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Curriculum

A Bold Step Forward

Designed to Challenge, Connect, and Cultivate

Lehigh University’s College of Arts & Sciences has refined its liberal arts curriculum to provide students with a more dynamic, interdisciplinary, and forward-thinking education. The new curriculum is structured around three broad objectives of a liberal arts education. It balances intellectual depth with broad-based learning, ensuring graduates are prepared for an ever-evolving world.

Key Enhancements

  • First-Year Writing – A two-semester (6-credit) sequence to build strong communication skills.
  • Big Questions Seminar – A 3-4 credit, interdisciplinary seminar tackling contemporary global challenges.
  • Mathematics Requirement – A 3-credit course emphasizing quantitative reasoning.
  • Disciplinary Perspectives – A well-rounded foundation with coursework in:
    • Human Experience (HE)
    • Arts & Languages (AL)
    • Natural Sciences & Lab Science (NW, LS)
    • Social Sciences (SW)
  • Encounters Requirements – Three courses in each category to foster diverse perspectives:
    • Contemporary Challenges (CC)
    • Quantitative Reasoning (Q)
    • Writing (W)

Why This Matters

This updated curriculum builds on Lehigh’s strong liberal arts foundation while integrating clearer pathways for exploration, engagement, and skill-building. It streamlines existing requirements and introduces new opportunities, such as the Big Questions Seminar, which encourages students to examine pressing issues from multiple disciplinary lenses.

By modernizing the liberal arts experience, Lehigh empowers students to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage meaningfully with the world.

Building Skills, Perspectives, and Purpose

The curriculum is structured around 3 broad objectives of a liberal arts education:

  1. Building Critical Intellectual Skills
  2. Exploring Diverse Disciplinary Perspectives and Tools
  3. Tackling Big Questions and Contemporary Challenges from Multidisciplinary Perspectives

To fulfill these objectives, students take at least 12 distinct courses:

  • 1 Big Questions seminar (reimagined version of the first-year seminar)
  • 2 First-Year Writing courses
  • 1 course in Mathematics
  • At least 2 courses and 7 credits in each of the 4 areas below:
    • Human Experience, Language, and Arts:
      • Interpreting and Understanding Human Experience
      • Creating and Expressing through Arts and Languages
    • The Natural and Social Sciences:
      • Investigating the Natural World (including 1 lab)
      • Investigating the Social World

The curriculum also includes a new system of requirements called encounters:

Across coursework in the Disciplinary Perspectives and in students’ individual program of studies (e.g., major, minor, free electives), students satisfy 3 encounters in each of 3 areas: 

  1. Writing (W)
  2. Quantitative Reasoning (Q)
  3. Contemporary Challenges (CC)

Encounters are opportunities within courses that emphasize and build capacity in central themes or skills present across the curriculum. The encounters system is based on the premise that students develop a richer and more complete mastery of focal skills and themes when there are multiple opportunities to practice and learn about them infused throughout the curriculum. Encounters may be fulfilled through W-, Q-, and CC-designated courses throughout the curriculum, including courses completed for majors, minors, free electives, and courses in the Disciplinary Perspectives.

Please refer to the Course Catalog for detailed information.