The Bachelor of Arts in Individualized Studies degree is a baccalaureate degree program structured to meet the educational needs of adult learners. It provides nontraditional students with a variety of options in meeting University requirements for an undergraduate degree grounded in the liberal arts. It recognizes the value of life/work experience and affords students the opportunity to receive advanced standing through portfolio assessment. Students may choose to pursue a single area of study in depth or design a program of study by combining liberal arts courses with career-related concentrations. The result is a degree program that will be immediately appealing to mature adults who bring to FDU traditional course work completed over a period of years at a number of institutions, a history of work and life experiences that can be equated with credit-bearing courses, and the desire, commitment and self-discipline to complete the degree requirements.

Students completing the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts in Individualized Studies degree will be required to demonstrate proficiency in a number of subject areas and related skills. They include the following:

1. The use of basic intellectual tools, specifically to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing; to use mathematical reasoning; and to comprehend the nature, techniques and limits of the humanities, natural or physical sciences and the social and behavioral sciences.
2. The ability to learn and apply learning to the graduate's career and life experience, requiring the capability to define problems; to use information resources such as libraries and computers; and to analyze, synthesize and integrate knowledge, perspectives and techniques.
3. An understanding of the historic and global context of events and achievements over time as treated in subjects such as history, the arts and the humanities.
4. Mastery of a considerable body of knowledge in one subject area or a group of related subjects.