Hello everyone- I’m looking for colleges with highly open curriculums similar to that of Brown. Preferably decently selective (1/3 or less) and preferably in the northeast/ midatlantic. Thanks!
Hamilton, Amherst, Smith, the University of Rochester.
Hampshire, Bard, Bennington, Evergreen, UC Santa Cruz
If you search the forum this has come up a few times before and maybe you will find a comprehensive list. There aren’t all that many but some schools have programs where you can do that. So more or less, not mentioned above I don’t think, Sarah Lawrence, Johnson Center at University of Redlands, NYU Gallatin, and something I don’t know much about CMU BMX.
http://www.hercampus.com/life/9-most-flexible-colleges-country
http://collegelists.pbworks.com/w/page/16119530/Open%20Curriculum%20-%20schools%20with%20more%20flexible%20curricula
(n.b.: “more flexible” does not necessarily mean “open”)
Vassar has an extremely open curriculum- language requirement (easy to get out of), one science/math course, and a freshman seminar are the only requirements. A lot like Brown socially, too.
That is an odd list of schools with “curricular freedom” when it include St. John’s College, with a required core (“great books”) curriculum that is the entire curriculum.
Many of the schools (e.g. Grinnell and Rochester) that are commonly mentioned do effectively have breadth requirements, though sometimes phrased as limitations on the number of courses or credits that one can take within a single department or division.
Is it possible you will have a number of AP/IB credits heading into college? If so some of the selective (but not super selective) schools often give so much AP credit that you could technically enter with sophomore standing and satisfy many distribution requirements before setting foot on campus. This doesn’t mean you have to graduate in 3 years it simply gives you flexibility in navigating your route through the curriculum, more similar to what you would find in an open curriculum school.
For example, Washington College in Chesterstwon MD does have many distribution requirements but a number are satisfied by AP/IB credit: https://www.washcoll.edu/offices/registrar/advanced-standing.php
As a recommendation, even at colleges that technically allow curricular freedom, you should self-select your own core with with key classes in humanities and social science fields such as classics, philosophy, religious studies, government, English and history.
As noted above, the term “open” (as used by Brown) is somewhat of a misnomer.
Back in the 1960’s many of the more liberal colleges were looking ways of adding more flexibility to the standard “core curriculum”. The two primary dimensions for increasing flexibility are the reduction of course requirements and the extension of course offerings.
The most radical implementations of the first dimension totally eliminated requirements.
The most radical implementation of the latter dimension was the development of “experimental colleges” that allowed course credit for courses developed and taught by non faculty members (students, and members of the surrounding community).
It can be argued that the latter initiative is more representative of an “open curriculum” than the former, because anyone can contribute to it.
Brown does not have a “core curriculum”, but chose to keep the notion of “depth of knowledge” and therefore has concentration requirements. It chose not to keep the notion of “breadth of knowledge” and therefore eliminated distribution requirements. (although some concentrations have more requirements as a result). They do not choose to open their curriculum to people outside their faculty, which makes it “closed”.
Experimental colleges are hard to find. Tufts has a well developed Experimental College is therefore is “open”. I think Grinnell still has a small ExCo and therefore could also be considered “open”. UC Berkeley appears to have eliminated theirs. Other posters may know of more. Grinnell has a similar level of requirements as Brown (so it may better match what you are looking for), while Tufts has extensive (but somewhat flexible) distribution requirements.
Some of the colleges mentioned by others have fewer requirements than Brown, so their curricula would be considered more flexible in that particular dimension.
http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/
http://thesandb.blogspot.com/2007/03/exco-provides-quirky-classes-but.html
To me, major/concentration requirements make complete sense. And yeah Merc, I plan on still keeping it diverse just because I love learning a ton of different stuff. I just want to be able to chose most or all of my classes.
Don’t neglect math, statistics, and science when building your own core curriculum. Also, other social studies fields like sociology, economics, and psychology may be of interest.
In any case, if you plan to take a broad selection of courses to build your own core curriculum, then some or many general education requirements may not be a significant burden if they are in subjects that you plan to take anyway.
The OP has expressed interest in majoring in physics, so those are presumably a given.