Purpose of general education courses
General education courses at IU Indianapolis are designed to develop fundamental skills for intellectual inquiry and intellectual breadth and adaptiveness. General education courses, along with other first-year experiences, are meant to provide early foundational experiences for students that will be built upon by disciplinary learning experiences with a culmination in a capstone course.
Courses are categorized into five domains: three that prepare students for intellectual inquiry (analytical reasoning, core communication, and cultural understanding) and two that develop intellectual breadth and adaptiveness (ways of knowing, specifically life and physical sciences; and arts, humanities, and social sciences).