General Credit & Enrollment

Core Curriculum

Mission Statement

The Core Curriculum blends liberal arts learning with skills necessary for success in careers involving media, communication and information. It aims to cultivate ways of thinking and doing that serve the educational, vocational and citizenship needs of CMCI students. To these ends, the curriculum promotes expression, collaboration and critical literacy across multiple forms of communication—from speech and writing to computing and visual media. Those skills underwrite learning across the humanities, the arts and the social and natural sciences, insuring educational breadth. The Core Curriculum matches that breadth with focus through a secondary concentration that students choose to supplement their major—a minor, certificate or focused cluster of courses either in or outside the college. Through designated history and diversity courses, the curriculum equips students to live in globalizing worlds, consider issues from multiple perspectives and engage in long-term thinking beyond the contemporary moment. Finally, the curriculum promotes both intellectual cohesion and independent learning through an introductory Common Experience course for all students and specialized Capstone Experiences tailored to particular majors and interests.

Educational Goals

The Core Curriculum is designed to help CMCI students master ways of doing, thinking and investigating essential to studying and working in media, communication and information fields. These competencies may be studied and practiced in course work either within or outside the college. Graduates of the college are expected to be able to demonstrate competence in the following:

• Multi-modal composition and expression: being able to use written, spoken, visual and digital media for effective expression, argumentation and communication of ideas and sentiments to audiences.
• Collaboration, design and creative problem solving: being able to work effectively and inventively with others in complex problem solving and design tasks.
• Communicative interaction: being able to look at phenomena from the perspective of symbolic and material interchanges among individuals, collectives and institutions.
• Media literacies: being able to interpret and critically analyze messages and formal conventions (genres, grammars, logics) in multiple modes and media of communication (visual, sonic, discursive) and to consider them from the perspectives of their audiences, political economies and histories.
• Quantitative and computational thinking: being able to approach and solve problems quantitatively and algorithmically, and to apply and utilize computing models and resources when advantageous.
• Institutional and organizational understanding: being able to consider problems, policies and collective action from the perspectives of different institutions and organizations—e.g., political, legal, economic and religious.
• Cultural understanding: being able to consider problems and social experiences comparatively, considering different global and domestic cultures, with attention to categories of race, class, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexuality.
• Historical understanding: being able to consider social, cultural, intellectual, technological and/or institutional phenomena in historical perspective.
• Ethical action: being able to recognize moral issues, deliberate intelligently about them and uphold the ethical standards of particular disciplines and practices.

Design of the Core Curriculum

The Core Curriculum is designed to be both flexible and comprehensive. While promoting a shared mission and identity for CMCI students through a set of college requirements, the Core Curriculum also promotes breadth and porosity of learning across all the schools and colleges of the CU Boulder campus. Most of the core requirements may be taken either within or outside the college, and many are covered by a student’s major. Students who wish to double degree in a CMCI discipline and a discipline outside CMCI will find that the CMCI Core Curriculum dovetails almost entirely with the core or breadth requirements of other CU Boulder colleges and schools.

College Requirements

1. A Common Experience course sequence—CMCI 1010 and 1020—Concepts and Creativity 1 & 2: Media, Communication, Information: lectures + lab/studio (2 courses). This course sequence introduces shared themes, values, ethical issues and competencies across the college and emphasizes the marriage of study and practice that will be the hallmark of CMCI as a whole. Each course is structured as a lecture plus a lab/studio in which students create projects putting the lecture’s ideas into practice by means of writing, speaking, design, visual presentation and other modes of expression, and by means of collaborative and active learning.
2. An upper-division Capstone Experience: scholarly, lab-based or studio-based (1 course, 3-4 hours). This course fosters students’ research, creative work, service learning and/or invention, and may include teamwork as well as individual achievement. This course may be taken within the major, or it may be offered as an interdisciplinary option.
3. An area of concentration outside the major (variable hours). Defined as a second major, a minor, a certificate or an area of concentration as established by departments within or outside the college, this sequence of courses helps students develop the intellectual versatility necessary for successful study and work in media, communication and information fields.

Breadth Requirements

NB: Breadth requirements may be satisfied either within or outside the college. They may also overlap with requirements for individual majors.

1. Composition and Expression (2 courses, 6 hours):
   1. Lower-division writing (3 hours). This course develops the foundational skills in written expression expected of every CU Boulder graduate.
   2. Upper-division visual, digital, verbal, written and/or media composition (3 hours). This course requirement emphasizes the many alternative forms of composition and expression that CMCI students cultivate.
2. Quantitative Thinking (1 course, 3 hours): This course provides students with the ability to think at a certain level of abstraction, to manipulate symbols and to assess adequately the data that will confront them in their course work and in their daily lives.
3. Computing (1 course, 3 hours): This course introduces students to the basic principles of computing, including computational architectures and logic, coding and scripting, issues in technical project management and issues in human-centered technology design.
4. Foreign Language (3 hours): This requirement encourages students to comprehend the structure and vocabulary of a language other than their native one, to read significant and difficult works in that language and to understand aspects of the culture(s) lived in that language. This requirement may be met at the time of matriculation by fulfilling the MAPS requirement of high school, third-level proficiency in a single language. Students who lack the MAPS requirement must pass an appropriate third-semester college course or a CU Boulder–approved proficiency examination.
5. The Natural World (2 courses + lab, 7 hours): These courses study the nature of matter, life and the universe. They enhance literacy and knowledge of one or more disciplines in the natural or physical sciences, and enhance the reasoning and observing skills necessary to evaluate issues with scientific content. A laboratory or field experience helps students gain hands-on experience with scientific research, develop observational skills of measurement and data interpretation and learn the relevance of these skills to the formation and testing of scientific hypotheses.
6. People and Society (2 courses, 6 hours): These courses introduce students to the study of social groups, including social institutions and processes and the forces that mold and shape social groups, including values, beliefs, communication processes and organizational principles. They prepare students to approach social phenomena of all kinds in an informed and critical way; to describe, analyze, compare and contrast social phenomena; and to analyze their own sociocultural assumptions and traditions.
7. Humanities and the Arts (2 courses, 6 hours): These courses foster students’ understanding of fundamental aesthetic, cultural, literary, philosophical and theological issues. They sharpen critical and analytical abilities so that students may develop a deeper appreciation of works of art and literature and of philosophical, ethical and religious ideas and belief systems.

