College of Arts & Sciences
College of Arts & Sciences
New Student Orientation Committee welcoming the latest Hoyas.

Congratulations, future Hoyas!

Founded in 1789, Georgetown University’s College of Arts & Sciences is the oldest school at Georgetown University. With more than 3,500 students, it is also the university’s largest undergraduate school, and is the cornerstone of the university. The College of Arts & Sciences encourages students to take time to explore and reflect through their studies, a process that will help each student become a well-rounded, balanced, and intuitive person. Professors challenge students to think critically and push them to find answers. This is the hallmark of a liberal arts education and one that will serve them well throughout their life.

Did You Know…

65%UndeclaredMore than half of students that arrive at the College of Arts & Sciences as undeclared, and that’s okay!
100,000+Degree CombinationsWith 44 majors and 57 minors, you can forge your own path to wherever it leads you.

Liberal Arts in the Jesuit Tradition

“Every language has its own natural poetry and I was attracted to how much more richly you can understand the culture, if you start to learn the way that they natively express things,” Hannah von Wiehler (C’15) says. “Georgetown helped me so much in regards to my literature and language skills and I’m glad that I ended up on the nontraditional path to being a conductor that I did. Had I known that I wanted to conduct before starting school, I would have gone to conservatory for classical music training. But I am so glad I didn’t know because I actually think Georgetown gave me an incredible education for being a conductor.”

Read Hannah’s Story Learn More About the Faculty of Language and Linguistics
Robert Patterson delivers keynote at the Boys and Men of Color Education Summit

A Scholarly Community

“In order to achieve racial equity and justice we need innovative, imaginative, and integrated critical thinking, writing, listening, and verbal skills. A liberal arts education at Georgetown, in the spirit of educating the whole person, not only builds, develops, and encourages these skills, but it prioritizes these abilities for students to succeed at Georgetown and beyond.”

Read More About Robert Patterson, Professor of African American Studies Learn More About the Newly Launched Racial Justice Institute

Seminars for First-Year Students: Small Cohorts, Signature Courses

As a first-year student in the College, you have access to a selection of unique courses and academic programs designed exclusively for incoming students. These were created to enhance learning and build your personal academic community.

College Seminars

College Seminars introduce first-year students to a number of College disciplines, outside of the typical “intro” mode, and come in a variety of designs, some comprising multiple courses or modules. These seminars tend to focus on problems, both as issues to investigate and as ways into those disciplines’ distinctive methods of understanding and engaging the world. Whether that problem is truth, culture, knowing, speech, race, or class, the seminar environment and integration of subjects invite deep engagement, connection-making, and disruptive discovery. Such experiences are terrific introductions to the academic culture of the College and can be clarifying moments in the long and personal search for one’s choice of major.

LCL Hager Scholars

The LCL Hager Scholars program is designed with our most ambitious students of languages and linguistics in mind. Over the course of this yearlong program, Hager Scholars complete coursework in their major, as well as courses that fulfill core requirements in other disciplines, taught by faculty who are particularly interested in the ways that language study informs their fields. In addition, Hager Scholars complete a biweekly, yearlong colloquium designed to introduce students to LCL faculty and their research, and to expose them to the many opportunities available to language majors outside the classroom, in D.C., and beyond.

Ignatius Scholars

Ignatius Seminars offer students an enormous range of questions and subjects to explore, each course designed by a faculty member invited to teach something personal, something intimately meaningful to them. The variety represents the richness and diversity of the College’s intellectual community. But in this variety, these seminars share a common thread and inspiration, beyond the texts and contexts, that make these Ignatius Seminars. St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order in the 16th century, offered a number of educational insights that animate Georgetown’s curriculum still in 2023. Close faculty-student interaction, reflection, whole-person education, and cura personalis characterize the open and electric atmosphere in our Ignatius Seminars, which in turn provide an important orientation to our deepest educational values and priorities.

The Power of Discovery

“The History Department at Georgetown University has provided me with invaluable mentorship over the last four years. I came to the Hilltop not knowing what type of history I wanted to specialize in — thanks to the mentorship and dedication of many professors, I discovered a newfound love for medieval women’s history. Now, I am a global medieval studies minor and working to complete an honors thesis thanks to the department’s steadfast support and dedication to mentorship.”

Read Katie’s Story Visit the Department of History
Jenny Linares in front of Healy Hall.

Idol Family Fellow and Co-Director Jenny Linares Brings Community to the Hilltop

After participating in the Idol Family Summer Fellowship Program, Jenny Linares (C’23) found the meaning and community she had been searching for on the Hilltop. Now co-director of the fellowship program, Linares hopes to help other Georgetown students find the same sense of belonging.

During Linares’ sophomore spring, Georgetown implemented virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic and though Linares was living on campus, she found it difficult to connect with the community overall. While looking for funding for a summer internship, she discovered the Idol Family Fellowship, decided to apply and was accepted. Linares says that she “loved everything about my experience.”

