Academics
For more than a century, Puget Sound has offered some of the most forward-looking academic programs in the country, providing a solid intellectual foundation.
Puget Sound’s academic program combines study in the arts, humanities, and natural and social sciences with opportunities for discovery at the intersections of knowledge. At the program’s heart is a challenging four-year core curriculum — a vast set of course offerings from which each student selects eight.
As you navigate the core, you work with an advisor to chart a path through Puget Sound’s 1,200 annual course offerings. By your second year, you declare a major. Options include interdisciplinary programs in fields such as Asian studies, international political economy, and neuroscience. Puget Sound is also the only liberal arts college in the Northwest to offer a liberal arts-focused degree in business through our School of Business and Leadership and a music program of conservatory caliber.
Whether in the classroom or laboratory, on stage, or in the gallery, through academic internships or projects in the greater community, you will find avenues for communicating your ideas and testing your theories. Whatever major you choose, you might also pursue independent research, study abroad experience, and a senior thesis or capstone project. Each is a chance to broaden your perspective and deepen your understanding of yourself and the world around you.
Learn more about:
Featured Department
Foreign Languages & Literature
Studying a foreign language opens doors to the understanding of other cultures and the world around us. Our faculty believes that students should cultivate knowledge of at least one foreign culture through its language as an essential part of a liberal arts education. Encouraging study abroad and cultural study opportunities, the department offers a Dijon study program, immersive language houses, and a German program that contributes to the high number of Fulbright scholars teaching in Germany produced by the university. Learn about the opportunities the Foreign Languages & Literature department has to offer.
Featured Faculty
Nancy Bristow, History
Nancy Bristow teaches 20th century American history, with an emphasis on race, gender, and social change. A member of the college’s Race and Pedagogy Initiative and numerous other campus social justice programs, her research focuses on social cataclysm, such as the social and cultural history of the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. Her books include Making Men Moral: Social Engineering During the Great War. One of Puget Sound’s most accessible and active professors, Nancy was named a 2007 Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation. Learn more about courses in history.
