General education at Appalachian is anchored in the ideals and practices of liberal education and aims  to prepare students to fulfill the responsibilities and meet the challenges presented by a changing world. By engaging in the discovery, interpretation, and creation of knowledge throughout the undergraduate curriculum and becoming involved in educationally focused co-curricular activities, students learn to adapt to new environments, integrate knowledge from diverse sources, and continue learning throughout their lives. 

Goals and Outcomes 

In keeping with national conversation focused on goals and learning outcomes for a twenty-first-century college education, Appalachian State University adopted four general education goals and twenty one learning outcomes. These goals and outcomes promote broad based, interdisciplinary knowledge, higher level transferable skills, the connection between local and global issues and environments, and a sense of personal and social responsibility as applied to problems.   The four educational goals are:

• Thinking critically and creatively
• Communicating effectively
• Making local to global connections
• Understanding responsibilities of community membership

Curriculum Model

Examples of Themes in Perspectives