University Learning Outcomes

What Should Every Graduate Know, Do, and Become?

All Foundations courses focus on helping students achieve one or more of the following University Learning Outcomes (ULOs). Every Boise State graduate is expected to meet these outcomes, regardless of major or baccalaureate degree.

Visit our rubrics page to see the standards and achievement criteria for meeting each of the following learning goals.

University Learning Outcomes

• Written Communication – Write effectively in multiple contexts, for a variety of audiences.
• Oral Communication – Communicate effectively in speech, both as a speaker and listener.
• Critical Inquiry  – Engage in effective critical inquiry by defining problems, gathering and evaluating evidence, and determining the adequacy of argumentative discourse.
• Ethics – Analyze ethical issues in personal, professional, and civic life and produce reasoned evaluations of competing value systems and ethical claims.
• Diversity – Apply knowledge of diversity to address social issues of local, regional, national, and/or global importance
• Mathematics – Apply knowledge and the methods of reasoning characteristic of mathematics to solve college-level problems.
• Natural, Physical, and Applied Sciences – Apply knowledge and the methods characteristic of scientific inquiry to think critically about and solve theoretical and practical problems about physical structures and processes.
• Visual and Performing Arts  – Apply knowledge and methods characteristic of visual and performing arts to explain and appreciate the significance of aesthetic products and creative activities.
• Humanities – Apply knowledge and the methods of inquiry characteristic of humanities disciplines to interpret and produce texts expressive of the human condition.
• Social Sciences – Apply knowledge and the methods of inquiry characteristic of the social sciences to explain and evaluate human behavior and institutions.