As a liberal arts institution, the College believes that the depth of specialization that is achieved within a major should be balanced by exposure to a range of knowledge and methods of inquiry, such as that found across the liberal arts. Students will satisfy the distribution requirement by completing one course in each of the five areas listed below. In order to encourage exposure to breadth of content, students must take courses from five different departments or interdisciplinary areas (i.e. the requirement must be fulfilled with five courses with five different course prefixes).
Creative and Performing Arts (CP)
Upon successful completion of the creative and performing arts requirement, students should be able to:
- Engage imaginatively with an artistic medium, and
- Express creative ideas by producing original work or by reinterpreting artistic work made by others.
Humanities (H)
Upon successful completion of the humanities requirement, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of artistic, historical, intellectual, literary, or religious traditions, and
- Find evidence (textual, artistic, or otherwise), develop arguments from that evidence, and evaluate arguments made by others.
Natural Sciences (NS)
Upon successful completion of the natural sciences requirement, students should be able to:
- Explain the principles of scientific experimentation or observation, and
- Analyze and interpret evidence acquired through experimentation or observation.
Quantitative Reasoning (QR)
Upon successful completion of the quantitative reasoning requirement, students should be able to:
- Employ basic notions of arithmetic and coordinate geometry, and
- Frame and solve problems using quantitative principles.
Social Sciences (SS)
Upon successful completion of the social sciences requirement, students should be able to:
- Identify factors affecting human behavior manifested in either individual actions or social systems, and
- Use evidence to explain the structures and processes of social systems or human behavior.