General education courses offered at Mercy College are required for all degree track programs, regardless of what the student's major is. This means that students studying under the School of Business will take the same general courses as those in the School of Liberal Arts. The broad-based course offering is designed to create well-rounded students who have education in various subjects. Some of the general education courses offered at Mercy include Introduction to Computers, Algebra, Ethics, Oral Communications, and both Macroeconomics and Microeconomics.
Core courses are those required by the degree program being followed. For example, students studying through the School of Business will be required to take general business courses prior to branching out and taking more topic- or issue-specific classes at a later point in time. Core courses vary between the schools. The School of Business offers core business courses such as Introduction to Financial Accounting, Business Law I and Principles of Marketing. Core courses offered through the School of Liberal Arts are called Major Requirements, and include Animation History, Drawing I and Design History.
Elective or minor requirement courses are those that are required for a student to become more specialized within her chosen field. For example, at the School of Business, students can opt for an Accounting track that offers accounting-specific courses such as Cost Accounting, Intermediate Accounting and Computer Applications for Accountants. Once a student in the School of Liberal Arts completes the mandatory degree-path requirements, major electives such as Painting, Digital Animation and Game Design are offered. The purpose of Mercy's use of elective courses is to provide specialized areas of study for students working toward broad degrees.
Students at Mercy College are free, at any time, to take classes from other schools within the college system. Though this may delay getting a degree right on schedule, some students opt to take classes in various subjects to broaden their overall knowledge base. Mercy has some intriguing classes, including Transcultural Nursing, The American Presidency, Introduction to Homeland Security, Public Safety and Terrorism, Women Radicals and Reformers, Psychology of Crisis, European Trends in Film, The Death Penalty in America and many others crossing a wide spectrum of subjects, topics, issues and theories.