About General Education

As a University of Auckland graduate with a General Education component in your degree, you will be better prepared for the workforce, with a broader range of skills and understanding to complement your specialist knowledge.

A unique opportunity
The University of Auckland is the only New Zealand university to include a General Education component in its undergraduate degrees. The programme consists of high quality, intellectually challenging courses taught by some of the University’s best teachers and researchers.

With General Education as part of your degree, you will be in the company of graduates from other top international universities, which recognise the value of a well-rounded education.

Benefits
Courses in the programme are designed to:

• Give you a greater understanding of New Zealand and its place in the world.
• Give you an opportunity to mix with students from different disciplines.
• Expose you to cross-disciplinary research.

Read about the background and governance

Most undergraduate students will include two General Education courses in their degree outside of their main fields of study. A small number of degrees only include one General Education course.

You can choose from a range of subjects, including a number of new courses that have been developed for General Education.

Courses in the programme are organised into eight schedules:

• Schedule A: Music, Art and Contemporary Society
• Schedule B: Humanities and Social Sciences
• Schedule C: Business and Society
• Schedule D: Life Sciences
• Schedule E: Physical Sciences
• Schedule F: Mathematical and Information Sciences
• Schedule G: Communication
• Schedule H: Languages

The General Education courses available to you will depend on the degree (or conjoint degrees combination) for which you are enrolled. General Education courses are identified by a ‘G’ suffix to their course code (eg, HISTORY 103G).

Read General Education course descriptions

We regularly ask students to comment on a General Education course they were studying.

Here are some of their comments:

• "The course has had an influence on my possible career plan. It gave me the opportunity to experience a different type of course. Great for general knowledge."
• "It was nice to have something so different from my other classes, some “time out” and to meet other people doing other degrees."
• "I absolutely loved it. It broadened my horizons and I found it really interesting and enjoyable."
• "It’s something I wanted to study but didn’t want to do a whole degree on, so it was a really great opportunity."

Read more student feedback