Carleton College

Carleton College is committed to providing a true liberal arts education — a curriculum that challenges our students to learn broadly and think deeply. Instead of training for one narrow career path, Carleton students develop the knowledge and skil , Carleton students develop the knowledge and skills to succeed in any walk of life. The most important thing our students gain is how to learn for a lifetime. Critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, effective communication: these are the tools that transform a collection of facts and figures into a way of understanding the world. Learn more about academic life at Carleton. Carleton’s faculty members are highly respected scholars, researchers, and practitioners in their fields. But above all, their first priority is teaching. Every course at Carleton is taught by a professor — not a teaching assistant — in classes small enough to offer individual attention for our students. A student-faculty ratio of 9 to 1 ensures that Carleton students have plenty of opportunity for interaction with their professors. Carleton’s student body is notoriously difficult to categorize, but if we had to choose just one word to describe them, it would be curious. They’re an intellectually insatiable group that approaches learning with enthusiasm, energy, and a uniquely Carleton brand of playfulness. Broad-ranging interests are common, and friendships seem to cross all traditional boundaries. When people visit Carleton, they’re often surprised by the warmth and closeness of the campus community. Somehow they expect a leading liberal arts college to feel more formidable and competitive. But as our students and alumni will tell you, there’s just something different about Carleton. Maybe it’s our small size. Or maybe it’s the round-the-clock proximity of so many creative minds. Whatever the reason, Carleton is a place where students are likelier to cooperate than compete — and where working hard doesn’t mean forgetting how to play. Learn more about Carleton campus life. “Carleton’s most refreshing characteristic is its genuineness and utter lack of pretension. In our academic endeavors, this sincerity is a major contributor to collaborative learning, and it explains our discomfort with gamesmanship or artifice. Such authenticity also leads to a hunger for unvarnished explanations and real understanding and a glad exuberance in learning for the sake of learning. “If you take that kind of exuberance beyond the purely academic realm, as we regularly insist on doing at Carleton, you will begin to grasp the purposefully playful, even zany, sense of humor that imbues this college. We carry out our practical jokes, hold silent dance parties on tables in the library, and run in madcap pursuit of busts of German literary giants. “By making a point of not taking ourselves too seriously, we show ourselves honestly to friends and colleagues and create community across boundaries that might otherwise divide us.” ...view more