Write the academic expectations portion of your rationale essay, where you analyze ESC’s and SUNY’s knowledge and skills expectations and explain how you have addressed those in the content of your degree. This section is one of the most important in the rationale essay. It validates your choices for your degree and ensures that there’s “truth in advertising” – that if you develop your degree and concentration in a certain field, you have included the knowledge that’s usually expected in that field.
There are three important things to consider as you’re drafting this section:
You do not have to analyze and rationalize every course in your degree; you may have many elective courses that are unrelated to a guideline or a general education requirement, and that’s fine. But you do need to explain, in your own words, what the guidelines and general education requirements are and how you have addressed them.
You should not simply describe the content of certain courses, or quote course descriiptions. Instead, this portion of the essay really is a rationale – a reasoned analysis of how you have addressed academic expectations.
If you end up quoting a guideline, make sure to cite your source.
Write approximately 2-3 pages (1000-1500 words, double spaced).
Note that all essay sections are considered to be drafts until you put all of the sections together to finalize them.
Please submit this section as a Word document (no .pdfs or other formats).