UMass Boston

Objective:   Students will learn about critical analysis and logical thought, with emphasis on disciplined inquiry, including the development of appropriate questions, the evaluation of evidence, and the formation of a reasoned conclusion or judgment.

Objective: Students will demonstrate the ability to read and listen critically, and to speak and write effectively.

Courses satisfying the Critical Analysis requirement examine a topic or problem in depth while addressing such academic skills as:

•  Critical reading
•  Critical thinking
•  Clear writing
•  Academic self-assessment
•  Collaborative learning
•  Information technology
•  Oral presentation

Objective: Students will demonstrate the ability to reason quantitatively and to use formal systems to solve problems of quantitative relationships involving numbers, formal symbols, patterns, data and graphs.

The Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning requirement is designed to enhance the capacity of students to: 

• Pose problems that involve quantitative relationships in real-world data by means of numerical, symbolic, and visual representations;
• Solve problems, deducing consequences, formulating alternatives, and making predictions;
• Apply appropriate technologies to solving problems; and
• Communicate and critique quantitative arguments orally and in writing.

Objective: Students will learn about human diversity, including how different patterns of behavior and thought evolve and how the development of cultures is influenced by interactions among different social groups.

UMass Boston believes that explicit study of the diversity of the world’s peoples is an essential component of an undergraduate education. The university defines “diversity” broadly to include race, gender, culture (national origin, ethnicity, religion), social class, age, sexual origin and disability. Attention to cultural and social groups previously ignored or marginalized in curricula helps students acquire analytical tools and knowledge with which they can understand human diversity in our complex and changing world, and strengthens their academic preparation by exposing them to a rich body of scholarship from a wide range of disciplines. All undergraduates at UMass Boston must therefore take courses that address human diversity as a major theme.

Objective (Natural Sciences [NS] and Mathematics/Technology [MT]): Students will learn how the laws of the physical and biological world are derived through observation, theory, and experiment. In this age of expanding scientific knowledge and powerful technologies, an educated person should understand the importance of falsifiable hypotheses, the nature of scientific "truth," and the impact of science on society.

Objective (Social and Behavioral Sciences [SB]): Students will learn about the nature and development of human behavior and institutions through time, in order to become aware of the complex and ambiguous nature of changing human experience.

Objective (Arts [AR] and Humanities [HU]): Students will develop an informed appreciation of the arts and humanities, which encompass philosophy, literature, the fine arts, and the performing arts. Students will learn how people have come to understand and express artistic, aesthetic, moral, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions of the human condition.

Objective (World Languages [WL] and World Cultures [WC]): Students will learn how language and culture impose their own structuring of knowledge. This may be achieved through intensive study of unfamiliar cultures, or by the study of a foreign language or foreign literature in translation.