Cultivating the Educated Imagination

The College of Letters is a three year, interdisciplinary major for the study of European literature, history, and philosophy, from antiquity to the present.  During these three years, students participate as a cohort in a series of colloquia in which they read and discuss works together (in English), learn to think critically about texts in relation to their contexts and influences—both European and non-European—and in relation to the disciplines that shape and are shaped by those texts.  Majors also become proficient in a foreign language and study abroad in order to deepen their knowledge of another culture.  The COL, a unique college within the University, has its own library and workspace where students can attend lectures, study together, and meet informally with their professors, whose offices surround the library.