A Study On General Education Curriculum At University Of California, Los Angeles

General Education aims to develop "well-rounded" students. It is a medium of h igher education training, which mainly includes students way of thinking, the ability to integrate knowledge, the ability to appreciate common cultural essence of human beings, a sense of participation as global citizen, basic skills and the ability to reflec t. It is n ot only an ed ucational philosophy, but also a training model. The development of general education has become the focus of educators.With further development of Chi na’s higher e ducation reform, many colleges and universities are increasingly aware of the importance of general education, and has made a preliminary attempt to practice, thinking that general education curriculum reform is an important way to improve the overall level of the undergraduate curriculum system. However, the current general education curriculum of Chin a’s universities is still unreasonable and the quality is not high. There is still a bias for the understanding of general education curriculum among professors and students. Many colleges and universities have not formed a scie ntific and rational system of general education curriculum yet. Therefore, to absorb the successful experience of genera l education in American universities after comparison has an important theoretical and practical significance to improve the general education curriculum of China.In this study, through the use of literature, case study and comparative analysis, the reform background and current general education curriculum of University of California, Los Angeles are fully elaborated. And then try to offer some proposals for general education curri culum reform of China, combined with the existing problems of general education curriculum in universities of China, so as to provides a useful reference for how to improve the quality of hi gher education and innovative training model of China.First, a discussion of the essence of general education and the value of general education curriculum. Through the in-depth discussion of exploring the concept of general education, the essence of general education was clarified. And then the value of general education curriculum was demonstrated in detail, laying a theoretical basis of this study. Secondly, the paper introduces the general education curriculum reform of U CLA. By analyzing the background of the general education curriculum reform, the improvements taken to its general education curriculum reform are introduced. And then the paper gives an analysis and evaluation on the measures taken at that time of UCLA. The general education curriculum at UCLA is analyzed fro m the theoretical basis of the curriculum, objectives, structure and content, characteristics and problems respectively. Finally the implications of general education curriculum at UCLA are discussed. On the basis of fully analysis on the problems of general education curriculum of universities of China, combined with successful experience of general education curriculum reform of UCLA, suggestions are proposed to general education curriculum reform of universities in China.