A few weeks ago, one of my teaching assistants asked our class a simple question: how many of you are here because this course fulfills a general education requirement?
Almost every hand in the room shot up.
Everyone laughed. There was something reassuring about the honesty of it. We were not necessarily there because the course had caught our attention or because we had some innate interest in the topic. We were there because somewhere on our Path@Penn degree audits there was a missing check mark, and this class was the easiest way to get that green light.
This amusing moment captured a contradiction at the heart of Penn’s general education requirements. They are supposed to broaden our horizons. Too often, they instead show us how to satisfy requirements as efficiently and painlessly as possible.
Penn’s current curriculum requires students to complete Foundational Approaches and Sectors of Knowledge across a range of disciplines. The goal is admirable: a Penn graduate should leave with expertise across multiple fields. But what happens when this multidisciplinary ideal crashes headfirst into reality?
Ask students how they plan to fulfill a sector requirement and the conversation is almost devoid of any intellectual exploration and entirely dominated by optimization. Which class has the lightest workload? Does this professor give a lot of A’s? Can this course double-count for another requirement? We trade recommendations for “easy requirements” the same way we trade recommendations for restaurants.
This does not mean the requirements never work. In fact, my own experience is an argument for why Penn values them in the first place.
Some of my general education courses have taken me into subjects I might never have explored as deeply otherwise. I have long been interested in Greek and Roman mythology, and the general requirement gave me permission to investigate that interest despite my demanding schedule. It provided the extra push to enroll in a class with professor Emily Wilson, where I was given the space to turn my curiosity into an academic pursuit. The class deepened my interest to the point that I am now considering a classics minor, where I can encounter ideas far removed from what I initially expected to study at Penn. That is the strongest argument for general education requirements: it gives students both the reason and room to follow their curiosities to places they might not have gone otherwise.
But there is another side to that bargain. For every student who discovers an unexpected interest, there is a student scrolling through sector-approved courses looking for the simplest way to satisfy a graduation requirement. And once students begin treating intellectual breadth as an obstacle to be navigated, the requirement can undermine the very curiosity it was designed to cultivate. Even Penn itself seems to recognize the problem.
Beginning with a 120-student pilot drawn from the Class of 2029, the College introduced College Foundations, a four-course first-year program designed to expose students to different modes of inquiry early in their Penn careers. The program’s Kite and Key courses, alongside a writing seminar and first-year seminar, allows participating students to fulfill six general education requirements in four courses. College Dean Peter Struck explicitly identified a weakness in the existing system as students can postpone general education courses potentially discovering an interest only when it is too late to meaningfully pursue it.
Penn has since gone further. In April, College faculty approved a new curriculum starting with the Class of 2031, replacing much of the existing structure with Foundations, broader distribution requirements, and more room for electives. College students tend to view their majors positively but general requirements much more negatively, with many describing requirements as obstacles rather than aids to their education. The new system is intended to put curiosity closer to the center of course selection.
That diagnosis is right. But I would take its logic further.
Abolish general requirements altogether.
Keep advising students to explore. Keep first-year seminars. Keep College Foundations for students who want a structured introduction to the liberal arts. Penn should enthusiastically encourage students to venture outside their majors. It just should not dictate precisely how they do it. Give students those credits back as electives and let them decide what breadth means for themselves.
Some students might spend all of them going deeper into their major, and others might build an unofficial second concentration in history or music. Someone might take completely unrelated courses simply because they sound interesting. Another student might construct an education far broader than anything a checklist of sectors could produce. And yes, some students would choose not to broaden their education at all. We should let them.
University students are already trusted to choose majors that may shape their careers, select extracurricular commitments, and determine what they want to do with their lives. It is patronizing to assume that without requirements, Penn students cannot be trusted to construct worthwhile educations.
More importantly, for students who do not buy into the purpose of general education, there already exists an escape hatch through course optimization.You can require a student to enroll in a natural science course, but you cannot require them to be curious about natural science. If their only objective is satisfying a requirement with the easiest available class, we’ve accomplished something administratively, but perhaps very little educationally.
As someone for whom general education has worked, I am grateful for classes I might never have taken otherwise. But an education cannot be designed around mandating the thirst for knowledge.
The purpose of a liberal arts education should be to cultivate curiosity, not to substitute it with a checklist. Penn can show students doors they never knew existed and encourage us to walk through them. But it cannot drag us kicking and screaming through those doors. For the liberal arts project to work, we have to walk through them ourselves fully prepared to embrace what we sign up for.
EDEN LIU is a College junior studying philosophy, politics, and economics from Taipei, Taiwan. His email is edenliu@sas.upenn.edu.
Eden Liu is a College sophomore studying philosophy, politics, and economics from Taipei, Taiwan. His column focuses on civil engagement and local politics. He can be reached at edenliu@sas.upenn.edu.
