The College offers an Associate of Arts degree in General Studies. In keeping with our progressive mission and purposes, the college encourages students to sharpen their thinking and learning skills and to gain wide knowledge in the liberal arts, so that they can develop as whole persons who think critically and creatively about the glut of information, questions, and choices confronting them in a complex world.
We define the liberal arts expansively and include some alternative categories. Through their classes in the Core Curriculum, General Studies, and the majors, students explore creative expression, cultural awareness, historical consciousness, interdisciplinary study, media literacy, quantitative reasoning, responsible action, scientific thought, and social awareness.
Our Core Curriculum forms the heart of general education at Burlington College. These courses examine crucial questions from the integrated perspective of two or more traditional academic disciplines. During the first year, students take an interdisciplinary first-year seminar. In these seminars, focused on a wide variety of topics, students think critically about intellectual inquiry itself, while engaging in independent and community projects and personal reflection in order to enhance their self-awareness as learners, as individuals, and as members of communities. Recent seminars have included: “Peace and Justice: Issues and Individuals”; “Peak Oil and the Challenges of Creating a New World”; and “Progress?”
