University of Southern California
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

Revised in the fall of 2015, the USC General Education curriculum consists of 10 requirements. Students must complete eight courses within six Core Literacies: The Arts, Humanistic Inquiry, Social Analysis, The Life Sciences, The Physical Sciences, and Quantitative Reasoning. In addition, students must complete two courses in Global Perspectives: one in Citizenship in a Global Era and one in Traditions and Historical Foundations. In some cases, a Global Perspectives course may also satisfy a requirement in the Core Literacies.

USC’s general education requirements classified as “GE-C” and GE-G” courses prepare students to take on Global Perspectives that include the necessary skills to demonstrate an understanding of the interplay between individual and collective human action, organizations, institutions in social and culture settings, and their roles in worldwide problems and local challenges. This global lens is essential to address sustainability challenges because these courses support students in developing skills to address the ecological, economic, and social aspects of sustainability challenges by taking on a holistic worldview of sustainability challenges. All undergraduates are required to take these courses, or their transfer equivalents, to graduate from USC.

GE-C. Social Analysis
The social sciences seek to explain the causes and consequences of a range of complex phenomena, including how human action shapes and is shaped by economic organizations, political institutions, and social and cultural settings. These phenomena include the role of gender, sexuality, race, class and other aspects of identity across time in the United States and around the world. Courses in this area introduce students to the methods and analytical approaches of the social sciences and demonstrate how these tools help us understand our world. In the Social Analysis category students learn to apply the methods of at least one social science discipline to the study of human behavior in economic, political, cultural and/or social settings; to understand the nature of empirical evidence and assess the usefulness of qualitative and quantitative evidence in explaining specific social phenomena; and to demonstrate an understanding of the interplay between individual and collective human action, organizations, and institutions in social and cultural settings.

GE-G. Global Perspectives
The requirements in Global Perspectives prepare students to act as socially responsible members of the global community, respectful of the values and traditions of diverse cultures, aware of the structures of power that affect people differently by race, class, gender and other socially constructed categories, sensitive to the interplay between worldwide problems and specific, local challenges. The Global Perspectives requirement includes two courses, one in each area. The first examines the contemporary situation (GE-G), while the second explores some dimensions of the historical context that has given rise to the current global scene (GE-H). While no course can meet all of these objectives, these requirements help students appreciate the dynamics at work in complex global issues and their varying local forms.

Data for this credit is based on whether a degree program required a sustainability-focused course, and/or whether that program has a sustainability-focused learning outcome.

Data on graduates from each of the degree programs was obtained from the Office of Institutional Research. USC examined programs that 'require' a sustainability-focused course, as identified in the AC-1: Academic Courses inventory. Sustainability-focused courses were mapped onto all USC programs to track those in which ALL graduates from that degree program (not just graduates of certain concentrations/tracks) were required to take a sustainability-focused course.

The attached file includes the: 1) Degree Program Name, 2) Degree Type, 3) Program Owner (School), 4)Common 'Required' Courses that all of the graduating students took, 5) Whether we included required courses from the Catalog data (linked in the data notes) to supplement our data when the number of graduating students was <2 (which we did when the data was available), 6)List of the Sustainability-Focused Courses that were taken by ALL of the graduating students in that program (if applicable), 7) SDG goal numbers that mapped to all sustainability-focused courses that were 'required' by the degree program, 8) SDG keywords that mapped to all sustainability-focused courses that were 'required' by the degree program, 9) The sustainability focused program learning outcomes (if applicable), 10)The link to the sustainability-focused program learning outcomes (if applicable), 11) Degree terms used in this dataset, 12) Number of students that graduated between Spring 2020-Summer 2023, and 13) Sustainability classification based on both course requirements and the existence of sustainability focused program learning outcomes.

*If N (students) graduating from a degree program was < 2 and if we were unable to locate required courses from the program catalogue, then we did not include the program in this analysis or STARS credit.

***Sustainability Classification was a based on each individual 'required' course by a program, as well as whether the program had a sustainability-focused learning outcome (which was dependent on whether we were able to locate the program learning outcomes). Whether a course was deemed 'required' was signified by whether ALL students graduating from that program took that course. If a degree program required 1 class that was sustainability-focused, then that degree program was classified as Sustainability-Focused (based on methods noted in AC-1).

