Liberal Arts Categories

As part of the Arts & Sciences Curriculum, students must complete two courses in each of six Liberal Arts Categories.

CE: Creating & Engaging with Arts

Courses in this area involve the production, performance and/or experience of artistic creativity.

Students develop cognitive, affective and corporeal capacities through the process and production of knowledge via the creative arts; explore through practice the aesthetic forms that arise across cultures and communities; and formulate insights about human creativity by making art and reflecting on how values and meanings are expressed through arts practice.

Courses in this area interpret literary and aesthetic expressions that span geographical locations, historical periods and cultures.

Students analyze works and practices; engage with philosophies, religions and intellectual traditions; investigate communication practices and media; and gain skills in research methods associated with humanistic inquiry.

Courses in this area investigate the events, ideas, and practices that shape human societies.

Students examine institutions, cultural traditions, religious systems and the historical and current events that shape these large-scale features of societies; examine the structures that underlie inequality, power and societal change; and apply a diverse set of qualitative and quantitative scholarly practices.

Courses in this area investigate and develop models for physical and biological processes.

Students develop foundational knowledge about the causes of natural phenomena; explore the structure and temporal evolution of physical and biological systems; apply experimental, analytical and computational methods; and learn the power and limits of scientific explanations.

Courses in this area involve mathematical reasoning, statistical analysis and computational methods.

Students engage in formal, inductive and deductive reasoning; apply statistical modeling and inference methods; learn tools and techniques for data analysis; develop algorithms to solve problems; design, develop and analyze computational systems; and interpret claims based on computational models and simulations.

Courses in this area examine human individual behaviors, group dynamics and societies.

Students explore thought processes, decisions, beliefs, emotions and motivations; examine how individuals develop over the life course and in response to experiences; and study the development and expression of identities, the establishment of social structures and political institutions, and the dynamics of economic systems.