Hey everyone, it’s OC Alondra! As we begin approaching the beginning of your time at Stanford, you will soon have to enroll in classes, so it is a good time to start thinking about what you want to take.
Aside from the minimum unit requirement of 180 units and major requirements, students must also fulfill the Language Requirement, the General Education requirements (Ways), the Writing Requirement (PWR), and the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education (COLLEGE) requirement.
To fulfill the language requirement, students must take one year of college-level study or the equivalent in a foreign language. This can be done by completing the first-year language course sequence, which is about 4-5 units per course. Students can also fulfill this requirement in other ways, such as by scoring a 4 or 5 on a foreign language Advanced Placement (AP) exam.
Here is how the OC’s fulfilled or will fulfill their language requirements:
Alondra: I submitted my score of “5” on the AP Spanish Language exam.
Omotolani: I placed out of the language requirement by taking the placement test.
Hunter: Will either take courses or study abroad in Berlin
Ritchie: I took Chinese during my frosh year.
Miguel: I submitted my score of “5” on the AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature exam and also took the placement exam that placed me out of Language.
Johan: I took the language placement test and submitted my AP scores.
To learn more about the language requirement and other ways you can fulfill it, visit Stanford’s language requirement page.
Stanford’s General Education requirement is Ways of Thinking / Ways of Doing, also known as Ways. There are 11 courses in 8 Ways that you must take. You must take two courses each in Aesthetic and Interpretive Inquiry (AII), Scientific Method and Analysis (SMA), and Social Inquiry (SI). You must take one course each in Applied Quantitative Reasoning (AQR), Creative Expression (CE), Exploring Difference and Power (EDP), Ethical Reasoning (ER), and Formal Reasoning (FR). The Ways requirement can provide students the opportunity to explore courses in areas that are not within their major. Additionally, the Ways requirement can also be fulfilled with courses you already need to take, such as come COLLEGE courses and some introductory major courses.
Here is the OC’s favorite way they fulfilled one of the Ways requirements:
Alondra: I haven’t taken it just yet, but I am excited to take PSYC 135: Dement’s Sleep and Dreams (a class about sleeping!), which fulfill the SMA requirement.
Omotolani: Any TAPS class that fulfills CE!
Hunter: Ways FR with CS106A because I wanted to take the class.
Ritchie: IntroSems can replace a wide range of WAYS requirements STRAMGT110 fulfilled the
Miguel: Ways FR with CS106A because I had to take it for my major.
Johan: I completed several of my Ways while studying aboard in Madrid!
To learn more about the Ways requirement and how you can fulfill it, visit the Ways website. You can also read a piece I wrote about the Ways requirement for The Daily.
The Writing Requirement, or PWR (pronounced like power), is intended to help students develop their writing and communication skills. Students need to take PWR 1 during their frosh year and PWR 2 during their sophomore year. After that, students will need to take a writing course in their major, also known as Writing in the Major (WIM). Students can fulfill this requirement in other ways as well, like participating in ITALIC and ESF. PWR courses have a theme to provide a variety for students, such as PWR 1KDA: Digital Stories: Great Reads, Podcasts, and Instagram and PWR 1KSB: Health Matters: Health, Innovation, and Communication. In PWR 1, students are expected to submit three papers in the quarter: the Rhetorical Analysis, the Texts in Conversation, and the Research-Based Argument.
Here is how the OC’s fulfilled their PWR 1 requirement:
Alondra: I took PWR 1NC: From Green Cards to Gaming Avatars: Forms of Identity! (Fun fact, I got to write about Taylor Swift for my final RBA.)
Omotolani: I took PWR 1KTA: “That’s Entertainment!” The Rhetoric of Hollywood’s Inequities.
Hunter: I took PWR 1NF: Language 2.0: Investigating the Rhetoric of Digital Language.
Ritchie: I took PWR 1CN: Rhetoric of Attention.
Miguel: I took PWR 1KTA: “That’s Entertainment!” The Rhetoric of Hollywood’s Inequities.
Johan: I took PWR 1TD: Anatomy of a Discipline: Rhetorics of Health, Illness, and Medicine.
To learn more about the writing requirement, visit the website for the Program in Writing and Rhetoric.
COLLEGE is Stanford’s first-year Civic, Liberal, and Global Education requirement. It gives students the opportunity to develop essential life skills as a community and society. COLLEGE is also a way for frosh to meet other frosh while having engaging conversations during class. During autumn, students take COLLEGE 101: Why College? Your Education and the Good Life. During winter, students take COLLEGE 102: Citizenship in the 21st Century. During the spring, students can select from a variety of courses such as COLLEGE 107: Preventing Human Extinction or COLLEGE 110: The Spirit of Democracy. Students only need to take two courses to fulfill the requirement.
Here is how the OC’s fulfilled their COLLEGE requirements:
Alondra: I took COLLEGE 101 in the fall and COLLEGE 102 in the winter. My favorite was COLLEGE 101!
Omotolani: I took COLLEGE 101 in the fall and COLLEGE 102 in the winter.
Hunter: I took COLLEGE 101 in the fall and COLLEGE 102 in the winter.
Ritchie: I took COLLEGE 101 in the fall and COLLEGE 109 in the spring.
Miguel: I took COLLEGE 101 in the fall and COLLEGE 102 in the winter.
Johan: I took COLLEGE 101 because Class of 2025 only had to take one COLLEGE course.
To learn more about the first-year Civic, Liberal, and Global Education requirements, visit the COLLEGE website.
One of the biggest resources available to students, especially when they are taking PWR and COLLEGE is the Hume Center for Speaking and Writing. At Hume, students can receive feedback on their papers for these classes, but also for many other things like resumes and applications. Students can come in for drop-in tutoring with a peer tutor, or they can schedule a meeting for tutoring with a faculty member. Support beyond speaking and writing can also be found with the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Welcome New Students! 