Degree Programs and Curriculum

Majors
Minors
Certificates
Accelerated Bachelor/Master Degree Programs
Special Academic Programs for First-Year Students
Interdisciplinary Programs
Undergraduate Research

1. Majors

Georgetown College offers the following majors for the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree:

The following majors lead to a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree:

2. Minors

Minors are optional. Some minors require an application (*), typically submitted in the spring of sophomore year. MOST Minors are open to all, and may be declared when declaring a major, or any time after. The following minors are offered:

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3. Certificates

Georgetown College students may earn a certificate in one of the regional study programs below offered through the School of Foreign Service. Certificates are the functional equivalent of minors, so they count as one of the maximum three academic components that a student may complete toward the degree. In keeping with SFS policy, students may not pursue two certificate programs. Double counting policies for certificates conform to College policies for minors.

See the Certificates page for the full requirements for each of the above programs.

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4. Accelerated Bachelor/Master Degree Programs

Some College Departments offer qualified undergraduate students the opportunity to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees at an accelerated pace within five years by counting two graduate-level courses taken as part of the undergraduate program toward the master’s degree. Some of these programs also permit up to two additional graduate courses beyond the 120 credits required for the undergraduate degree to be applied towards the master’s within limits set by policy and with the explicit approval of the particular master’s program, the College, and the Graduate School. Students with a minimum of a 3.5 in the major are eligible to apply for the program no later than the end of their junior year. Please see the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for information and requiremens of specific master’s programs.

Currently, the following accelerated degree programs are available to qualified students with appropriate undergraduate coursework:

Arabic
Art & Museum Studies
Computer Science
Communication, Culture & Technology
English
German
Global, International, and Comparative History
Government
Italian
Latin American Studies
Linguistics
Russian and European Studies
Spanish
Statistics

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5. Special Academic Programs for First-Year Students

Ignatius Seminars

The Ignatius Seminars are courses offered in the fall semester for the intellectually curious student interested in an integrative and personal approach to learning. These seminars introduce Georgetown College first-year students to the depth and diversity of Georgetown’s dynamic intellectual community. Favorite topics of College faculty form the offerings for these seminars that invite small student groups to join their professors in the creative exploration of mind and spirit. All incoming first-year students are invited to apply to participate in the Ignatius Seminar program in the summer prior to matriculation.

FLL Hager Scholars Program

The FLL Hager Scholars program is for declared majors in languages, linguistics, and comparative literature, designed to create a sense of community and opportunities for intellectual growth. Over the course of this yearlong program, Hager Scholars will gain a greater appreciation of the possibilities available to students and scholars of language(s), inside the classroom and in the world beyond. In addition to a course in their declared major, FLL Hager Scholars will be enrolled in designated courses that fulfill core requirements, and a 1-credit colloquium addressing critical and contemporary issues where language plays an illuminating, deepening, or complicating role.

Ways of Knowing

The Ways of Knowing Seminar is an integrated learning experience in the fall, placing two core disciplines into conversation with each other to confront questions of truth, knowledge, expertise, belief, and meaning. Students in the seminar take both courses and form a tight community of learners and explorers, dedicated to unpacking the process of knowing.

Building Equitable Societies: Just Beginning

This experimental, interdisciplinary fall seminar proceeds in the hope that society can be built more equitably by focusing on its most precious resource, its most basic building block, and its most vulnerable member: the child. Students will encounter a series of issues at the intersection of children’s rights and needs, addressing some of the central challenges of our times. Led by three faculty representing the fields of psychology, medicine, and law, students will engage these challenges in and beyond the classroom.

First-Year History Seminars

The Department of History offers a variety of special seminars to first-year students whose Advanced Placement in history changes their options for the College’s core requirement. First-Year History Seminar topics vary each year; all create small communities of learners, learning in and out of the classroom, and in-depth study of pivotal moments and phenomena in history.

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6. Interdisciplinary Programs

Interwoven throughout Georgetown’s traditional department-based curriculum are interdisciplinary programs, majors, and minors that take advantage of the breadth as well as depth of intellectual resources on the Georgetown campus. These programs are based on themes that cross departmental boundaries and reflect the emergence of significant new perspectives on human knowledge. They are the result of collaborative efforts by faculty from several disciplines to create curricular offerings addressing complex questions coherently from a common but multidimensional standpoint.

The College offers interdisciplinary majors and minors in:

African American Studies
American Studies (major only)
Comparative Literature (major only)
Justice and Peace Studies
Global Medieval Studies
Political Economy (major only)
Women’s and Gender Studies

The College offers interdisciplinary minors in:

Catholic Studies
Cognitive Science
Disability Studies
Education, Inquiry and Justice
Environmental Studies
Film and Media Studies
Jewish Civilization
Journalism
Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs
Science, Technology and International Affairs.

The College also offers qualified students the opportunity to design their own formal interdisciplinary major program, integrating multiple disciplines, through the Interdisciplinary Studies application. All students, however, are encouraged to seek connections and synthesis in and amongst their majors, minors, core courses, and electives in order to more fully appreciate the connectedness of the many ways of knowing.

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7. Undergraduate Research

Georgetown College places a central emphasis on research in the formation of students through the ongoing quest for deeper knowing, toward fulfillment of the academy’s public responsibility to expand and improve humanity’s understanding of the world. Students are invited to join faculty in their scholarly work, to learn the methods and approaches of research from disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, and to become independent seekers through asking and answering original research questions. The College provides a variety of opportunities for students to pursue undergraduate research, including in-class projects, fellowships and funding options for independent research in semesters and summers, faculty collaborations as research assistants, and senior capstones and theses.

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