Virtual Campus

GSU starts online through a virtual campus with e-learning courses and webinars. Students also use communication platforms such as Wechat and gather for in-person learning experiences convened in China and the United States.

San Francisco, USA

GSU is registered in the state of California USA with learning centers in the San Francisco area for residencies and other educational events hosted by our educational partners.

Beijing, China

Students take field trips for certification training and practicum experiences with our partners in Beijing and in other cities across China. As partnerships expand, students may also travel to other locations in Asia.

Once admitted to GSU, you are referred to as “professional learners,” rather than just students. This reflects your active, rather than passive, and competency-based approach to the educational process. You will participate in an intensely interactive process that is congruent with the professional marketplace. You will also engage in the discipline of individual study and reflection. Your program will feature opportunities to interact in online forums, cohort-based learning, and formal and informal workshops with your faculty, advisors, experts, and learning partners.

All GSU professional learners are already established in their careers with a foundation of knowledge and professional experience. As learning peers and professional colleagues, you will support each other to enhance the academic quality, experience, and success-as-a-whole.

As professional learners, you will engage in self-directed learning with the guidance and support of your core faculty, advisors, and other members of your degree committees. We consider self-directed learning to be a process where all individuals take initiative, with or without the help of others. This includes diagnosing learning needs, setting learning goals, identifying key resources, creating strategies, and evaluating final learning outcomes.

You will demonstrate your ability and commitment to the educational process by presenting your findings in dissertations and capstone projects that demonstrate significant competence.

GSU is committed to professional learning which requires the following:

• Undertaking new learning building upon knowledge and skills brought from previous academic and professional experience.

• Demonstrating competence through comprehensive knowledge of the history and present definition of your chosen field.

• Presenting evidence of the competency to formulate research questions, develop hypotheses, gather data, analyze evidence.

• Demonstrating competency through written and oral presentations that display logic, consistency, proper evidence and citations, and your own unique perspective.

• Demonstration of technological proficiency and savvy by using digital platforms, tools, and communication programs to manage your program.

Excellence in Scholarship

At GSU, excellence in scholarship is recognized by engaging in:

• The range of information sources that provide substantive knowledge for a field including its history, theory, and philosophies of knowledge that inform theoretical formation.

• An inquiry process that is intellectually sophisticated—meaning critical and in-depth using appropriate analytical modes, diverse and competing viewpoints, acknowledging multiple perspectives and sensitivity to current issues or debates in the field, with sound methodologies for investigation.

• Communicating clearly and persuasively to an expert audience demonstrating competency using general and specialized lexicons of the relevant field—including effective writing, coherent argumentation, proficient use of evidence, appropriate referencing, and fluency in the discourse of the field.

Integration of Theory and Practice

GSU expects a balance of theory and practice within each program. This will stem from the personal and professional life experiences of the learner. As such, questions GSU professional learners address will originate from challenges experienced from personal and professional actions, rather than solely from formal academic discourse. The resulting practical applications and implications will help realize and ground theoretical speculations.

Self-Directed Learning in the Network

GSU professional learners are geographically dispersed with a cross-section of academic backgrounds and professional disciplines. Because of this context, self-directed learning occurs when you—not the institution—take responsibility and control the learning objectives and means of learning. This is the reason we encourage interaction and mutual support between every professional learner, faculty, and alumni of the GSU scholarly network.

The commitment to self-learning within a community is reflected throughout our program structure.