Cornell has a rich curriculum in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, enabling every engineering student to obtain a truly liberal education. Courses should be chosen with as much care and foresight as courses from technical areas. Requirements for Liberal Studies courses are listed here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: I grew up speaking some Portuguese at home (or Korean, Igbo, Turkish, Quechua, Vietnamese, Créole, Ukrainian, Tamil…). Is there some way to get liberal studies credit for this knowledge? 

A1: Heritage speakers can take Cornell departmental exams to gain foreign language credits toward their liberal studies distribution. Ask about “CASE exams” at the department that teaches the language you speak. Cornell also has specific foreign language classes for heritage speakers in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese (and maybe others) to help you retain your heritage language and improve your reading and writing skills so that you can use the language in further study or on the job. Finally, the modern language departments have independent study classes that you can use to advance your knowledge of your heritage language. After all those long afternoons at Japanese or Hebrew school, or helping out Babička or Opa, why let your proficiency lapse?

Q2. Do liberal studies have to be approved by the engineering school? If a course is not on a list, is there still potential for it to be approved as a liberal studies?

A2. Liberal studies courses taken at Cornell by BEE students must be approved by the College of Engineering. A list of all approved courses may be found here.  Don’t forget the “Currently Approved Petitions, “Denied Petitions” and “Expired/Expiring Petitions” tabs, which list courses proposed by students for liberal studies credit that have been either approved or disapproved by the College of Engineering.

If a course is not on any of the tabs above, there is a petition process here.

Liberal studies courses transferred in or taken during study abroad are approved by the BEE department. However, neither BEE nor the CoE can approve FWS course substitutions taken after you begin study at Cornell. That is the prerogative of the Knight Writing Institute.

Q3. Can I put off my First-Year Writing Seminar (FWS) until after my first year? 

A3. Details are at the FWS info page at the Knight Writing Institute website.  As an engineer you must take 2 FWS, replacing a maximum of 1 with a score of 5 on the AP English Lit & Comp or English Lang & Comp exams. Try to take your FWS during your first year, or at the latest during your second year.  Juniors and seniors are not eligible to enroll in First-Year Writing Seminars under any circumstances. Students who have not fulfilled their college’s writing requirement during their first four semesters at Cornell must seek either transfer credit from another institution (hard to get and must be requested after the course is taken) or must petition the Knight Institute to substitute an appropriate upper level Cornell course such as ENGL 2880/2890, “Expository Writing”. This petition is generally granted. However, if ENGL 2880 or 2890 is used to fulfill the FWS requirement, it can NOT double-count toward upper level liberal studies credit (the requirement that two liberal studies courses out of the required six, have course numbers >2000)