take this one-credit course,  SLS 1501 First-Year Experience.
  English Composition (two, three-credit courses from either sequence required): A foundation in the critical analysis of issues and texts, both discursive and creative, and in argumentation and persuasion is essential in all university courses.  English Composition provides this foundation by encouraging the mastery of written and oral communication models, including the essay and research paper.
  For students entering FIU with 30 or fewer credits and for all first-term-in-college students, ENC 1101, Writing and Rhetoric I and ENC 1102, Writing and Rhetoric II are required.
  For students entering FIU with more than 30 credits (who are not first-term-in-college students), ENC 2301, Expository Writing, and one of the following: ENC 3317, Writing Across the Curriculum; or ENC 3311, Advanced Writing and Research; or ENC 3211, Report and Technical Writing are acceptable.
  Humanities With Writing (two, three-credit courses required, one of which must be a historically-oriented course): In these courses students strengthen the critical reading and writing skills needed to succeed within the University and beyond.  Students interact analytically with, and respond critically to, primary and secondary texts in the humanities and learn to integrate the ideas and words of others into their own writing.  By writing informed essays, students develop the ability to present ideas logically and sequentially and to provide balanced exposition and critical examination of complex events, positions, arguments, or texts.
  In these courses students learn to use writing as a form of inquiry in reflecting critically upon central topics in the humanities, such as individual, moral, and social values; historical perspectives and events; culture and the arts; philosophy; and religious beliefs and practices.  Students address themes centered on the traditions; shared values and myths; literary, artistic, historical, and philosophical traditions; and cultural standards and common values which underlie contemporary societies and their historical antecedents.

 (* indicates a course designated as being "historically oriented")

Quantitative Reasoning (two, three-credit courses required, at least one of which must be in mathematics): The requirement aims at preparing students to master concepts and ideas in logic, inductive and deductive reasoning, and abstract and quantitative thinking. Students will become proficient in the art of reasoning critically, solving problems, and analyzing data.

(* indicates a mathematics course).

Social Inquiry (six credits required, three credits in each of the two sub-categories below): In these courses students investigate social, political, and economic configurations; cultural and psychological features of human life; gender, race/ethnicity, and social class; consciousness and identity; social interactions with the natural environment; and local, national, and global aspects of the human world.

Foundations of Social Inquiry (one, three-credit course required): Students learn theories and methodologies that underlie these areas of study and enhance their research and analytic skills.

Societies & Identities (one, three-credit course required): Students compare societies and cultures in local, national, or international contexts and in contemporary or historical perspective.

Natural Science (two, three-credit courses required, one in the life sciences and one in the physical sciences, and two corresponding one-credit labs): Our technologically dependent world requires an understanding of the processes that led us here.  Learning the basic concepts and ideas of scientific fields provides contact with not just those fields but with how science is done.  In these courses students study the scientific method through examination of the foundational theories of modern scientific thought.  Students apply scientific principles and theories to problem solving, evaluate scientific statements, and incorporate new information within the context of what is already known.
  Emphasizing the essential connection between theory and experiment, the hands-on laboratory experience provides the context for testing scientific theories.

Life Sciences:

Arts Requirement (three credit hours required): Art embodies human dreams, visions, and imagination and renders the human experience creatively in sound, movement, performance, design, language, color, shape, and space. Art responds critically to current events, changes in society, and the drama of human life.
  In fulfilling this requirement, students will become acquainted with the fundamental aspects of the arts while developing a capacity to understand, appreciate, or experience particular forms.  Students address universal themes central to the cultural traditions of the past and present as expressed through the perspectives of the arts.