Common Student Questions

What is the class like?

Class begins at 9:00 a.m. 12:30 p.m four days a week. The students stay in the room and the professors change, although several are usually in the room at the same time. Although grade cards at the end of the semester show that students took six separate classes, they are never aware of being in more than one very diverse course. To avoid lecturing to passive note takers, we try to keep class time a lively mixture of discussion, student presentations, simulations, demonstrations, activities, and lectures. On the fifth day of the week, from 9:00 to 4:00 students, in smaller groups, are engaged in either art studio or science or psychology labe activities.

The curriculum for the year looks like a very rich history of civilization course, with focus primarily on developments in Eurasia. After a brief look at where we are in humanity's cultural history, we return to the beginning and look at how we got where we are. In tracing this cultural history, we do literature, history, philosophy, art, science, economics, psychology, and a lot more. We divide the year into seven chronological eras. At the end of each era there is a major exam. There is homework everyday with some written work required almost every day. On average students write six to eight short, three to five page essays both semesters.