The GE 5 requirements for degree completion apply to students who matriculate in or after fall 2023.
New Paltz's General Education 5 (GE 5), in keeping with SUNY's system-wide General Education Framework, addresses the fundamental aims of undergraduate education, including proficiency with essential skills and competencies, familiarization with disciplinary and interdisciplinary ways of knowing, and enhancement of the values and disposition of an engaged 21st-century global citizenry.
What will GE 5 look like for you?
New to SUNY New Paltz?
The GE 5 program offers ten knowledge and skills areas that will expose you to different ways of knowing, enabling you to make reasoned judgments outside as well as inside your academic field and develop diverse perspectives and global understanding. You'll acquire two core competencies - Critical Thinking & Reasoning and Information Literacy - that extend beyond discipline-specific knowledge and skills and infuse your learning experience.
For most new-to-New Paltz students1, GE 5 will look like this:
| Mathematics (and Quantitative Reasoning) | 1 course |
| Communication - Written and Oral | 1 course: ENG170 Writing & Rhetoric (prerequisite: ENG160 Composition I or by placement) |
| Natural Sciences (and Scientific Reasoning) | 1 4-credit science lecture/laboratory or 1 3-credit science lecture course + 1 corresponding 1-credit science lab course or 2 3-credit science courses (non-lab) |
| Diversity: Equity, Inclusion & Social Justice | 1 course |
| Social Sciences | 1 course |
| U.S. History & Civic Engagement | 1 course |
| World History & Global Awareness | 1 course |
| Humanities | 1 course |
| The Arts | 1 course (minimum 3 credits) |
| World Languages | 2 consecutive elementary courses or 1 elementary and 1 intermediate course in a single language or 1 intermediate course (requirement depends on language placement level) |
| All undergraduate degree-seeking students must also demonstrate the required student learning outcomes in two core competencies: |
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Critical Thinking and Reasoning |
Students will develop these competencies in several courses both inside and outside their major. |
| Total credits to complete the full GE 5: | 32 (minimum) |
Transferring to New Paltz with college credits or an associate's degree?
- If you completed college-level courses prior to coming to New Paltz, your pre-matriculation transfer credits may count toward your GE 5 program. Check your progress report for details.
- GE knowledge and skills areas successfully completed at another SUNY campus will be considered complete at New Paltz.
- If you earned a SUNY A.A. or A.S. degree and completed SUNY's minimum General Education requirement, your GE 5 program at New Paltz will be fully satisfied.
Special note for engineering transfer students:
- If you completed a SUNY A.S. Engineering Science degree and have not yet completed SUNY's minimum General Education program, you will do so at New Paltz. Check your progress report for details.
1See "Modified General Education Program" for exceptions.
