cas.nyu.edu/core
100 Washington Square East, Room 903, New York, NY 10003-6680 • 212-998-8119
Director of the College Core Curriculum and Vice Dean of General Education
Professor Siegal
Executive Director of the Expository Writing Program and Assistant Vice Dean of General Education
Professor Quilter
Director of the Foundations of Contemporary Culture
Clinical Professor Renzi
Director of the Foundations of Scientific Inquiry
Clinical Professor Jordan
The Core Curriculum of the College of Arts and Science provides a foundational academic experience of general education in the liberal arts for undergraduates at NYU. Through a challenging array of courses, the College Core Curriculum heightens cultural awareness, hones critical reading skills, and promotes creative and logical thinking. It also gives students extensive practice writing and speaking English and proficiency in at least one other language. Rather than specifying a fixed canon of knowledge, Core courses focus on modes and methods of humanistic and scientific inquiry. In each case, students are free to pursue particular interests by choosing among a number of courses. Students examine our contemporary culture—its origins and social structures, its modes of expression, and its inherent diversity and evolving patterns of thought. In other classes, they consider the place and importance of modern science—its quantitative and analytical foundations, its processes of reasoning, and its relationship to technology and to our views of the natural world. By helping them to broaden their perspectives, gain new pathways for intellectual inquiry, and develop the skills, background, and social awareness to thrive in dynamic circumstances, the Core Curriculum seeks to prepare students for their later studies and to equip them well for lives as thinking individuals and members of society.