An attempted explanation of USC’s general education program

Two months into my freshman year, I got a seemingly simple question from my parents: Why was a journalism major taking two different writing classes that were not connected to the journalism program? 

The answer that followed was a seven-minute mental breakdown captured in a video message that has since mercifully been lost to time. My parents sat through a breathless monologue on one of the most exhausting systems USC has to offer: general education. An interlocking web of requirements and rules guards our diplomas with a comprehensive, confusing course registration. The system is surprisingly difficult to explain. Allow me to try anyway. 

The ‘easy’ version

Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences summarizes the general education program on its website like this: “All undergraduates at USC must satisfy the following degree requirements. With a careful choice of classes, students can meet the following ten requirements with eight individual courses, some of which can satisfy requirements in two categories.” 

That last part took me several minutes to process before my first-ever course registration. Perhaps I was missing something, but why are there 10 course requirements if I could complete them all in eight classes? What gives with the double dip? 

In short, it’s because not all GE categories are weighted equally. There are six main and two auxiliary GE categories. Let’s do the main ones first: categories A through F — The Arts, Humanistic Inquiry, Social Analysis, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Quantitative Reasoning, respectively — are called “Core Literacies”  and must be fulfilled on their own terms. These categories all correspond to a widely accepted definition of important school subjects: the arts, humanities, science  — in two flavors — and math. 

Bafflingly, two categories — Humanistic Inquiry and Social Analysis — both require two classes each, as opposed to all other GE categories’ single-class requirement. Richard Fliegel, Dornsife’s director of general education and the school’s associate dean for undergraduate programs, wrote in a statement on Wednesday that the two-class requirement for the social sciences and the humanities is meant to balance them out with the two required natural science classes.  

Then there are categories G and H that are not “Core Literacy” classes. Together, they are known as “Global Perspectives” classes, which the University writes “prepare students to act as socially responsible members of the global community, respectful of the values and traditions of diverse cultures, aware of the structures of power that affect people differently by race, class, gender, and other socially constructed categories, sensitive to the interplay between worldwide problems and specific, local challenges.” 

In other words, don’t tell that mean guy in Washington, D.C., but these requirements are mostly about diversity. If you don’t believe me, take it from former Daily Trojan reporter Mac McDonough, describing the current iteration of the GE program when it first took effect in 2015.

“The diversity requirement used in the old core curriculum will now be a ‘Global Perspectives’ category,” McDonough wrote. “The category’s classes will deal with the same issues and inquiries as the diversity requirement but through a wider scope.”

This requirement is where students are able to double-dip, taking courses from GE categories A through F that automatically fulfill categories G and H. Fliegel wrote in his statement that the University allowed for double-counting the Global Perspectives requirements to avoid adding extra classes in the 2015 redesign of the GE program, considering it was already adding two new course requirements, Arts and Quantitative Reasoning. This works in theory, but eight GE classes are still a lot of classes — two full semesters’ worth, and that’s assuming you spend your entire freshman year on them instead of courses, for example, in your major. 

However! This is where the knife-twisting occurs. If you’re a USC student, you’re aware by now that the requirements are not as easy as saying A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. For all the prospective students who may be reading this story, let me say two things. First, I’m honored to attend this University and would never go anywhere else — Fight On, etc. 

Second, please get out something to write with and write on — this is going to take a minute.

Requirements Twister

First of all, if you think the University has screwed up this system after perfecting it pre-2015, our friend Mac can tell you otherwise in his Daily Trojan story. The pre-2015 system was made up of six GE categories, including multiple humanities and science categories as well as an arts category. 

“While slight changes have been made to the categories from the 1996-2014 model, including the addition of quantitative reasoning, the actual course material will remain similar,” he wrote.

Anyway, the eight categories we already talked about are not the only required classes in your University experience. 

First up is “Writing and Critical Reasoning–Thematic Approaches” (WRIT-150), followed by “Advanced Writing” (WRIT-340). The two required writing seminars have tiny class sizes, with 150 being a lower-division course taken during freshman year and 340 an upper-division course generally taken as late as senior year. These are just two classes about learning to be a better writer, and, as a journalism major who has edited one too many of your papers, I can certainly get behind the idea. 

Next comes a twist in your existing GE category journey. One of your GEs in freshman year must be a general education seminar — basically, a GE with a small class size. Our Daily Trojan friend Mac laid out the reasoning for this requirement flatly when the requirement was added in 2015. 

“The purpose of the seminar is to ensure that students will have at least two small classes, the other being Writing 150, during their first year,” he wrote. 

A cynic could label this requirement as a way for USC to improve its statistics on class sizes when presenting information on this to prospective students. Either way, it’s a strange asterisk in an already large and convoluted system.

There are a few more twists in this system to go over. Of course, like many colleges, you can get around some general education requirements by getting high scores on relevant Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams, but that’s not necessarily applicable to every student or every requirement. 

Not only that, categories B and C have no applicable AP or IB exams, meaning every student has to take all four courses regardless of high scores in classes like AP United States History.

The Dornsife Core Literacy Requirement throws a further arbitrary obstacle at spring admits and transfers, as they are required to take two USC classes in GE categories A through F, regardless of any previous credits accrued in AP or IB programs and other universities. 

Then there’s the foreign language requirement, which all Dornsife students (among others) must complete by scoring well on a placement test or finishing up to the third level of a foreign language — as many as three classes for those with no previous language experience.

