Liberal Learning at Brown

What does it mean to be broadly educated? The first Western universities conceived of the liberal arts as seven distinct modes of thought, three based on language (grammar, rhetoric, and logic), and four on number (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). While this structure has changed over the centuries, the basic concept has endured. A modern liberal arts education is still defined in terms of a core curriculum comprised of several areas of knowledge.

At Brown, rather than specifying these areas, we challenge you to develop your own core. Our open curriculum ensures you great freedom in directing the course of your education, but it also expects you to remain open to people, ideas, and experiences that may be entirely new. By cultivating such openness, you will learn to make the most of the freedom you have, and to chart the broadest possible intellectual journey.

Brown's liberal learning goals, which you can read by clicking on the link at right, will orient you to Brown's educational ethos and help guide your course selection during your four years of undergraduate study. In addition to completing a concentration, you are expected to sample courses in the humanities, the social sciences, the life sciences, and the physical sciences. But the real challenge is to make connections between those courses, using the perspective gained from one discipline as a window onto the next.

Click on the student names at left to read personal accounts of how other students have made such connections. Each student's journey through the Brown curriculum is unique, and each semester of study constitutes a chapter in their own curricular narratives. What will your story be?

Click here to read about Brown's liberal learning goals.