Humanities and Social Sciences Information

Check out Odyssey, the college's new Humanities and Social Science Course Search tool. Courses listed on Odyssey are guaranteed to count toward the College of Engineering's H&SS requirements for students who entered CU Engineering in Fall Semester 2007 or later.

Why are the humanities and social sciences an important part of the engineering curriculum?

Your engineering courses prepare you to analyze the physical or material world, but not all important questions can be addressed by scientific knowledge or technical skills alone. In order to help prepare you to overcome life’s non-technical challenges and to embrace its opportunities, the college requires courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Chosen carefully, these courses can help you learn more about contemporary issues such as: globalization and the impact of science on society, living in a networked information age, the complexity of ethical decision-making, the sources of conflict between different cultures and nation-states, or the power and insight of poetry and drama. They can also help you to learn who you are, both as a person and as an engineer: what are your most deeply-held beliefs, values, and qualities? With so much at stake, we encourage you to choose all of your courses thoughtfully.

What are the basic H&SS requirements?

The college sets minimum requirements, but some majors have higher requirements. Be sure to check your major requirements as well.

All students need at least 18 credit hours in H&SS and writing to graduate. This usually means 6 courses, but the particular distribution of these 18 credits depends on when you entered CU. Undergraduate students who entered before Fall Semester 2007 may choose to follow either one of these two policies. They may not, however, choose to follow a mixture of elements drawn from these two separate policies. Students entering in the Fall of 2007 or later must follow the new policy.

Select the link that applies to you:

• Old Policy: Undergraduate Students Who Entered CU Engineering Before the Fall Semester 2007
  This link takes you to the old policy guidelines and to the Homer list of courses from which you may select your H&SS courses.
  
• New Policy: Undergraduate Students Entering CU Engineering in the Fall Semester 2007 or Later
  This link takes you to the new policy guidelines and to the Odyssey interactive course search database. All courses included in this searchable database count toward new H&SS requirements. The database is dynamically updated as new eligible courses become available.