Understand, analyze, appreciate, and affect your world
An education in the liberal arts and sciences enables students to understand their world, and it equips them to analyze, appreciate, and affect that world. With these aims in mind, the faculty at Worcester State University have designed the University’s Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum (LASC) to ensure breadth both in the range of subjects that students will encounter and in the range of approaches to that material. In addition, the Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum emphasizes the fundamental abilities and attitudes that make it possible to benefit fully from a liberal education. While the specialization provided by major and minor fields of study is essential to a college education, the breadth and integration provided by the Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum supply an invaluable context for understanding the wider world.
Given the crucial importance of languages other than English in today’s global society, the University strongly encourages the study of world languages, through the majors and minors, and also through combining the requirements in Global Perspectives and Thought, Language, and Culture. Students may also choose to study languages through their elective courses.
The Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum is aimed at achieving the following student learning outcomes. Having completed courses in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum, students will:
- Demonstrate effective oral and written communication.
- Employ quantitative and qualitative reasoning.
- Apply skills in critical thinking.
- Apply skills in information literacy.
- Display an appreciation for the interrelations among global and cross-cultural communities.
- Develop a critical understanding of the U.S. experience.
- Understand the roles of science and technology in the modern world.
- Demonstrate and value personal creative expression.
- Understand how scholars in various disciplines approach problems and construct knowledge.
- Display socially responsible behavior and act as socially responsible agents in the world.
- Make connections across courses and disciplines.
- Develop as healthy individuals – physically, emotionally, socially, ethically, and intellectually.
Requirements
-
Core Course Requirements
Core courses may not double with content area course requirements.
Content Area Course Requirements
Students will complete courses in nine content areas.
- Creative Arts (CA)
- Diversity (DIV)
- Human Behavior and Social Processes (HBS)
- Individual and Community Well-being (ICW)
- Global Perspectives (GP)
- Natural Systems and Processes (NSP)
- Natural Systems and Processes (LAB)
- Non-approved LASC lab (NLL) courses do not meet the requirement for a LASC LAB course
- Natural Systems and Processes (LAB)
- Quantitative Reasoning (QR)
- Thought, Language, and Culture (TLC)
- The United States and Its Role in the World (USW)
-
In addition to meeting the 40-credit Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum (LASC) requirements for all undergraduates, Liberal Studies majors complete a minimum of 39 credits from two areas of study.
The first area (18-27 credits) must be completed in an established minor at Worcester State University.
The second area (15 or more credits) may be another of the University’s established minors, a concentration, or a self-designed cluster of classes. A maximum of 18 credits may be transferred in to this second area of the major.
At least 9 credits in the Liberal Studies student’s two areas must be at the 300-level or above. The program of study plan must reflect that at least 51 percent of the major credits are taken at Worcester State University. To receive a baccalaureate degree from Worcester State University, a student must complete 30 of the last 40 credits at Worcester State University.
Students who have completed 30 credits between areas one and two of their program of study may enroll in the capstone.
Each Liberal Studies major is required to maintain an e-portfolio of work produced in the student’s various courses, beginning in LS-190 and culminating inLS-490.
Evening students: Students wishing to declare a Liberal Studies major may, depending on the chosen areas of study, complete the required courses in the evening or during the summer.
Honors program: Liberal Studies majors with a 3.3 GPA or higher who wish to graduate with honors may add a 3-credit research project, creative work/portfolio, or thesis to the individualized plan of study.
Students are required to meet with their academic advisor to review their courses for the upcoming semester. A minimum of 120 credits is required for graduation. First-year and transfer students with 45 or fewer credits at the time of admission shall complete two academic programs (a major/major or major/minor) to qualify for graduation. For more information, please view the MajorPlus section of the catalog. -
The following are the default transfer equivalences. When courses transfer into specific Worcester State courses, they carry specific Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum (LASC) designations, however, the transferred courses will meet LASC requirements in the same way as the courses into which they have transferred.
- Mathematics courses will be transferred as QR for maximum of six credits in LASC.
- Science courses in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and GeoSciences transfer as NSP for a maximum of seven credits. A lab science course transfers as a NSP lab course.
- Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Anthropology, Cultural Geography, Sociology, and Education courses transfer as HBS for a maximum of three credits.
- Philosophy, Literature, Religion, Communication (theory), and Language courses transfer as TLC for a maximum of three credits.
- Art, Communication (applied), Music, and Theatre courses transfer as CA for a maximum of three credits.
- Health and Nutrition courses transfer as ICW for a maximum of three credits.
- History courses transfer as USW, GP or TLC for a maximum of six credits.
- All other transfer courses will be reviewed individually by the LASC Program Chair, in consultation with appropriate academic departments, the LASC Advisory Board, or the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Major and Minor Courses Counting Toward LASC
- For students who entered WSU prior to Fall 2021, courses in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum may not be used to meet the primary requirements of a first major, but may be used to satisfy the requirements of a second major or a minor.
- Student who entered WSU in Fall 2021 or later, that is, those under MajorPlus, may apply up to three courses approved for different LASC requirements from their first major toward LASC requirements. All courses in a second major or any minor that meet LASC requirements are eligible for LASC credit.