General Studies, AA
Program Overview
The Associate of Arts (AA) in General Studies provides a well-rounded foundation of knowledge designed to prepare students for employability and/or further academic work. Students can focus their skill set by choosing between two emphases specifically designed to support their professional goals.
The AA program is taught by practicing professionals, with a curriculum that integrates the liberal arts with knowledge of management principles, leadership strategies and organizational theory. Coursework emphasizes practical business applications, while providing a strong educational foundation for lifelong learning. Students develop the capacity to think critically and creatively in preparation for a successful future in business or management.
Learning Outcomes
Students who complete the Associate of Arts in General Studies will be able to:
- Communication: Communicate effectively to general and specialized audiences through structured written, oral and visual presentations.
- Critical thinking: Identify, categorize, and analyze problems and issues, and draw warranted conclusions.
- Quantitative fluency: Perform accurate calculations using symbolic operations, and provide accurate interpretations and explanations of data.
- Information literacy: Correctly identify, categorize, evaluate, and cite multiple resources to create projects, papers, or performances.
- Ethical reasoning: Describe ethical issues and apply ethical principles or frameworks in judgment and decision-making.
- Applied learning: Describe and analyze relationships between academic learning and problems outside the classroom.
- Broad integrative knowledge: Explore, connect, and apply concepts and methods across multiple fields of study.
- Lifelong learning: Examine connections between academic learning and professional goals and demonstrate attitudes such as curiosity, self-awareness, adaptability, and motivation.
Curriculum
The degree requires completion of 60 units as follows: 30 units of general education, 9 units of foundation, 3 units of capstone, and 18 units of elective courses. Each course listed carries three semester units of credit, unless otherwise noted.
A cumulative grade-point average of 2.00 (“C” grade) or higher is required in all courses taken at Golden Gate University. Prerequisites to a course, if any, are listed in the course descriptions.
Students enrolled in this program may not audit any of the courses required for this program.
Note: Although students have a choice between the two emphases above, the emphasis chosen will not appear on the student’s transcript nor diploma upon graduation.
