Muhlenberg’s academic curriculum guides you from exploration and discovery to depth, integration and application. It challenges you to take risks and cultivate curiosity. Along the way, faculty and staff support you through personalized coaching and mentorship. Exploration of the liberal arts begins as soon as you arrive on campus to spark curiosity, help you discover your passion, and guide you toward a field (or fields!) of study.
This breadth is complemented by depth and integration as you continue at Muhlenberg, when you dig into your major and real-world, hands-on experiences: internships, community-engaged opportunities, research, study abroad and more.
You can build multiple areas of expertise by pursuing additional majors and minors, as well as optional micro-credentials that develop key skills for professional life, leadership and democratic citizenship. The fourth year provides a final integrative experience within the major and an opportunity to create a digital presence, such as an e-portfolio, to launch a life and a career of consequence.
Muhlenberg’s new curriculum reflects the vital components needed for post-college success in our increasingly complex world. The varied perspectives and cross-disciplinary hallmarks of a liberal arts education are more valuable than ever before and are most impactful when paired with consequential experiential learning, written reflection and creative problem solving.
Muhlenberg graduates have always been driven to make a difference. You’ll be better equipped than ever to harness your potential on a pathway that’s right for you.
Explore the liberal arts by asking difficult questions about the world, cultivating your creativity and developing the types of durable 21st-century skills that leadership in today’s world requires — the foundation for professional achievement and active citizenship.
Critical thinking, writing and analysis are skills that are highly valued in any career field or graduate school program. You will be practicing and building on these essentials from the moment you step in a classroom and throughout your time at Muhlenberg.
First-Year Seminars (FYS) offer a reading-, writing-, and discussion-intensive environment specifically designed to hone students’ critical and analytical thinking skills and engage in intellectual discourse outside of disciplinary boundaries.
Each major offers writing-intensive courses that aim to equip students with the skills to write analytically within their field of study.
Understand and utilize quantitative and logical skills to analyze data; build mathematical and/ or symbolic relationships; construct and assess arguments; and make sound judgments.
Throughout your years at Muhlenberg, you’ll explore these broad content areas that are key to a liberal arts education. They are designed to help you discover ways to think across disciplines and cultivate a lasting love of learning.
Explore and experience representations and modes of creative expression.
The study of actions and/or interactions of humans through examination of their histories, social organizations, societies, institutions, nations, environments, and/or cultures.
Study fundamental issues of meaning, existence, and/or value (including ethics) that underpin human thinking, practices, and ways of living.
Develop skills of communication between people from different cultures, by learning to interpret, create, and exchange shared meanings. This will normally be a second language course.
Explore the fascinating complexities of the natural and physical world and experience the interconnectedness between systems and phenomena.
White supremacy persists in shaping American society, fueling disparities in power, wealth, health, and justice. Anti-Black and anti-indigenous racism serve as foundations for various forms of discrimination. Recognizing the contributions of marginalized groups is essential to understanding American history and culture.
Learning from and engaging with human cultural, linguistic, political, religious, and social diversity globally, across broad historical periods, is an important part of preparing students to participate in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world.
The new curriculum opens space for students to continue exploration throughout their time at Muhlenberg, with courses that expand horizons, promote curiosity and expose the underlying connections that make up our world.
Once students have established a foundation of exploration in their first two years, they then integrate that knowledge into their major or minor, both on and off campus, in integrative and experiential, hands-on experiences.
Students can either take one major, two majors, one major and one minor, or one major and two minors. We have 52 programs, including 40 majors, 37 minors and 12 interdisciplinary programs.
High-impact learning experiences, including integrative and experiential learning, offer different ways for students to develop and put into practice key skills that will enable them to succeed in their professional careers, to hone the skills and foster values essential to civic engagement; and to contribute to thinking about and seeking solutions for some of the world’s complex problems. High impact learning experiences allow students to engage in learning that extends beyond the classroom.
Capstone experience in a major provides the opportunity for students to clarify their relationship to a discipline, demonstrate their mastery of content, reflect on accumulated content and experiences, and open new paths for the future.
The optional micro element of the Pathways curriculum is under construction but will emphasize groupings of courses that allow students both to build skills and content knowledge in ways that help students advance their professional goals.
New research shows a college degree brings greater wealth, health and happiness — and a bigger impact on communities and the world. How can colleges provide people with the necessary resources to reach this milestone? Read President Kathleen Harring's op-ed analyzing this critical issue, and find out what Muhlenberg is doing about it.
Muhlenberg’s share of the innovative solar facility will offset 100 percent of the electricity usage on campus.
The award-winning structure reflects the College’s deep commitment to sustainability, academics, creativity and community.
Edwards will investigate tick biology and tick-borne human pathogens in Mexico this fall.
