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
Politics and Government
Why does democracy take root in some countries and not in others? Why do wars occur, and how can they be prevented? What is the best way to organize elections and encourage political participation? How much power should be in the hands of the people as opposed to the government? How do legal systems function, and what is the best way to pursue justice? What is the ideal balance of freedom and equality and can politics be a means to that end? For the answers to these questions and more, check out the P&G blog
and visit the Politics and Government Web site.
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.
