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Undergraduate Program

General Education Requirements

At William & Mary, the undergraduate general education curriculum includes seven General Education Requirements (GERs). Below is a brief introduction describing the rationale for the GERs, an overview of the seven GERs, and a list of approved courses associated with each GER.

Introduction

William & Mary is an institution committed to "liberal education." By "liberal" we mean that students are encouraged to become free and self-governed contributors to our society. It is through a program of general education that institutions like William and Mary have sought to foster the liberating arts of self-examination, critical thinking, the discrimination of values, and the nurturing of the creative imagination.

General education and education in the specialized disciplines share in this liberal enterprise. Nevertheless, the central aim of specialized education -- choosing a major -- is the acquisition of competence in a specific body of knowledge and skills. We currently live in an age of specialization, and the pressures in our society for special training make it imperative that we also place it within the context of the broader knowledge and skills required to deal with the perennial issues facing the human community.

Specifically, general education must ensure that our students are able to think clearly and communicate thought, are highly literate, are able to understand and deal with numerical data, and can comprehend the fundamental principles of the natural and social sciences, as well as their major accomplishments, possibilities, and limits. Furthermore, in an age of global interdependence it is imperative that students be knowledgeable about their own cultural heritage and about cultures very different from their own. Students also need to be aware of the possibilities of artistic creativity as a means of expressing human meaning, and to be familiar with aesthetic forms and achievements, recognizing how profoundly they mirror and shape culture. Finally, it is evident that the complexities of modern society require citizens capable of discerning and analyzing competing values and of dealing responsibly with moral questions of great personal and social importance.

In brief, the aim of general education at William and Mary is to help students develop critical judgment, imagination, and moral autonomy. However, general education requires structure that clearly reflects the program's purposes and goals. The General Education Requirements (GERs) provide that structure.

Overview of the General Education Requirements (GERs)

As described in the Course Catalog, Undergraduate students are required to fulfill the seven General Education Requirements (GERs) as given below. GER courses must be either three- or four-credit courses, except for courses used to fulfill GER 6, which can be one-, two-, three- or four-credit courses. A single course may fulfill, at most, two GERs and may also be used to fulfill concentration and/or proficiency requirements.

Courses used to satisfy GERs may not be taken Pass/Fail except for those courses that are designated by the College as Pass/Fail courses, such as physical activity courses in the Department of Kinesiology. Students may satisfy one or more of the GERs by receiving credit for a GER course through Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) test scores, or by receiving transfer credit if the course is taken prior to enrolling at the College.

For GER 6 only, an exemption (without credit) may be granted if a student is exempt from a course that satisfies GER 6 or if he/she has met the exemption criteria, as defined by the affected departments. Current exemption criteria are available from the Office of Academic Advising. For all other GERs, exemption (without credit) from a course that satisfies the GER does not result in fulfillment of the GER. All exemptions from GER 6 must be attempted and completed within a student's first two years in residence at the College.

• List of approved GER classes
• GER Criteria: GER1 | GER2 | GER3 | GER4 | GER5 | GER6 | GER7
• GER 1 - Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning (one course)
• GER 2 - Natural Sciences (two courses, one of which is taken with its associated laboratory)
  • 2A Physical Sciences (one course)
  • 2B Biological Sciences (one course)
• GER 3 - Social Sciences (two courses)
• GER 4 - World Cultures and History (one course in category A, one course in category B, and one additional course in either category A, B or C)
  • 4A History and Culture in the European Tradition
  • 4B History and Culture outside the European Tradition
  • 4C Cross-Cultural Issues
• GER 5 - Literature and History of the Arts (one course)
• GER 6 - Creative and Performing Arts (two credits in the same creative or performing art)
• GER 7 - Philosophical, Religious and Social Thought (one course)