The Autonomous Major Selection System(AMSS) and Sustainable General Education

The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles and directions of general education in the wake of the implementation of the Autonomous Major Selection System (AMSS). More specifically, this paper aims to elucidate whether or not AMSS can work as a force that drives the development of general education, and if so, what should be the direction of general education, and what should be the content and method of education. Undergraduate education is often divided into two types: major education, which focuses on employability, and general education, which focuses on sustainability. While the former is an education that facilitates entry into society and focuses on usefulness and short-termism, the latter is an education that secures a universal foundation for life and emphasizes sustainability based on the spirit of free inquiry. In this respect, AMSS seems to be a policy that weighs on employability in the sense that it focuses on fostering human resources that meet the needs of society in the short term. Moreover, considering that the introduction of AMSS will inevitably lead to major changes in the general education curriculum, how to provide a systematic and balanced general education to all students, including undeclared majors at the entrance stage, is an urgent issue for general education. At the level of undergraduate education, AMSS can be seen as a process that begins with autonomous major selection and continues through the process of autonomous major design and completion. This paper focuses on first-year education, which is the starting point of AMSS. First, the paper analyzes in detail the impact of AMSS on general education. There are three main questions. First, how will general education, which aims to be a universal education, carry out special education for undeclared major students; second, how will the ideal and values of liberal education be implemented in the education of undeclared major students; and third, can AMSS be used as an opportunity to ensure a closer link between general education and major education? Next, it examines the direction of liberal arts education centered on the basic disciplines in terms of educational content and methodology, based on the judgment that liberal arts education is the area of general education that should be most emphasized under AMSS. Finally, it explores the possibilities of sustainable general education in the new phase of higher education initiated by AMSS.