Garvin,
Most universities -- as opposed to say, vocational schools or technical institutes -- strive to provide both depth, in the form of a major, and breadth across a spectrum of subjects. Stanford calls this requirements general education. Other schools may refer to them as distribution requirements. In addition, Stanford requires students to take a foreign language and a year of humanities.
So basically, courses not meeting GERs will count toward fulfilling the overall 180 credits required to graduate, but won\'t help fill a key graduation requirement. Ergo, taking classes can help a GPA, but it\'s not possible to graduate by taking only those classes.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/c...dex.html#2
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/c...urses.html
Most universities -- as opposed to say, vocational schools or technical institutes -- strive to provide both depth, in the form of a major, and breadth across a spectrum of subjects. Stanford calls this requirements general education. Other schools may refer to them as distribution requirements. In addition, Stanford requires students to take a foreign language and a year of humanities.
So basically, courses not meeting GERs will count toward fulfilling the overall 180 credits required to graduate, but won\'t help fill a key graduation requirement. Ergo, taking classes can help a GPA, but it\'s not possible to graduate by taking only those classes.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/c...dex.html#2
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/c...urses.html