USC does offer an alternative known as Thematic Option, which is an honors program you must apply to get into. Dornsife’s website describes it as an “honors general education program that replaces the traditional general education courses at USC.” But that’s not entirely accurate. The program’s six smaller, interdisciplinary classes cover categories B, G, H, WRIT-150, WRIT-340 and the general education seminar. But the Thematic Option does not cover categories A, C, E and F, meaning you’re still stuck with at least 10 classes, not including the foreign language requirement. 

These requirements all add up quickly. Assuming you took zero AP or IB classes in high school, don’t double-dip from categories G and H, start your language requirement from level one, and don’t apply or get into the Thematic Option, you are going to be in the system for a while. 

To be exact, you are stuck with a whopping 15 classes — or 60 units, assuming all are four-unit courses — of general education requirements. That’s 47% of the 128 units required for graduation. Do you want to take on a double major, or a minor or two, or even just focus on the thousands of engaging classes this campus is ready to share with you? The University’s GE system has two words for you: Good luck.

A way forward

Our friend Mac from 2015 isn’t the only Daily Trojan reporter who’s written about the GE program. Opinion writers at this publication have been kvetching about GEs for at least 15 years. 

In 2012, before the new GE system was even established, Elena Kadvany wrote, “This shouldn’t be another problem students gripe about year in and year out. Our four years at USC go quickly, and our time here shouldn’t be wasted.” 

In 2021, Annie Bang re-opened the floodgates: “For USC to provide its students with an optimal education that matches the school’s values and prestige, GE requirements should be ditched and replaced.”

In 2022, Jayna Dias chimed in, lamenting, “So, not only are these GEs extremely time-consuming, but they also have virtually no benefit. What I have been experiencing these last two semesters is feverishly reviewing lecture material … instead of paying attention to my other classes.”

It’s here, over 1,400 words into the story, where I must acknowledge something: The solution is not simply getting rid of the GE system, because on a fundamental level, general education is important. Schools like UCLA, Harvard and Stanford know this just as well as we do, as they and many others offer GEs as a cornerstone of their respective curricula. Humanities, math, science, the arts, writing and language are pillars of a more intelligent community. Diversity, equity and inclusion are pillars of a kinder community. So, what will allow us to move toward those goals?

USC’s general education system attempts to answer that question, but its answer is filtered through a bureaucratic, crackly megaphone. Here’s what I’d change.

First of all, two required natural science classes, Categories D and E, seem like a bit much for students majoring in tuba performance or real estate development or philosophy or film and television production. For any major that’s particularly time-consuming, forcing students into multiple hourslong lab sections — which often come baked into the requirement — does not help matters. Cutting the natural science requirement down to one class would greatly help students’ sanity when enrolling in these courses. To account for that, the humanities and social science classes, Categories B and C, should be given the same weight. Let’s require just one class from each subject.

The diversity categories, Categories G and H, are also functionally serving the same goal, but the real problem there is that the University essentially allows students to skirt right past it. Its double-dip loophole is advertised in the very description of the GE program — so why wouldn’t enterprising students, sick of the steep GE requirements, just use it? 

Since I’ve just cut one humanities, one social science and one natural science class from the GE system, I’d kindly ask University students to accept one new required class centered entirely on diversity, and that class would not be available for double-dipping. To make sure actual conversations are had in these classes, I’m going to mandate these classes are all made up of fewer than 20 students — and in doing so, sunset the general education seminar requirement. If USC is truly committed to a diverse and equitable campus community, this would be the easiest change to make. 

I’m going to hurt my own priorities here, but for the sake of not being a hypocrite: if I’m slashing science and the humanities, we could probably make do with just one writing seminar, too. Let’s go with WRIT-150. We’ll shape WRIT-340, a series of high-level writing courses that are more intentionally targeted toward certain programs and passions, into USC’s next great four-unit elective program. 

Lastly, I’d slash the Dornsife Core Literacy requirement in half, making spring admit students or transfers take at least one GE course at USC, instead of two. Students that spent their years in high school and college planning their courses to learn what the general education curriculum purports to teach them should receive more credit for their efforts. 

So, here’s my new system for required classes, including GE classes, at a glance:

Category A: The Arts (1 class)

Category B: Humanistic Inquiry (1 class)

Category C: Social Analysis (1 class)

Category D: Natural Sciences (1 class)

Category E: Quantitative Reasoning (1 class)
Category F: Equity in a Diverse World (1 class)

Writing 150 (1 class)

Foreign language requirement (when applicable, up to 3 classes)

In total, that’s 10 classes and 40 units, at most —  five fewer classes and 20 fewer units out of everyone’s University experience and a much more intentional GE journey. 

The reason

So, why was a journalism major taking two different writing classes that were not connected to the journalism program? Well, because WRIT-150 and MUSC-373 fulfilled GE requirements, but also because the courses remain two of my favorite classes at USC to this day. Since then, however, my workload has increased, my free time has tightened and my attentiveness toward those same parents who asked about my classes in the first place has unintentionally waned as I continue to chase a 60-unit checklist. 

I’m almost done with the general education system, and you could say I’m a bit frustrated by it — but that’s not because the GE system shouldn’t exist. It’s because, for all the time I spent sitting through week after week waiting to be done with these classes, I wish I had spent more time being able to simply enjoy them.