Curriculum
Simpson's curriculum includes more than 40 majors, minors and pre-professional programs. Course work is structured in a 4-4-1 format, with classes running Sept.-Dec. and Jan.-Apr. before the 3 week May Term. This provides students with many unique learning opportunities, including internship programs, career observations and a variety of Study Abroad programs that take place over May Term.
Beginning in Fall 2011, most courses at Simpson are four credit courses. Simpson also implemented their new Engaged Citizenship Curriculum, which is largely based on the AAC&U LEAP intiative. The new curriculum attempts to build seven different Embedded Skills into all courses. The seven skills are:
- Collaborative leadership
- Critical thinking
- Information literacy
- Intercultural communication
- Oral communication
- Quantitative reasoning
- Written communication
In addition to classes in their major, students are required to take courses in seven specified Areas of Engagement:
- The Arts
- Civic Engagement
- Diversity and Power in the United States
- Ethics and Values Inquiry
- Global Perspectives
- Historical Perspectives on Western Culture
- Scientific Reasoning
In order to meet the global perspectives Area of Engagement, many students will take an overseas course, which may be completed throughout an entire semester (with exchange programs in London, Germany, Argentina, Thailand, and Tahiti) or over May Term, which provides different selections every year. Some the of recent May Term travel courses include trips to China, Thailand, Italy, London & Paris, Ghana, Belize, and the Netherlands. Simpson ranks among the nation’s top 100 colleges in percentage of students who study abroad, according to U.S. News and World Report.
In addition to these requirements, students also take two courses to bookend their Simpson Experience: the Simpson Colloquium and the Senior Capstone. The Simpson Colloquium is taken during the first semester of college and is designed to help students make the transition to college life. The Senior Capstone is a culminating project in each student's major demonstrating their proficiency in a chosen field of study.
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Famous quotes containing the word curriculum:
“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)