Student ELO Guide
How do Tri-C's ELOs help you in the workplace and in the real world?
Tri-C's Essential Learning Outcomes are seven real-world skills you can incorporate into every course you take at Tri-C. You can also use these skills throughout your career and in your daily life. Check them out below.
Critical and Creative Thinking
We don't want you to just accept what you hear. Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) will help you learn how to effectively contemplate an idea or problem and put your own innovative spin on it to create a new idea, solution or product.
CCT measures how well students analyze, evaluate and integrate information to assess problems and ideas and transform them in innovative or imaginative ways.
Below are some ways you can use your CCT skills:
- Researching the latest software for your job
- Reviewing a business plan for a loan
- Thinking about a topic from a new perspective
- Transforming ingredients into a new dish for your restaurant
- Designing a plan to help a child understand a new concept
- Looking at leaf damage to determine which bugs are damaging your vegetable gardens
Civic Responsibility
How can the actions you take affect your city, state, country and beyond? Civic Responsibility (CR) explains the link between individuals' actions — or inactions — and how they shape the world around us.
CR measures how well students analyze the results of actions and inactions within the larger local and/or global communities.
Below are some ways you can use your CR skills:
- Leading a community voting initiative
- Getting your employees involved in community improvement projects around your office
- Reaching out to community members to see if your business can help fill a need
- Creating a business to share your American Sign Language skills at community events
- Knowing the positive environmental impact of recycling
Cultural Sensitivity
Appreciating diverse cultures is vital in all aspects of your life. Cultural Sensitivity (CS) will teach you to appreciate the things that make each culture so unique.
CS measures how well students can demonstrate sensitivity to the beliefs, views, values and practices of cultures within and beyond the United States.
Below are some ways you can use your CS skills:
- Starting a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee at work
- Including all holidays in work celebrations
- Knowing how to include other cultures in celebrations
- Appreciating different perspectives
- Making all patients feel comfortable by interacting with them using their cultural norms
- Researching what foods to omit from a nutrition plan for a patient from another country
Information Literacy
There is so much information out there — how can you tell if it's credible? If you want to research a topic, how do you find reliable info? Information Literacy (IL) teaches you to evaluate info to see if it's trustworthy.
IL measures how well students acquire, evaluate and use information from credible sources to meet specific research purpose needs.
Below are some ways you can use your IL skills:
- Researching the source of an article to see if it can be trusted
- Knowing what online sources to check if you are researching a topic
- Acquiring information when researching new equipment for work
- Investigating employee laws in your city
- Properly citing sources for a peer review article
- Scrutinizing the latest exercise for heart health
- Analyzing dog breeds for your lifestyle
Oral Communication
Whether you're speaking out against injustices, asking for a raise at work or explaining a new process to a co-worker, Oral Communication (OC) will give you the skills and confidence to speak up about anything and make sure your ideas are understood.
OC measures how students use effective verbal and nonverbal communication for an audience that is clear, organized and delivered effectively following the standard conventions of that language.
Below are some ways you can use your OC skills:
- Explaining a care plan to a patient
- Interviewing for a new job
- Speaking out against injustices
- Explaining a concept to your boss versus a brand new employee
- Sharing your diagnosis on a broken-down car with a customer
- Knowing how to explain a law to a neighbor versus a lawyer
- Pitching a new ad campaign to your supervisor
- Creating an audio recording for training at your job
Quantitative Reasoning
Math is everywhere! When you are presented with money, measuring, calculating interest rates, data or graphs, Quantitative Reasoning (QR) will help you to understand and analyze it.
QR measures how well students can analyze problems, including real-world scenarios, through math concepts and skills, such as the interpretation of data, tables, charts or graphs.
Below are some ways you can use your QR skills:
- Making and sticking to a budget
- Calculating the interest on a loan
- Measuring medications for patients
- Calculating which supplier is giving you the lowest price per ounce
- Converting United Arab Emirates dirham to U.S. dollars to charge a client correctly
- Analyzing test results to see how much more fertilizer your fruit trees need
- Starting your own tax prep business with your accounting degree
- Measuring ingredients to bake a birthday cake
- Billing clients
Written Communication
So many things in life require you to have good writing skills. Creating resumes, contracts, short stories, lyrics — the list goes on! Written Communication (WC) will help you organize your writing to make it clear for your intended audience.
WC measures how well students can demonstrate effective written communication for an intended audience with clarity, organization and editing skills.
Below are some ways you can use your WC skills:
- Writing an email to your co-worker
- Proposing a new practice at work
- Explaining something in writing to a patient or client
- Creating a Patient Care Plan
- Writing a note to a boss versus a client or a friend
- Creating a screenplay and submitting it to a film festival
- Creating contracts for your small business
- Texting your Uber customer to let them know there has been a delay
Your Courses and ELOs
Want to see if any of your courses apply to an ELO? Check out this alphabetized list of courses with their ELO mappings. If you do not see a course listed, it is not mapped to any ELOs.
Would you like to find a course that applies to an ELO you are missing? Visit the links below to see the complete list of all courses linked to each ELO.
Why is collecting ELOs important?
Tri-C's ELOs are seven areas of knowledge and skills that you gain throughout your time at Tri-C from all of the courses you take combined. These seven areas are important for your success in the workforce or at a four-year institution and are not specific to any one course, discipline or program. Make sure you collect all seven before you graduate.
Searching for more information about academics at Tri-C?
Read our comprehensive guide to Tri-C classes, from course information to program resources.