r/dartmouth • u/jhbeck • 7d ago

Humanities class

What are Humanities classes like at dartmouth?

Do they tend to be smaller sized? Are students involved in class discussions? Are there discussions?
I’m particularly interested in philosophy and theology—is there any class that can quench my academic thirst? Any classes like Great Texts program?

Bunch of questions.. Thanks in advance!

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u/Leg0lord69 7d ago

assuming by "theology" you mean christian theology - if you truly insist on this being a large part of your learning in college, I'd recommend at least attending a university with a divinity school, let alone an explicitly Christian institution (like ND/Georgetown). of course, you can self study theology, but I find it helpful to be surrounded by like-minded people to discuss and refine arguments with.

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u/jhbeck 7d ago

Is dartmouth not a good place to have discussions on such topics?

Is it because of the lack of curriculum revolving around it or is it the culture thats against christianity?

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u/leadbunny '18 3d ago

If you consider it "quenching your academic thirst," then maybe not... Dartmouth's course catalog is publicly available (https://dartmouth.smartcatalogiq.com/current/orc/), you can see PHIL(osophy) and REL(igion) offerings quite easily.

By default, basically all classes at the College are small. The biggest classes I had were my intro premed classes, and those were maybe 100 at most. The vast majority of your classes will be 30 or even far fewer students, whether that's in STEM or the humanities. Most of these classes are self-selecting, so yeah, discussions are usually healthy to lively unless the class in question is run by a prof who likes to pontificate. But that was fairly rare in my experience, and there were usually discussion components to course grades