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Educational Goals of Hamilton College

Breadth in the Liberal Arts


As a liberal arts college, Hamilton expects you to undertake coursework in a wide variety of disciplines, to explore areas unfamiliar to you, and to make connections across courses and disciplines. A liberally educated person studies in the traditional academic divisions of the arts, foreign languages, the humanities, mathematics, the sciences, and the social sciences. Hamilton also emphasizes cultural analysis, including the study of non-Western traditions and of diversity in the United States. You will work with your advisor to determine how best to achieve this intellectual balance.

To help you understand how the goal of breadth in the liberal arts might translate into more specific objectives, various faculty members have suggested the objectives below. You and your advisor may think of others.

  • To develop facility with mathematical modes of reasoning or ability to evaluate and interpret quantitative data.
  • To develop the ability to analyze, interpret, and evaluate literary, philosophical, or religious texts and the ideas they present.
  • To develop historical perspective on ideas, practices, structures, and events.
  • To develop understanding of artistic processes through production, performance, composition, or critical analysis of the visual, aural, or performing arts.
  • To develop understanding of scientific inquiry by employing the methods or concepts of a scientific discipline.
  • To develop understanding of contemporary social, religious, political, or economic ideas, practices, and structures.
  • To develop understanding of assumptions about, and consequences of, diversity along such lines as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and/or religious affiliation in the United States.
  • To develop understanding of non-Western intellectual, cultural, and social traditions.
  • To develop understanding of a second language through oral and/or written usage.

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