The purpose of general education  is to encourage students to take classes that increase their breadth of knowledge and awareness of the world. However, general education is too general. Without a clear direction, selecting classes becomes a matter of “which class is easier?” rather than “Which class will best improve my current body of knowledge?”.

iFoundry believes that the human aspect of engineering is an essential part of becoming a well-rounded engineer-student. HAPI is an iFoundry proposal meant to encourage students to get the most out of their general education requirements by being purposeful in the selection of their courses.  HAPI themes are a set of courses that are centered around a specific theme or purpose.  This blog will begin a series on some examples of HAPI themes (details can be found in the HAPI manual). The examples we will cover are:

Anthropology

Classical Western Civilization

Economics

Environmental

Foreign Affairs

Health

Law, Policy, and Technology

Philosophy

“The Power of Story”

Understanding People

Each post in our series will discuss the theme as well as suggest some courses that can be taken at UIUC that follow the theme.