The Mount’s core curriculum is what we might call a “core with a concept.” There’s an educational plan that stands behind the core, and much thought has gone into this plan. The courses are sequenced: you take them in a specific order, since later courses in the core build upon earlier ones. And the core is integrated: themes and ideas which are introduced early on in the core are then picked up on and addressed later.

The Mount’s core curriculum is grounded in our mission as a Catholic liberal arts college. Given that we are a Catholic college, it is important for you, the students, to encounter two semesters of Catholic theology. We introduce theology in the junior year (see the chart on the other side). If you are to make good sense of theology, you will need to have encountered philosophy during the sophomore year, since the Catholic theological tradition has been deeply influenced by Western philosophy. But Western philosophy is different from Eastern philosophy; Western philosophy itself develops out of a specific cultural context. So we ask you to engage in three semesters of study of Western culture during the first and second years. With that background in culture, you can then make better sense of philosophy, and this in turn prepares you for theology.

The above account provides you with some sense of the logic of the sequence of our core curriculum —one sense in which our core is a “core with a concept.” This logic can be filled out by talking about two important strands to our curriculum. One can be called the “cultural legacy” strand, and this is addressed through “Origins of the West,” “Renaissance through Revolutions,” “West in the Modern World,” natural science and social science courses, language courses, “American Experience”, and a course in “Non-Western Culture.” Another strand of the core curriculum involves inquiry into what is worthwhile in human life. This inquiry begins during the first year in Freshman Seminar, is continued in sophomore philosophy and junior theology, and it comes to a head in the senior ethics course.

We at the Mount believe that our core is first-rate and can hold its own against any others out there. We urge you to explore and compare.