Degree Requirements
Culture Studies Requirement
The purpose of the Culture Studies curriculum is to introduce students to cultural systems, to allow students to define what is commonly meant by the term “culture,” and to examine critically specific examples of culture. The curriculum also provides students with the opportunity to explore the relationship between cultural artifacts and the community that produced them and/or draw comparisons between different cultures. This exposure can lead students to understand the facts, possibilities, and limitations of their own cultural conditioning.
Please note that the College’s Culture Studies requirement is different from the campus-wide General Education curriculum’s World Languages and Cultures requirement. Students in the College must fulfill the College’s Culture Studies requirement, the College’s Foreign Language requirement, and the campus-wide General Education’s World Languages and Cultures requirement. Fulfillment of the College’s Foreign Language requirement for B.A. and B.F.A. degrees will, in most cases, also fulfill the campus-wide General Education’s World Languages and Cultures requirement. For information about the latter, please see gened.iub.edu.
Students pursuing a B.A. or a B.F.A. degree in the College must observe the following guidelines when fulfilling the Culture Studies requirement:
- Students are required to complete two courses that carry Culture Studies credit, one from "Diversity in the U.S." and one from "Global Civilizations and Cultures" (for a list of designated courses, please see "Appendix I" under "Course Designations")
- Students who successfully complete a semester (or more) abroad in a program sponsored by the Indiana University Office of Overseas Study will satisfy the “Global Civilizations and Cultures” component of the Culture Studies requirement. These students must still complete a course designated “Diversity in the U.S.”