General Education for students who entered in 2012 (Class of 2016)

The General Education requirements are an integral part of your undergraduate education at Stanford. Their purpose is to introduce you to the intellectual life of the university, to foreground important questions and illustrate how they may be approached from multiple perspectives. They will help you to develop a broad set of essential intellectual and social competencies that will be of enduring value no matter what field you eventually pursue. You will have tremendous flexibility to select topics that appeal to you while building critical skills, exploring your interests, forming relationships with faculty and peers, and forging connections between educational experiences in many spheres. Together with your major, the requirements will serve as the nucleus around which you will build your four years here and perhaps pursue graduate study or professional work.