ATLANTA - On August 29, Oglethorpe freshmen will embark on a personal journey through the Core of the university. Oglethorpe’s unique Core Curriculum, which has been nationally recognized by The New York Times and Washington Post, is a sequenced, interdisciplinary program that takes each student on a personal journey through time and culture by studying classic texts.

The Core develops writing, analytical and problem-solving skills and aims at creating a community of learners schooled in more than one discipline. Students are taught to think, not memorize, through this program.

Senior Maggi Pigram feels that what she studies in Core often pertains to what she and her friends are studying in other classes. “It helps us make connections between seemingly unrelated things and helps me connect my English classes to what my friends are leaning in science, politics or psychology classes, so that we really end up with the big picture.”

Because each student takes the same Core classes there is a real sense of community on the Oglethorpe campus. “It’s more than classes to me – Core embodies a set of expectations, a shared language that transcends academic departments and gives students and faculty from all over the academic spectrum a way to relate to one another,” said Oglethorpe senior Rachael Maddux.

The effects of the Core are not just seen on campus. Geoff Crider ’04 now works on CDC projects with BearingPoint Consultants. Geoff knows that the Core and his Oglethorpe education prepared him for his new profession. “I feel that if I had gone to any other school, I wouldn’t have been able to jump into a field and career completely outside of what I studied in school.”

In addition to the ability to reason, read and speak effectively, the Core program asks students to reflect upon and discuss matters fundamental to understanding who we are and what we ought to be. This pursuit includes how we understand ourselves as individuals (Core I-“Narratives of the Self”) and as members of society (Core II-“Human Nature and the Social Order”), how the study of our past informs our sense of who we are (Core III-Historical Perspectives on the Social Order”) and the ways in which the practice of science informs us on the physical and biological processes influencing human nature (Core IV-“Science and Human Nature”).