Advisors of the Core Curriculum are encouraged to utilize these resources when advising students as they navigate the Core. Below, you will find a brief video with language that may be helpful to share with your advisee in conversation, as well as three points to keep in mind: (1) distinguish the Core from a general education program, (2) remind your advisee to take Integration and Foundations courses in their intended order, and (3) encourage them to explore commonalities across disciplines. Additionally, at the bottom of the page, you will find a Core Advising Toolkit.
Advise on the Core through Conversation
The Core Curriculum is an invitation to our students to create their own paths through multiple disciplines during their time at the University of San Diego. It has four areas of inquiry that are relevant to the university’s commitment to the liberal arts: Competencies, Explorations, Foundations and Integration. The Core allows students to explore commonalities across disciplines in terms of how they gather, generate, perceive and analyze information to create knowledge. Students not only form a new understanding of the world but, most importantly, themselves in relationship to the world.
Three Advising Points to Keep in Mind
Distinguish the Core Curriculum
When advising students on the Core, consider distinguishing it from a general education program. A general education program requires that all students take the same courses to meet its requirements. At USD, students are free to curate their Core Curriculum experience by choosing among multiple course options to meet its learning outcomes, sometimes in unexpected ways.
Highlight the Intended Order of Courses
Another unique feature of USD’s Core is its commitment to developmental exposure in two of its areas of inquiry: Integration and Foundations. In the case of Integration, students must take a first-year integration course in the context of their learning communities and an advanced integration course during their junior or senior year. In the Foundations area, the Theological and Religious Inquiry and the Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice attributes build on each other from a lower to an upper-division requirement. Please note that a single course may not count for two unit-bearing Core requirements (i.e., no "double-dipping"). In the case of a course that satisfies two unit-bearing Core requirements, the student must select which Core requirement they wish to complete (e.g., FTRI or FETI).
Explore Disciplinary Commonalities
As the video points out, the Core encourages students to explore commonalities across disciplines in terms of how they gather, generate, perceive and analyze information to create knowledge. Encourage students to explore questions such as:
- What kinds of questions do scholars ask in disciplines within each of the four areas of the Core (Competencies, Explorations, Foundations and Integration)?
- How do their disciplines approach and answer questions?
- How do those disciplines share information and knowledge?