The Core Curriculum:
General Course Descriptions

Approved undergraduate courses in each core curriculum category are offered in a variety of disciplines and levels. (For more information, refer to courses that fulfill core curriculum requirements.)

Required Freshman Seminars

Freshman Seminar: Liberal Arts and Sciences
FRS 1030 / 1 credit / Every semester
In this introduction to the merits and expectations of a liberal arts education, incoming freshmen in the liberal arts and sciences and in arts management are encouraged to become members of the Purchase College intellectual community. Through readings, discussions, and supervised activities, students learn about the College’s academic expectations and its educational and co-curricular opportunities. Graded on a pass/fail basis; cannot be repeated.
Note: Required for incoming freshmen and selected transfer students in the B.A. and B.S. degree programs (excluding the liberal studies B.A.), as well as freshmen who have not yet declared their major. (All incoming freshmen in the School of Art+Design take VIS 1030/Art+Design Freshman Seminar in their freshman year, as part of their major requirements.)

College Writing
LWR 1110 / 4 credits / Every semester (primarily Fall)
An intensive course taught in multiple sections, by the end of which students are able to do the following:

1. Produce coherent texts within common college-level written forms.
2. Apply critical-thinking skills to evaluate their own and others’ assignments.
3. Take a position of their own and develop an argument, using supporting details.
4. Synthesize materials from various kinds of texts.
5. Demonstrate the ability to revise and improve their papers.
6. Use course concepts to develop in-depth readings of texts and critically literate written papers.
7. Research a topic in detail and write a coherent, well-organized paper that develops an argument in dialogue with source texts.
8. Demonstrate proficiency in oral discourse.
9. Evaluate an oral presentation.
10. Perform the basic operation of computer use.

College Writing AP Policy for Freshmen

Science in the Modern World
FRS 1200 / 4 credits / Spring
An understanding of scientific principles is essential for an educated and engaged citizenry. This course investigates the substance and process of modern science and its role in society, including the scientific method and nature of scientific inquiry; scientific principles, analysis, and critical thinking; sources of scientific information, critical reading, and evaluation of authenticity; and distinguishing science from pseudoscience. Each course section focuses on a different topic or theme and considers some of the important scientific issues of our times.
Note: Topic subtitles are listed in the online course schedule for the spring semester at studentservices.purchase.edu; individual descriptions are published by the Advising Center and distributed in FRS 1030/Freshman Seminar: Liberal Arts and Sciences.

American History, Society, and the Arts
GEA 2000 / 4 credits / Fall
Students examine how the arts serve as a narrator of American life, with emphasis on the birth of the republic and on 19th- and 20th-century political and historical issues. The course analyzes how social and cultural issues, both regional and national, have interacted with the growth of uniquely American art forms. Students also consider the central position the arts have taken in contentious national debates from the arrival of the Puritans to the Declaration of Independence, the Civil War, and the emergence of the U.S. as a cultural melting pot and as a superpower.

Updated Feb. 14, 2011

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Updates
Please direct updates for this page to the managing editor in the Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs. Because internal and external links may change or expire from time to time, please report any changed or broken links to the managing editor as well. To add a course, please refer first to the Faculty Handbook.