Read Jenny’s Story Learn More About the Idol Family Summer Fellowship
headshot of Justin in chapel

Royden B. Davis Fellow Justin Goldstein Conducting Research to Optimize Question Answering Results

Computer science major Justin Goldstein (C’24) was selected as a Royden B. Davis Fellow. The sophomore used this fellowship to fund his summer research on passage retrieval for question answering (QA) at Georgetown’s InfoSense Lab. Goldstein says that his work on this project “has given me great insights into how my coursework can be applied.” “It also gives me perspective on how I might shape my computer science education at Georgetown in the years ahead, … AI and Information Retrieval will likely continue to be important in the next century as people rely less on memorizing facts, and more on the tools they use to find facts. This research has allowed me to develop an interest in this subject area and it has shown me how much work there is still left to do.”

Read Justin’s Story Learn More about the Royden B. Davis Fellowship

What’s Coming Next?

The Discover Book is now available! Be sure to check the inside back cover for a little College swag.

DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE DISCOVERY BOOK

Because You Probably Have Questions: The Future Hoyas FAQ

Students must complete a minimum of 120 credit hours. This works out to roughly five courses per semester for eight semesters (although this will vary for students taking intensive language courses, science courses with lab components or 1-credit courses).

In addition, students must fulfill a series of core requirements and the requirements of at least one major program, and achieve a final cumulative grade point average of 2.0 or better.

Incoming students will receive comprehensive materials prior to registration over the summer that explain the core requirements in detail. Review the list of core requirements.

Yes. AP, IB, and 13th Year Program credit awards count toward the course and credit hour totals required for the degree. In some cases, those credits also fulfill core and/or major requirements. In most cases, Georgetown awards credit for AP scores of 4 or 5 and IB scores of 6 or 7 on higher-level exams. More information on advanced credit can be found here. Please note that these policies are subject to change for students entering in Fall 2023; updated advanced credit information will be sent to incoming students over the summer. Please be certain to have your AP/IB scores released to Georgetown by June 30 so that we can minimize delays when we post the credit in July.

Credit may be awarded on a case-by-case basis. Eligible courses must be (1) taught on a college campus or virtually via the college directly (not via the high school) by a member of the college faculty (not a high school instructor); (2) open to college students, not special courses designed for high school students; (3) eligible for credit toward a degree at that college or university; (4) not credited by the high school toward fulfillment of any high school graduation requirements; and (5) taken after the sophomore year of high school. If you have taken college courses and they appear on your high school transcript, we must receive a letter from a high school counselor or principal confirming that the courses meet the conditions listed above.

Because the five undergraduate schools are distinct colleges with separate admissions processes, a student wishing to transfer within the university must submit an application in writing to the school to which he or she wishes to transfer. Students are expected to complete one full academic year in the school to which they were admitted before applying to transfer. However, in rare instances, students may be able to switch schools prior to matriculation. Please contact the Office of Undergraduate Admissions no later than June 1 if you have a strong interest in a school other than the College. See here for more information.

Yes, although some courses are restricted or require special permission from the SFS, MSB, SON, or SOH Dean’s Office for enrollment. Please also note that, in the spirit of a broad education in the liberal arts, students in the College may take no more than six courses in the MSB.

Students who indicated a major at the time of application in a Faculty of Languages and Linguistics (FLL) program, mathematics, computer science or one of the natural sciences, will enter the College with the major declared and immediately begin coursework in the major field. The majority of our students, however, enter undeclared, take a combination of core requirements and elective courses in the first two years, and declare a major by March of the sophomore year.

College of Arts & Sciences students have a network of academic support: advising deans, faculty and peer advisors. We encourage all first-year students to schedule an Academic Road Map (ARM) appointment with their dean/counselor early in the first year. These sessions are typically just 30 minutes long, but they are enormously helpful in clarifying for students when and how they will fulfill core requirements while simultaneously exploring emerging interests and planning major/minor programs of study.

No. We do, however, have a robust pre-health program that can be combined with any of our major programs. Students who plan to go to medical (or dental or veterinary) school pursue this path through a set curriculum and a range of extracurricular activities. They receive strong support and advising from both faculty in the sciences and pre-health advisors in the Dean’s Office. Please visit here for more information.

Unlike medical schools, law schools do not require a specific pre-law curriculum. Students considering law school should concentrate on courses that demand and develop analytical thinking skills and clear written expression. The flexibility of the College curriculum gives students in any major ample opportunities to select courses in areas that will serve them well as a background for a career in law. Students interested in law school should also consult the website of the Cawley Career Education Center for further information.

Yes. The College of Arts & Sciences has several first-year seminar programs that allow students to work closely with faculty mentors in small classroom environments. Incoming students will receive comprehensive materials in May which will describe these opportunities and invite students to apply.

  • In May, you will receive information outlining your First-Year Seminar options. While we are generally able to accommodate interest in the First Year Seminars, applications are required due to limited space. The deadline to apply to these seminars is early June. 
  • In early July, we will give you access to a course that will guide you through the registration process. You will then have several weeks to prepare for fall semester course registration, with help from your peer advisor and your academic dean/counselor. Fall 2023 course registration for new first-year students begins Friday, July 28, 2023.
  • In late August, you will participate in New Student Orientation. See orientation.georgetown.edu for more information.

Although the Office of Admissions will be able to answer the majority of your questions, please feel free to contact the College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office at 202-687-6045 or collegedeans@georgetown.edu if you have academic questions.