Minor in the Core Curriculum

The minor in the Core Curriculum offers students an integrated and interdisciplinary pathway bringing together the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences in context. The Core minor enables students to gain a liberal arts foundation for any major or field of study, while benefiting from the interconnections built into the sequence of Core texts, art, and ideas that have shaped our world.

Benefits of the Core Minor

  • An opportunity for continuous and integrated study. The Core minor allows students to go beyond courses taken for general education requirements and synthesize the primary texts and ideas that are at the heart of a liberal arts education.
  • Community. The Core minor invites students to study with a self-selected group of peers interested in a liberal arts education at the same time that they pursue and share their individual fields of expertise in their majors and other minors.
  • Interdisciplinary scope. Completion of the Core minor enables students to pursue knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, from the ancient to the modern world and from religion and the visual arts to quantum theory and economics. The broader background that the Core minor provides will serve as a valuable larger context for students in any major.
  • Core minor and Hub. All Core courses fulfilled for the Core minor satisfy multiple and different Hub requirements.

All students choosing to take the Core minor are encouraged to participate in their choice of a selection of other opportunities made available through Core, such as the Core Cocurricular Docent Program; Core Honors; the Core Journal; the winter break study trip to Florence, Italy; Core’s 2- and 4-unit DME courses (CAS CC 220/320); and the Word & Way Society, Core’s SAO student group.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students who complete the Core minor will demonstrate knowledge of notable works of literature, philosophy, and visual culture and learn to evaluate important arguments from the fields of natural and social sciences. Students will be able to make meaningful connections through an interdisciplinary lens and be able to relate and connect their knowledge to multiple fields of study and to their own experience and that of others.
  • Students will master skills in reading, writing, and oral communication. They will learn how to learn effectively, exercise creativity, and reflect upon all of these processes.
  • Students will demonstrate the skills and vocabulary needed to reflect on issues of critical thinking, ethical questions, concerns of society and the individual, aesthetic concerns, and the validity of scientific arguments.

Requirements

Students complete the Core minor by taking the two gateway humanities courses CAS CC 101 and 102 and at least four of the other six foundational Core courses: CAS CC 201/202; the two social sciences courses CAS CC 221/222; and/or the two natural sciences courses CAS CC 111/212.

Honors Requirements

Completion of the Core with Honors requires achieving a grade of B+ or better in all eight Core courses (or, for STEM majors who do not take CC 111/212, all six Core humanities and social science courses) plus ONE of the following:

  1. Completion of a course taken outside of (but relevant to) the Core program, and a substantial paper or project that relates material in that course to the Core program. The paper/project must be defended in front of a committee of at least three faculty members. At least one member of the committee must be from the Core faculty, and one must be from the non-Core course, OR
  2. The composition and defense of a substantial paper or project on a subject that bridges at least two particular Core courses. The paper/project must be defended in front of at least three relevant faculty members from Core.