General Education

General Education Requirements

The Maryland Higher Education Commission stipulates that in order to receive associate degrees, students must fulfill not only the requirements of their specific program of study but also those of a general education.

Specific General Education requirements vary with the type of program and associate degree. Meet with an academic advisor or program coordinator to select the appropriate General Education sequence.

CCBC Definition of General Education:

The General Education program at The Community College of Baltimore County is a coherent program of study that provides the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and perspectives that enable students to achieve their academic, career, and life goals. As a learning-centered institution, CCBC offers a General Education program designed to provide students with the basic skills, core content, and distribution content essential to pursue study in academic disciplines. In addition, CCBC’s General Education program will assist students to grow and respond to new worklife situations, to manage their own learning and to encourage learning in others, and to expand their understanding of and ability to function within the diversity of the contemporary world.

CCBC General Education Program Goals:

1. Introduce students to the fundamental principles, concepts, vocabulary, and methods essential for the acquisition of knowledge and skills basic to the field of study.
2. Prepare students to communicate effectively using written and oral or signed communication skills.
3. Provide a variety of learning experiences that encourage students, independently and in collaboration with others, to use those fundamental principles and methods to acquire, analyze, and use information for purposes of inquiry, critical thinking, problem solving, and creative expression in a diverse environment.
4. Prepare students to adapt to change, including the increasing integration of information technology, in all fields of knowledge and expression.
5. Provide students with the knowledge and skills to understand themselves and others from various cultural, social, aesthetic, political, and environmental perspectives.
6. Provide the experience that will allow students to become independent learners, the skills to analyze their strengths and weaknesses as learners, and the knowledge to accomplish the tasks involved in learning.
7. Use appropriate assessment tool(s) to demonstrate the degree to which students have achieved the objectives of the course.

General Education Course Requirements:

Degrees:

• Associate of Arts in Humanities and Social Sciences (A.A.)  
• Associate of Fine Arts in Fine and Performing Arts (A.F.A.)  
• Associate of Science in Engineering (A.S.E.)  
• Associate of Arts and Associate of Science (A.A./A.S.)  
• Associate of Science in Nursing (A.S./Nursing)  
• Associate of Arts in Teaching (A.A.T.)  
• Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.)  

PLEASE NOTE: For AA and AS degrees in the Biological and Physical Sciences category, students must take 7-8 credits. The courses must come from two different disciplines or be two sequential courses (these courses are labeled I and II in their titles) from one discipline. One of the courses must be a lab.

A special exemption would be made for students who have taken BIOL 220 and 221 as program prerequisites and then change their major. In this case, these students would continue to substitute the combination of BIOL 220 and 221 as the general education equivalent to BIOL 109, giving them one, 4-credit General Education Science course. The other General Education Science class should be BIOL 110. Because anatomy and physiology builds upon concepts learned in General Biology, these courses can serve as a “sequence” for general education purposes.

General Education Courses

• General Education Courses