After more than 30 years of operating under the Baccalaureate Core curriculum, the summer 2025 term marked the first term under Oregon State University’s switch to the Core Education curriculum.
The change has been implemented in many different ways throughout the colleges at OSU.
A few of the biggest changes made by the new curriculum is a required transitions course, more career integration and less credits required within a student’s major.
The transitions course is for students new to OSU, and is used as a way to help students adjust to life in a new environment.
“The college of business always had a transitions course,” College of Business Head Advisor Kasey Smith said. “In terms of the changes, really it was just splitting things up and not really adding too much since we already had something along those lines.”
While the switch to Core Ed hasn’t made much of a difference to first year students, it has left an impact on transfer students.
“The transfer students I’m feeling a little bit more, not concerned, but I don’t know if they’re enjoying it as much. There’s not as much stuff that has transferred over,” Smith said.
Most transfer students have been working towards fulfilling Bacc Core requirements at other colleges for multiple years, and now they’re coming into a new system where the credits are not transferring the way they were anticipating. “We’re doing what we can to try and accommodate,” Smith added.
Although it’s a difficult adjustment for transfer students who were expecting to be going into a Baccalaureate Core system, in the long term, Core Education aims to be more beneficial for transferring students.
“Core Education was designed to address the needs of transfer students. Eight courses in the Foundational Core within Core Education can be completed at an Oregon Community College through Oregon’s Core Transfer Map,” Director of Core Education McKenzie Huber said.
Many colleges allowed current students the opportunity to switch to the new curriculum, but it didn’t make sense for most, despite the difference in credits required by the degree.
Darr Tucknott, head advisor of the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering said that whether or not a student switches to the new curriculum is entirely dependent on how many required classes the student has already taken.
Additionally, while Core Ed demands less specific credits from the student, they still have to fulfill the 180 credit requirement. This allows students more flexibility to add a minor or double major in another subject they are interested in.
Core Ed also brings a bigger focus on career preparation. This includes a specific requirement for a “Beyond OSU I: Career Preparation” and a “Beyond OSU II: Career Engagement” course, according to OSU’s academic catalog website. The curriculum aims to equip students with the skills necessary to be successful after graduation.
“Based on feedback from students about their motivation for obtaining a college degree, and what our industry partners communicated they valued in our graduates, we concisely designed the Signature Core to prepare students along with their majors for life and success beyond OSU,” Huber said.
As advisors, both Smith and Tucknott feel positive about how this change will benefit students in the future. “Bacc Core had been around for a long time, and I think change is hard. But I think change is good,” Tucknott said.
