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 minor allows students to go beyond courses taken for general education requirements and excavate 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 minor provides will serve as a valuable larger context for students in any major.

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 summer study in Athens program; the winter break study trip to Florence, Italy; Core’s 2- and 4-credit 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 and in oral and written communication, work upon their analytical skills, 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 basic 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.