Perspective Requirements

In addition to FIQWS and FQUAN, candidates for the BA and BFA degrees are required to choose one course from each of 8 categories called “Perspectives”.  Candidates for the BS, and those from the Grove School of Engineering, The Sophie Davis School of Bio-Medical Education, and the School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture may require a different number of Perspectives. The “Perspective” requirements allow students to explore a variety of fields of study within in the school while touching on key issues, values and ways of thinking.

The Perspectives Categories

Perspectives on U.S. History and Society (H) - Students should obtain knowledge of selected events and key topics in the development of U.S. society and become familiar with the various tools and analytic approaches for the study of U.S. society.

Global History and Culture (CG)  - Students should become familiar with the belief systems, history, and social dynamics of at least one non-Western society and be able to compare and contrast the society or societies with dominant patterns in the West.

Self and Society (SS) - Students should also (1) have an awareness of individual and societal issues as including, minimally, individual ethical and societal justice issues and (2) learn about theories and methods in the study of individual/social as well as comparative societal questions as they are related to race, ethnicity, class, and gender/sexual orientation. This Perspective will give due attention to the mutual influences of the local, the national, and the global.    

Artistic (A) - Students should have an awareness of artistic issues from a critical perspective. 

Literary (L) - Students should have an introduction to the methods and concerns of literary analysis, complementing close reading with attention to historical context.

Logical-Philosophical (LP) – Students should have experience with a course that emphasizes analytic and/or philosophical reasoning, sometimes in conjunction with case studies, to examine fundamental questions of ethics, justice and epistemology.

Natural Scientific (S) - Students should have an experience with the techniques and methodologies of science including an experience gathering and interpreting data. 

Natural-Scientific with Interactive Component (SI) - Students should have an experience with the techniques and methodologies of science including an experience gathering and interpreting data.  This course ought to have a lab or some kind of “hands-on” experience that will enhance scientific learning.

Two courses outside the student’s major: - Students should have an experience in depth in a discipline other than their major. This requirement entails two courses in a department or program other than the student’s major. One of these courses may be a “Perspective” previously taken.

“Proficiencies” Embedded in the Perspectives

For a course to be listed as a “Perspective”, it must also include work in one of two sets of skills called “Proficiencies”, essential foundations both for academic success at City College and for lifelong learning.  These are:

A Perspectives course must include either A or B, though a number of Perspectives classes include both categories:

• “W” Course (H, CG, A, L and SS)
  Oral and written communication skills (CS) – Students should have multiple experiences in communicating ideas in writing and speaking.
  
  Critical analysis (CA) – Students should have multiple experiences in critically and constructively analyzing information in different areas of study.
  
  Information literacy (IL) – Students should have multiple experiences requiring finding information in the library, on the Internet, and in other places and evaluating the reliability of this information.
  
  
• “Q” Course (SS, S, SI)
  Quantitative reasoning ability (QR) – Students should have multiple experiences in evaluating critically quantitative information given graphically, in table form, or numerically.
  
  Critical analysis (CA) – Students should have multiple experiences in critically and constructively analyzing information in different areas of study.
  
  Technological competency (TC) – Students should have multiple experiences requiring the use of technology such as word-processors, spreadsheets, etc.
  
  Information literacy (IL) – Students should have multiple experiences requiring finding information in the library, on the Internet, and in other places and evaluating the reliability of this information.
  

The faculty recognized that adequate mastery of these proficiencies would require multiple experiences, beginning with coursework early in the undergraduate sequence. Thus we assured that these proficiencies are embedded into the courses that satisfy the General Education Curriculum. Courses that may be elected by students to fulfill “Perspectives” requirements also answer the requirements for one or more proficiency. A faculty committee, the Implementation Committee of the Faculty Council reviews syllabi for the assignments and content that have been mandated as requirements for fulfilling each “Proficiency.” For instance, a course must require 3500 words of writing in specific types of assignments to fulfill the “written communication skills” proficiency.

For more information on designing effective writing assignments please see WAC Teaching Practices for the Perspectives (.pdf) and Writing in the Perspectives - Assigning Composition (.doc) or visit the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) page.