Curriculum Overview
Trinity College: General Education Competencies
Duke University seeks to empower students by expanding their capacity to reason and to empathize by developing knowledge; intellectual abilities, competencies, and skills; and students' personal and social responsibility. Specifically, the University defines as general education outcomes:
1. Knowledge of Humanity, Societies and Cultures, and the Physical and Natural World as expressed through the Arts and Sciences:
- Arts, Literatures, and Performance
- Civilizations
- Natural Sciences,
- Quantitative Studies
- Social Sciences
2. Intellectual Abilities, Competencies, and Skills
- Critical Thinking
- Analytical Reasoning
- Writing
- Quantitative Literacy
- Foreign Language and Transcultural Understanding
- Synthesis and Integration of Knowledge
3. Personal and Social Responsibility
- Civic Engagement (Using Knowledge in the Service of Society)
- Ethical Reasoning
- Engaging Difference
The Trinity College Curriculum, specifically the graduation requirements that you must fulfill, will help you to fulfill these competencies and chart a course through the undergraduate years that will be responsive to your talents and aspirations and prepare you well for the future. At the core of the Curriculum are four sets of specific curricular requirements:
- The Areas of Knowledge requirements lend breadth to your education by introducing you to the full range of disciplines taught at Duke.
- The Modes of Inquiry requirements insure that you will engage certain important cross-cutting intellectual themes and prepare you to leave Duke having developed proficiencies that will serve you later in life.
- The Small Group Learning Experiences assure opportunities to engage in discussion, develop skills, refine judgment, and defend ideas when challenged.
- Finally, the Major provides depth of exposure to one discipline and its methodologies that will enable you to develop a degree of expertise in that area.
See Graduation Requirements for a detailed description of the curricular requirements.