Professor Kate Poirier | D046 | Fall 2023

OpenLab assignment: requirements for your degree (part 2)

Due Monday, October 2

Animated gif of Ned Flanders yelling at Homer Simpson: "Homer, do not press the core destruct button"

This week’s assignment is similar to last week’s, where you looked up what the math requirements for your degree are. This week we’ll focus on a different requirement: the flexible common core, which is part of the general education requirement.

Flexible Core Courses

The flexible common core (sometimes called just flexible core) is actually a set of five or six requirements that every student must satisfy, though the way students satisfy them vary from major to major.

The flexible core consists of a number of courses that have been divided among the five flexible core categories:

  1. World Cultures & Global Issues
  2. US Experience in its Diversity
  3. Individual and Society
  4. Creative Expression
  5. Scientific World

You can see the full list of courses that have been designated as Flexible Core here (click the tabs along the top to see the courses in each of the five categories).

Flexible Core Requirements

The basic requirement is that each student must take at least one course from each of the five categories and at least two courses from one of the categories (for a total of six courses). The lucky part is that some of the program requirements for your major will also satisfy a flexible core requirement; we say that these courses can perform “double duty” since they meet more than one requirement at the same time.

For example, when you check the degree requirements in the academic catalog for a computer science student, you’ll see that MAT 1372 or MAT 2572 are recommended to meet the Scientific world requirement. Since either of these courses is also a program requirement, they can perform double duty. For the other Flexible Core categories, the computer science student can take any of the courses on the corresponding lists.

Screenshot of some of the computer science degree requirements

Students often take their flexible core requirements early in their degree. A number of flexible core courses do not have prerequisites.

How do you know what requirement a course is satisfying?

It is tempting to rely on DegreeWorks to tell you which of your requirements have been satisfied by which courses, but it isn’t always accurate. It’s better to check for yourself.

Log into CUNYFirst and open up a copy of your transcript. Even if this is your first semester at CityTech, you’ll already have a transcript that lists the courses you are currently taking and which requirements they are satisfying.

A screenshot of part of a student's transcript showing which courses they are taking and which requirements they satisfy

This week’s assignment

For this week’s assignment you will write a short comment on this post. List all the Flexible Core courses from your transcript (those you already have credit for an those in progress). Also state which of the five categories each course comes from.

If you haven’t taken any flexible core courses yet, check the program requirements in the academic catalog to check if there are any double-duty courses that you can take next semester (reminder, here’s how you found your program requirements last week).

For example, the student with the transcript in the screenshot above would comment, “I am currently taking HIS 1110, which satisfies the USED requirement.”

16 Comments

  1. Allison

    I am currently not taking any flexible courses. But there is a course that I will need to be taking later on that is also classified as a Double duty. This course is called ARCH 3522 which satisfies the USED and WI requirement.

  2. ali choudhary

    I am currently not taking any flexible courses but there is a course i need for double duty as well which I will take next semester .but the flexible course is WCGI, USED, CE, SW.

  3. Toushayiah Dupree

    Hi, I am currently taking a course that is considered Double Duty which is PHYS 1433 the areas are SW and LPS this semester.

  4. Tais Martinez

    I am currently taking HIS 1110, which satisfies the USED requirement.

  5. Omar Abaza

    I’m currently taking American government, which satisfies USED requirement , and I’m taking introduction to Psychology which satisfies individual and society requirement.

  6. salehq

    I am currently taking PSY 1101 and it satisfies the IS requirement.

  7. Julia Khutsishvili

    I am currently not taking any flexible courses, on my schedule is everything that is a need for my degree. But in a future I am considering taking extra classes for more specific knowledge to achieve marketing degree

  8. Gelber

    I am currently taking CMCE 1110, which satisfies the USED requirement.

  9. Tyrone Pinnock

    I am currently taking a course that is considered Double Duty which is PHYS 1433 the areas are SW and LPS this semester.

  10. Pavlo Havryshko

    I am currently taking English 1101 which is a flexible course which is a double duty course which satisfices the USED requirement

  11. Rebeca Philias

    As of right now, I am not taking any flexible courses. I am taking prerequisites to get into my major. And the future I’ll look forward to take some flexible courses.

  12. Ashley

    As of right now I’m not taking any flexible courses. although in the future I will be taking courses that satisfy the SW and WI requirements.

  13. Mohsin Ali

    I am currently taking PSY 1101 which satisfies the IS requirement.

  14. lily padilla

    I am currently taking biology 1101 which is a flexible core that meets the scientific world requirement.

  15. Carlos

    I have already taken Global Politics(college now) which satisfied World Cultures and Global Issues.

  16. ekagya

     I am currently taking a Double Duty course which is PHYS 1433 the areas are SW and LPS this semester.

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