Starting Fall 2018
Central to undergraduate education at the University of Notre Dame is the core curriculum, a set of requirements that apply to all students, regardless of major.
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The core's “ways of knowing” approach is designed to expose students to diverse modes of thought for approaching, analyzing, and understanding different aspects of our lives and our world. Each course forms a complementary part of the larger whole, bringing individual students closer to attaining the intellectual capacities and practices that fulfill the overall goals of a Notre Dame education.
The set of requirements outlined below was developed with input from across the University community as part of the decennial core curriculum review process and approved unanimously by Academic Council and the university president. It will be phased in, beginning with the class entering in fall 2018.
The new core curriculum reflects Notre Dame’s shared vision for a modern Catholic liberal arts education. It takes a student-centered approach that transcends traditional department boundaries and offers undergraduates the flexibility to fulfill requirements in multiple ways over the course of their four years at Notre Dame. Learn more about each of the ways of knowing here.
The Notre Dame Core Curriculum
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Six Courses in the General Liberal Arts
- Liberal Arts 1: Quantitative Reasoning
- Liberal Arts 2: Science & Technology
- Liberal Arts 3: Quantitative Reasoning or Science & Technology
- Liberal Arts 4: Art & Literature, or Advanced Language & Culture
- Liberal Arts 5: History or Social Science
- Liberal Arts 6: Integration or Way of Knowing not yet chosen from 4 or 5
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Four Courses Exploring Explicitly Catholic Dimensions of the Liberal Arts
- Theology 1: Foundational
- Theology 2: Developmental
- Philosophy 1: Introductory
- Philosophy 2 or CAD: Philosophy elective or Catholicism and the Disciplines
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Two Courses in Writing
- Writing 1: University Seminar*
- Writing 2: Writing & Rhetoric or Other Writing-Intensive Course
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Moreau First Year Experience
- Moreau: One two-semester course
* A University Seminar course may be double-counted to fulfill both the USEM requirement and one of the other liberal arts requirements.