Thematic Option has three broad learning objectives:

Students learn to think across disciplines, to not be constrained by the methods and concepts of any one approach.

The name “Thematic Option” stems from an interdisciplinary strategy for general education, which allows students to trace specific concepts, such as the self, family, or progress, trans-historically and to discover the web of interconnection between academic fields visible from a thematic perspective. For example, CORE 102: Culture and Values may weave together literature, classics, history, philosophy, politics, and biology to consider questions of personal identity and social responsibility.

Students learn to deal with ambiguity.

Many of the challenges and issues our students face do not have clear-cut responses or solutions. T.O. courses are not about providing answers, but asking questions, often the so-called big questions like:

  • What is truth?
  • What is justice?
  • What is love?
  • Who am I?
  • What responsibilities do I have to society?

These are but a few of the grand questions with which T.O. students struggle as they become comfortable with the realm of uncertainty, an open space full of opportunities for exploration and debate within themselves and among each other.

Students develop a love of language, an appreciation for the power of the written and spoken word.

Through the CORE curriculum courses, students get a sense of the history of ideas, along with the ability to critically discuss and open to inquiry so-called traditional works. Students read primary texts rather than textbooks, which allows them to confront the canon on their own terms and form their own passionate points of view.

T.O.’s writing seminars emphasize close reading and argumentation through which students learn to express complex ideas cogently and concisely as persuasive writers. Importantly, students learn to integrate their own ideas with those of others, establishing their authority while supporting their stances with outside sources. Students learn to assess broad rhetorical situations and respond confidently in ways that maintain the integrity of their own voices.

The T.O. Pyramid

Curriculum

T.O. strives to equip students for life as critical and dialectical thinkers, to intelligently and confidently express themselves, and to engage in dialogue within their respective field(s) and across the various perspectives that make up the public sphere. To that end, the T.O. general education curriculum consists of interdisciplinary courses taught around distinct themes and grounded in historical context. These courses are augmented with writing seminars, individual writing tutorials, and an annual undergraduate research conference. Additionally, T.O. students are responsible for several regular G.E. courses which may overlap with their major(s) or minor(s) or be satisfied with outside exam credit.