Introduction

Since 1999, I have been the undergraduate advisor for the Mathematics Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. According to the job description, I would split my time between teaching math courses and advising math majors. Much to my surprise, from the very beginning I also had requests for advising from humanities and social science students, as well as calls for help from advisors in those fields: the problem? course selection.

I had never really considered selecting a mathematics or related course as a potential problem for general liberal arts students. As an undergraduate, I was a math major, so I had no trouble of my own. My friends with other majors also had little or no difficulty. The courses approved for the general education mathematics requirements were both limited and sequential. The only real choice might be between first semester calculus and general statistics.

I have spoken with colleagues, both in academic advising and in mathematics, from various institutions about their undergraduate experiences, and have found most are similar to my own. Requirements were usually some set number of credit hours in mathematics, selected from a simple, ordered list. In such traditional programs, course placement and course selection in math are one and the same.

However, like many liberal arts schools, the College of Arts and Sciences at CU-Boulder does not have a pure mathematics requirement.