Should I change from "Gen-Ed" to "Common Curriculum"?
Beginning for the 2025-26 academic year, the University launched a new set of general education requirements, called the Common Curriculum for Leadership and Global Citizenship. New UConn students who begin at UConn summer or Fall 2025 (or later) follow Common Curriculum requirements. Continuing UConn students who begin at UConn Spring 2025 (or earlier) can continue to follow the General Education requirements OR, may opt to advance their career catalog year (with no impact to major catalog year or major requirements) to follow the Common Curriculum requirements. Students who do advance their career catalog year can return to their original catalog year at any time. But, generally, there is more flexibility built into the Common Curriculum requirements.
Based on our advising experience thus far with current continuing UConn students, you may benefit from advancing your catalog year (to change from gen-eds to common curriculum) if Fall 2025 is/was the start of your:
If you think you might benefit from advancing to the new common curriculum from current general education, follow the steps below, and utilize our virtual Drop-In Advising Hours if you have questions (we can help you best during Steps #2 and #5) -- you can always change back to gen-ed if you realize that works better for your plans:
Log into StudentAdmin to run your Standard Advisement Report (instructions here). Take note of your unsatisfied requirements in the top half of the report--Content Areas 1 through 4, as well as the School Required Courses section. These are the two sections most impacted by the change from general education to common curriculum.
Run a What If Report (instructions here). Under Define Your What-If Scenario, change the Career Catalog Term to "Fall 2025," AND under Program Scenario, change School/College Catalog Term to also say "Fall 2025."

Once the What-If Report runs, scroll down to the Common Curriculum box and take note of how many TOI categories are showing as Not Satisfied. Also note if the Focus Area and Six Different Subject Areas boxes are showing as Not Satisfied. You will also see a distinct Business Critical Required Courses section now, showing the same 7 critical courses (ACCT, ECON, ENGL, MATH, STAT) as well as COMM 1000/1100, which is considered a critical course for students in the common curriculum. This is the one School Required Course that remains in these new requirements, but there are no longer any other School Required Courses. Students who started in their Business major in Spring 2025 or earlier do not need to have COMM 1000/1100 done in their first four terms, even if they advance to common curriculum through this process.
Keep in mind that both your Standard Advisement Report and the What If Report assumes everything you are enrolled in will be completed, so if you are enrolled for a future term in a Content Area course, or a School Required Course, it will be showing as satisfied.
Which report is showing more requirements as Satisfied? If all gen-eds are satisfied in your Standard Report, and/or the gen-eds you have remaining are appropriately planned for, then no further action is required and you can continue with your current academic plan and requirements. However, you may find that under common curriculum some of your previous "elective" courses are now contributing to TOI categories, Focus Area, and/or Six Different Subject Areas, which could save you a required class or two as compared to the gen-ed requirements.
If both reports are showing a similar amount of Not Satisfied boxes, would you benefit from more flexibility in the courses that can satisfy your remaining requirements under common curriculum? If you have some gen-eds remaining, even as little as one (but one that perhaps you do not want to take), then you may benefit from proceeding through the remaining steps and advancing your catalog year. A good example of this change is that Business Psychology (PSYC 1100) is required in the old gen-eds, but is not specifically required in the new common curriculum, so advancing will remove PSYC 1100 as a specific requirement for a student majoring in Business. You can see a side-by-side comparison of the two sets of requirements on our General Education and Common Curriculum Requirements webpage.
You are welcome to utilize our virtual drop-in advising hours at this stage to help you make a decision, but keep in mind Advisors will NOT be able to tell you if you meet any of the new common curriculum requirements, only help you identify which general education requirements you still have remaining. You will likely benefit more from speaking with an Advisor during Step 5, when your progress on the new common curriculum is clear.