Please view AC-1 for details on our SDG keyword mapping methods and sustainability-classification of courses. You can also view USC's Sustainability Course Finder to see what classes map to which of the UN SDGs, including courses that fulfill USC's GE requirements: https://usc-sustainability.shinyapps.io/Sustainability-Course-Finder/

For all the source code and raw datasets, please view USC Office of Sustainability's Github: https://github.com/USC-Office-of-Sustainability/SustainabilityCourseFinder

Undergraduate MAJOR Programs:
Aerospace Engineering BS
American Studies and Ethnicity (Chicano/Latino Studies) BA
Biological Sciences BA
Biological Sciences (Marine Biology) BS
Biomedical Engineering BS
Biomedical Engineering (Electrical Engineering) BS
Biomedical Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) BS
Chemical Engineering BS
Chemical Engineering (Biochemical Engineering) BS
Chemical Engineering (Environmental Engineering) BS
Chemical Engineering (Nanotechnology) BS
Chemical Engineering (Petroleum Engineering) BS
Chemical Engineering (Polymer/Materials Science) BS
Chemical Engineering (Sustainable Energy) BS
Civil Engineering BS
Civil Engineering (Building Science) BS
Civil Engineering (Construction Engineering and Management) BS
Civil Engineering (Water Resources Engineering) BS
Comparative Literature BA
Dental Hygiene BS
East Asian Lang. and Cultures BA
Electrical and Computer Engineering BS
Electrical Engineering BS
Engineering (Environmental Engineering) BS
Environmental Engineering BS
Environmental Science and Health BA
Environmental Studies BA
GeoDesign BS
Global Health BS
Health and Humanity BA
Human Biology BS
Interdisciplinary Archaeology BA
Interdisciplinary Studies BA
Mechanical Engineering BS
Mechanical Engineering (Petroleum Engineering) BS
Narrative Studies BA
Non-Governmental Organizations and Social Change BA
Philosophy, Politics and Economics BA
Physical Sciences BS
Policy, Planning and Development BS

Undergraduate MINOR Programs:
Craniofacial and Dental Biotechnology
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Environmental Chemistry and Sustainability
Environmental Health
GIS and Sustainability Science
International Health, Development & Social Justice
Iranian Studies
Justice, Voice and Advocacy
Law and Migration Studies
Law and Public Policy
Law and Social Justice
Marine Biology
Medical Anthropology
Narrative Structure
Sociology

Graduate Programs:
Advanced Architectural Studies MAAS
Architecture (American Architecture and Urbanism) MARCH
Building Science MBS
Building Science/Heritage Conservation MBSHC
Business Administration/Real Estate Development MBAMR
Civil Engineering (Advanced Design and Construction Technology) MS
Civil Engineering (Water and Waste Management) MS
Community Oral Health MS
Electrical Engineering (Electric Power) MS
Environmental Data Science MS
Global Medicine MS
Green Technologies MS
Heritage Conservation MHC
Heritage Conservation/Planning MHMP
Hospitality and Tourism (On Line) MS
Landscape Architecture MLARC
Manufacturing Engineering MS
Materials Engineering (Machine Learning) MS
Mechanical Engineering (Energy Conversion) MS
Nonprofit Leadership and Management MNLM
Operations Research Engineering MS
Planning/Real Estate Development MPMR
Population, Health and Place PHD
Product Innovation MS
Psychology/Public Health PDMPH
Social Work/Public Health MSWMP
Transportation Systems Management MS
Urban Planning/Landscape Architecture MUMLA
Urban Planning/Public Health MUPPH

Data up to date as of 11/26/23 and revised on 01/29/24 based on the revised AC-1 credit results.

Additional Program Learning outcomes can be found here:
https://accreditation.usc.edu/students/student-learning/program-learning-objectives/

-including Viterbi's Program Learning Outcomes for each of their degree programs:
https://viterbischool.usc.edu/accreditation/wasc/

USC Catalog data:
https://catalogue.usc.edu/content.php?catoid=18&navoid=7464