Current student + friends at BMC, ask us anything!

lacscnn
Mon, 23 Mar 2020 20:45:33 +0000

sonataB:

Hi All, My daughter would really prefer an OPEN curriculum, but, at the same time, she is rather in love with Bryn Mawr, can you talk a little about required curriculum? How flexible is it? What does it entail exactly?

Hi @sonataB ! So Bryn Mawr does have a required curriculum, but it’s extremely flexible. I’ll detail the requirements below:

Quantitative readiness/quantitative reasoning: Quantitative readiness is achieved by reaching a certain score on the math section of the ACT/SAT… can’t remember what the scores are, but they’re not crazy high… or by passing a short basic math exam. If you don’t pass the test/your scores don’t hit the benchmark, there’s a course called QSEM which counts as your quantitative readiness requirement. The vast majority of students have this requirement met coming into college, but there’s absolutely no shame in taking QSEM- people actually really enjoy the course and it’s very helpful. Quantitative reasoning can be met through courses like calculus or statistics or in a lot of other departments. There are psych courses that meet the requirement, one called Logic in the philosophy department that really doesn’t involve math in the traditional sense at all… there’s a lot of flexibility and for people not big into STEM it’s not something to worry about at all. One semester course is necessary to meet the requirement.

Foreign language: pretty self-explanatory, BMC offers many language courses and one full year of a single language is needed to meet the requirement. There’s a full list of them on the website, i don’t remember them all right now. I personally recommend Russian, I’m a major and love the department!

Now there’s the 4 approaches to inquiry. It all seems like a lot, but really most students are able to get at least a couple of these in just taking courses they were going to take for their major/minor anyway. One semester of each is required.

1. Critical Interpretation: basically any class that involves a lot of analysis of and interpretation of texts/art/anything else. Example classes: writing for podcast and radio, introduction to comparative literature, history of Chinese art, metaphysics

2. Cross-Cultural Analysis: pretty self-explanatory, anything that centers culture and its impact.
Example classes: anthropology of food, the Philadelphia mosaic: immigrant communities in the city, human rights in China, feminist theory

3. Inquiry into the Past: anything that’s focused on history/how things have changed throughout time in a certain subject, etc.
Example classes: themes in modern African history, introduction to the history of science, landscapes art and racial ecologies

4. Scientific Investigation: pretty much what you think it is, with a fairly loose definition of science that’s very inclusive.
Example classes: astronomical ideas, introduction to data structures, earth’s oceans, introductory psychology

And finally, Emily Balch Seminars. There’s a lot of information on the BMC website about these, but essentially they’re very small writing seminar classes that are centered around a certain subject or idea. These happen in the first semester of the first year, and they’re generally very good and useful classes.

That’s a lot, but I hope it’s helpful! I’ve never met anyone that’s felt boxed in by the requirements; I think the college just wants to make sure that we all take classes in lots of different subjects!