Point-of-View Requirements

NB: Point-of-view requirements may be satisfied either within or outside the college. They may also overlap with breadth requirements and/or major requirements. In addition, a single course may be designated both “H” and “D.”

1. Historical Views (2 “H” designated courses, 0–6 additional hours). This requirement enables students to understand that every contemporary issue has a history, and that an understanding of historical context and change is essential to an understanding of the contemporary moment. “H” designated courses emphasize longitudinal thinking and the investigation of the processes and the meanings of change over time.
2. Diversity and Global Cultures (2 “D” designated courses, 0–6 additional hours). This requirement increases students’ understanding of the world’s diversity and pluralism. “D” designated courses study some aspect of two broad and interrelated areas: (a) the nature and meaning of diversity and the experience of groups marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or other characteristics; and (b) cultures other than those of Europe and the United States.

Academic Advising and Responsibilities

Students in the college are expected to assume responsibility for planning their academic program in conjunction with their academic advisor in accordance with college rules and policies and with departmental major requirements. Any questions concerning these provisions are to be directed to the student’s academic advisor. The college cannot assume responsibility for problems resulting from students failing to follow the policies stated in the catalog or from incorrect advice given by someone other than an appropriate staff member of the college.

All new students are required to attend a special orientation, advising and registration program on campus before enrolling. 

Advising

Academic advising is an integral part of undergraduate education. The goal of all academic advising is to help students make responsible decisions as they develop educational plans compatible with their potential and with their career and life goals. Advising is more than the sharing of information about academic courses and programs; it includes encouraging students to formulate important questions about the nature and direction of their education and working with them to find answers to those questions. Advisors confer with students about alternative course schedules and other educational experiences, but students themselves are responsible for selecting the content of their academic program and making progress toward an academic degree.

As students progress through their academic program, their questions and concerns change. CU-Boulder offers a system of faculty, professional academic advisors and peer advisors to address these ongoing and multifaceted concerns.

Students are ultimately responsible for choosing appropriate courses, for registering accurately and for meeting all degree requirements. Academic advisors assist students in clarifying their interests, values and goals and help students relate these to academic programs and educational opportunities. As students work with their advisors, the advisors help students develop a coherent and balanced program of study that fulfills graduation requirements and assist students in identifying and integrating into their programs educational experiences outside the classroom that enhance their personal, intellectual and professional development. Academic advisors also assist students in understanding academic policies, requirements, procedures and deadlines.

Responsibilities of Students and Advisors

Within the advising system on the Boulder campus, both students and advisors have responsibilities.

Students are responsible for:

1. knowing the requirements of their particular academic program, selecting courses that meet those requirements in an appropriate time frame, registering accurately and monitoring their progress toward graduation;
2. consulting with their academic advisor several times every term;
3. scheduling and keeping academic advising appointments in a timely manner throughout their academic career, so as to avoid seeking advising only during busy registration periods;
4. being prepared for advising sessions (for example, by bringing in a list of questions or concerns, having a tentative schedule in mind and/or being prepared to discuss interests and goals with their advisor);
5. knowing and adhering to published academic deadlines; 
6. monitoring their position on registration waitlists; and
7. reading their CU email on a weekly basis.

Advisors are responsible for:

1. helping students clarify their values, goals and abilities;
2. helping students understand the nature and purpose of a college education;
3. providing accurate information about educational options, requirements, policies and procedures;
4. helping students plan educational programs consistent with the requirements of their degree program and with their goals, interests and abilities;
5. assisting students in the continual monitoring and evaluation of their educational progress; and
6. helping students locate and integrate the many resources of the university to meet their unique educational needs and aspirations.

General Graduation Requirements

CMCI students must fulfill the following requirements for graduation:

1. Pass a total of 120 hours.
2. Maintain a 2.00 overall grade point average and a 2.00 grade point average in CMCI coursework.
3. Pass 45 credit hours of upper-division work.
4. Complete a minimum of 45 credit hours in University of Colorado courses on the Boulder campus. Of these 45 credits, a minimum of 30 credits must be upper division hours completed as a matriculated student in CMCI. Six of the 45 credit hours may be taken at other University of Colorado campuses. Courses taken while on CU Boulder study abroad programs, through CU Boulder continuing education or CU Boulder correspondence courses are considered to be in residence.
5. Complete a major offered by the College of Media, Communication and Information. Students are subject to the major requirements in force when they declare the major.
6. Complete the CMCI core and MAPS requirements.