Columbia’s general education requirements expose students to a wide range of subjects, including the humanities, the natural sciences, foreign languages, and global cultures. The aim is to familiarize students with the many ways in which we convey meaning and create knowledge. By exploring these diverse ways of thinking about the world, Columbia students become more versatile thinkers with richer lives, who join a community of inquiry and discover skills and interests that they were not previously aware of.
Columbia’s general education requirements vary by school, so please consult your academic bulletin for more information:
Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
For a list of courses that satisfy the Global Core requirement, please visit the Global Core Navigator.
At the heart of the Core are these five courses:
These five courses, which have been offered at Columbia for decades, create a community of learners who engage collaboratively with some of the images, ideas, discoveries, stories, and sounds that help us to make sense of our world.
For questions about Art Humanities, Contemporary Civilization, Frontiers of Science, Literature Humanities, and Music Humanities, please contact the Center for the Core Curriculum in 202 Hamilton Hall: core-curriculum@columbia.edu.