German Minor

Offered at: San Luis Obispo Campus

The German minor at Cal Poly prepares students from all majors for a wide variety of international experiences, including our college- and major-specific exchanges with German universities, study and internships abroad, and lifelong membership in the community of those who have learned more than one language. Students develop creative and critical skills in our courses, which are focused on language as one of many important cultural phenomena, including literature, philosophy, music, visual arts, politics, and film. Students should begin their German studies during fall term of their first year in order to maximize the chances of achieving a useful level of proficiency during the college experience.

Program Learning Objectives

1. Communicate effectively in German through reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
2. Identify and explain historical and contemporary cultural production in German-speaking Europe in a variety of mediums, including literature, film, music, and visual art.
3. Locate, critically analyze, and interpret diverse types of cultural artifacts within the field of German Studies, and synthesize information in primary and secondary sources in critical analysis of these artifacts.
4. Apply aesthetic, ethical, political, and professional perspectives that reflect trans-national German linguistic and German-European cultural heritage toward a critical and contextual understanding of the world today.
5. Apply communicative and intercultural competencies while working productively both as an individual and in collaboration with others.
6. Evaluate ways in which language and culture provide perspective on the larger world of the arts, sciences, and technology.
7. Sustain life-long engagement and involvement in aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual matters, including social and political issues.

Minor Requirements and Curriculum

• At least half of the units must be from upper-division courses (3000-4000 level).
• At least half of the units must be taken at Cal Poly (in residence). For the Chinese, French, German, Italian Studies, Japanese, and Spanish minors, the requirement for students studying abroad is that at least one-third of the units must be taken at Cal Poly.
• No more than one-third of the units will be taken with credit-no credit grading (CR/NC), not counting courses with mandatory CR/NC. Departments may further limit CR/NC grading if desired.
• A minimum 2.0 GPA is required in all units counted for completion of the minor.

¹

Applicable to the minor when course subtitle content is relevant to German. 

²

Repeatable up to 6 units. Credit may be earned more than once when course is taken with different subtitles or topics.

³

Enrollment in this course requires approval of the instructor and department chair.