The College of Liberal Studies (CLS), established in 2009, seems to sail with fair wind, as students find the ‘open curriculum’ of CLS an extraordinary opportunity to choose their own fields of study.

Pledged to a special faith of its own that higher education should broaden the academic scopes of students as much as it should train and equip students with knowledge, CLS states its vision as ‘active learning’.

For this purpose, CLS grants its students two unique opportunities. One is the freedom to select any major offered by the university with few exceptions, and the other is the privilege to design their own major under faculty supervision.

Courses suitable for such academic explorations are provided. And students testify of their unprecedented learning experience in courses like ‘Selected Topics Seminar’ in which 3-4 instructors with different areas of expertise share views to illuminate a single topic from different perspectives.

With respect to major design especially, courses unique to CLS such as ‘Individual Course Design,’ ‘Liberal Research,’ and ‘Integrated Design of Major’ among others are offered to help students create their own major, preferably in an interdisciplinary or convergent way.

This emphasis on heuristic methodology is balanced with participation in a ‘Mentoring Program’ which serves as a navigator that maps out routes for students. In the program, junior students benefit from counseling offered by senior students- some of them in graduate schools- at least twice a week.

What highlights CLS’s first year is the publication of an English-language journal published by the students, Panthalassa, meaning ‘all seas’ in Greek. Panthalassa contains students’ deliberation upon and accounts of their involvement in both curricular and extra-curricular activities as well as their intellectual explorations of how “active learning and independent study” are institutionalized around the world.

The journal underlines student’s travel journals and remarks on liberal education at foreign universities, as students who were in the Global Summer Camp and the International Student Exchange Program funded by CLS and the university respectively, share their insights on the prospective path of CLS.

In 2010 admissions, 65 students in liberal arts and 45 in natural science have been already admitted to CLS through early decision, and candidates for the remaining 27 and 20 seats respectively in the regular admissions cycle are currently under review.

Jan 19, 2010
SNU PR Office