In the UNE hand book they mainly focus on developing critical thinking skills for students and to have a well rounded diversity of different skills for the society. As it states in the text “Through the Core Curriculum, students will develop foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills that are necessary for understanding and assuming their roles in natural, social, humanistic, and other environments…. Core courses develop students’ skills in social and cultural literacy, including historically grounded understanding of the diversity of societies across the globe from a variety of disciplinary perspectives across the liberal arts and sciences.” (2). This states the importance of developing critical thinking skills and making students have an overall understanding for the diversity of the world. Ungar also states the importance of critical thinking and the importance of liberal arts that liberal arts include broad categories. As Ungar states “The liberal arts encompass the broadest possible range of disciplines in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. In fact, the historical basis of a liberal education is in the classical artes liberales, comprising the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music).” (Misperception #4).This shows how liberal arts have many categories within it and it also contains critical ticking, logic, and the combining of science and arts. This allies to the handbook on developing a foundational knowledge with critical thinking and understanding many different courses and how they all connect together.

One of the class I am taking now is Bio 106 which also have Lab. In the description for the laboratory sciences it has “Demonstrate conceptual and practical knowledge of course topics and describe ethical implication of human interaction with the natural world.” (Appendix A). This does not really implies to what we are learning in the laboratory where it has relations with the natural world. We have learned the practical knowledge of the courses topics but no ethical implication of human iteration with the natural world. I think this part is also important where we are able to apply to the real world with what we learn yet so far as the topics has no implication with the real world. Another class is Calculus. The core value for mathematics is “The three primary themes of a mathematics course in the core are problem solving, decision-making, and mathematical communication.” For different math class there is different core values but not al of the applies. For example, in calculus, there is the problem solving and decision making but no mathematical communication. We don’t interpret mathematical information to draw informed conclusions. Overall all the classes have at lease bits and pieces of the core values that UNE handbook talks about that goes with liberal arts, but there is still some things that should be considered to make it a better education for students.