Explore Courses

Why do Students take Explore Courses?

UCCS hopes to provide students with experience outside their major discipline to expose them to different ways of thinking and interacting with the world around them. Students are required to take 3 courses (3 credits each) across three primary areas. Explore courses must be taken outside of your major discipline.

We encourage students to be intentional and strategic about these selections to explore their own interests and curiosity, build useful skills, and investigate potential majors.

Students should take at least one course (3 credits) in each of the following areas:

• Explore: Society, Health, and Behavior
• Explore: Physical and Natural World
• Explore: Arts, Humanities, and Culture

Explore courses are a part of the Compass Goals approved by faculty in 2010.

Goal 2: Know and Explore 

Students will have a broad understanding of fundamental explorations, applications, and innovations in the natural sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and arts and humanities. This area includes knowledge of:

• The physical and natural world
• Humanities, arts, and culture
• Society, social and economic institutions, health, and human behavior

The “Explore” component encompasses three courses that expose students to a breadth of disciplinary perspectives and methods. To this end, the courses that satisfy this component are meant to provide a broad level of understanding within a particular discipline. Students are required to take 3 courses (3 credits each = total 9 credits), but each one of those courses is from a different category. This type of engagement encourages students to explore disciplinary perspectives in order to gain a breadth of knowledge. Each student will be required to complete one course in each category outside of their major discipline.

Explore courses help students learn about:

• Specific methods of producing and discussing knowledge.
• Connections between this area of study and other disciplines.
• Thinking critically and creatively at the level required of a university student.
• Core ethical principles and responsible research methods of this discipline.

Essential Learning Outcomes:

• Gather, critically analyze and evaluate quantitative information within relevant disciplinary contexts
• Gather, critically analyze and evaluate qualitative information within relevant disciplinary contexts
• Apply and integrate knowledge from a range of disciplines, including interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary research
• Demonstrate the core ethical principles and responsible methods of your discipline