Our Learning Approach

Freedom to Explore Your Interests and Create Your Own Unique Education

Choose the subjects that are most compelling to you without being limited by traditional majors or minors. You can combine subjects from different disciplines to create a degree that is truly all your own.

�鶹�� also provides structure and guidance to help you make the most of your time here. We can help you develop a Path, which is an intentional plan for your educational journey. Your Path will help you stay on track and taking the courses and programs that are just right for your interests.

Path to Your Degree

With this interdisciplinary approach, you'll build knowledge and skills that break through academic boundaries to achieve your future goals.

Explore

Discover new subjects, build key skills, and broaden your knowledge.

Refine

Refine your interests and try
intermediate or advanced work.

Dig Deep

Add depth with practical and field experience through
community-based learning or in-depth research.

Focus

Apply what you have learned with a capstone project or internship that will prepare you for work or graduate school.

Select a Pre-Built Path

Immerse yourself in a pre-built path and connect with a close-knit cohort that shares your specific interests.

Explore Pre-Built Paths

Shape Your Own Path

Choose from programs and courses in different fields of study to customize a Path to your degree.

Explore Fields of Study

We’re constantly updating the �鶹�� curriculum to create timely, topical pre-built Paths such as:

The Five Foci

Photograph of students of all ages and races, holding a discussion on chairs in a circle outside amongst shrubs and bushes. A large wooden cabin is in the background.

Our Shared Foundation

What unites the �鶹�� experience? No matter what path you choose, every student approaches academics through what we call the Five Foci.

Three female students with notebooks sit close to a piece of artwork made of wood and flowers on the floor, holding a discussion, inside an art gallery. Other students are visible in the background doing the same.

Interdisciplinary Study

Blend your interests to create a customized degree. Weave together ideas and concepts from diverse subject areas as you prepare to tackle real-world issues in all their complexity.

Five students of different races and backgrounds, 2 male and 3 female, sit outside on an overgrown loading dock laughing and discussing topics. Trees and industrial buildings are visible in the background.

Collaborative Learning

Community instead of isolation. Shared success instead of competition. At �鶹��, you'll develop knowledge and skills through shared learning and mutual support.

Four students, 3 female and one male, sit around a white table with a female teacher discussing class topics

Learning Across Significant Differences

It's not enough to recognize diverse ways of being in the world. You'll actively cultivate respect for differences and learn how to bridge them—critical skills for a changing world.

A male student is featured in focus as he holds up a piece of metal for examination. Other metal components are shown as blurred in the foreground.

Personal Engagement

Grapple with new ideas and harness your passions as you develop the capacity to judge, speak, and act on the basis of your own reasoned beliefs.

A group of male and female students stand within a forested area as their professor kneels on the ground discussing leaves and other plant life.

Linking Theory with Practical Applications

Learn outside the classroom. You'll get a firm grasp of abstract theories when you practice them in hands-on projects, activities and real-world situations.

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Immersive Learning in Programs

�鶹�� students "live in the learning," as one alumni puts it. Everything you do is integrated with everything else. Your program is your creative, intellectual, and experiential home where you inquire, experiment, try hard, give and receive support, and most important s-t-r-e-t-c-h in new ways.

Your fellow students and your faculty are your primary community: you'll get to know each other and rely on each other, building unique friendships grounded in common interests and commitments.

More About Programs

Learn by Doing

Build community. Conduct original research. Dig in the dirt. Design and stage a performance. From cutting-edge labs to the �鶹�� organic farm, you’ll dive into unique, hands-on opportunities to explore your passions.

the back of a students head, looking over their shoulder at a wood carving they are working on

Labs and Studios

From 3-D animation to wood carving, multimedia production to fiber weaving, we offer state-of-the-art laboratories and studios to support your inquiries outside of a traditional classroom.

More About Labs & Studios

Organic Farm

This five-acre living lab is home to vegetable gardens, beehives, fruit orchards, chickens—and passionate students researching agriculture, soil health, water conservation and organic farming techniques.

More About the Organic Farm

A Living Campus

In Olympia, explore a campus ecosystem that ranges from trails and forest to Puget Sound beachfront. Walk the woods and kayak the waters for a unique education that no classroom can contain.

More About the Olympia Campus

Greener Terminology

At �鶹��, how we evaluate and document your academic journey is different from a traditional college. Instead of declaring a major or receiving letter grades, we have a more comprehensive process to capture both the breadth and depth of your experiences here. The following terms will become familiar to you as a student and are key to understanding the academic experience.

Field of Study

Academic topic or discipline

You can mix a variety of interests and, instead of declaring a major, develop your own area of emphasis in more than 40 Fields of Study based on your unique goals.

A Field of Study is a focused area of study, such as a discipline or an interdisciplinary area. Fields of Study show you what you can study at �鶹��.

Explore Fields of Study

Path

An academic plan

A Path is a set of programs and courses that provides a way to move from introductory to advanced undergraduate study in one or more related fields. You can identify with a Path developed by �鶹�� or design your own Path to build an area of emphasis.

More About Paths

Evaluations

A reflection of your progress, more representative of your work than a simple letter grade

Narrative evaluations express the thinking that went into your work, what you completed and the reactions of both you and your faculty members to your work. These detailed documents often provide specific examples of achievement or progress.

More about Narrative Evaluations

Academic Statement

An essay summarizing what you have learned and achieved at �鶹��

Your academic statement will help you review, reflect upon, and connect common themes in your education each year. This process will help you in forging your path at �鶹��. Academic statements are submitted at the end of each year.

More About Academic Statements

What does it mean to succeed at �鶹��?
Learn about our Six Expectations

Students work closely with faculty to meet these expectations and build them into their academic plan as they pursue their educational journey at �鶹��.

Six Expectations of an �鶹�� Graduate