Core Curriculum by Component Area Summary

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If you have any questions about what the Core Curriculum requirements are for you and your specific degree plan, please contact an advisor.

Core Curriculum

Senate Bill (SB) 148, enacted in 1997 by the 75th Texas Legislature, requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to adopt rules that include “a statement of the content, component areas, and objectives of the core curriculum” which each institution is to fulfill by its own selection of specific courses.

The University of Houston has adopted the core curriculum guidelines described below. These are predicated on the judgment that a series of basic intellectual competencies (reading, writing, speaking, listening, critical thinking, and computer literacy) are essential to the learning process in any discipline and thus should inform any core curriculum and indeed, all of undergraduate education. Although students can be expected to come to college with some experience in exercising these competencies, they often need further instruction and practice to meet college standards and, later, to succeed in both their major field of academic study and their chosen career or profession.

Core Objectives

Through the Texas Core Curriculum, students will prepare for contemporary challenges by developing demonstrating the following core objectives listed below.

Critical Thinking Skills

To include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation and synthesis of information;

Communication Skills

To include effective development, interpretation and expression of ideas through written, oral and visual communication;

Empirical and Quantitative Skills

To include the manipulation and analysis of numerical data or observable facts resulting in informed conclusions;

Teamwork

To include the ability to consider different points of view and to work effectively with others to support a shared purpose or goal;

Personal Responsibility

To include the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision-making.

Social Responsibility

To include intercultural competence, knowledge of civic responsibility, and the ability to engage effective regional, national, and global communities.