The Core

We’ll change your mind.

During all four years, you and your professors share an intellectual exchange that addresses life’s big questions across all disciplines. You learn about yourself, the global community, the historical perspectives that brought us here, and how all of these come together. What you learn in the Oglethorpe Core will set you apart from the competition, not just in your first job, but every one after that.

The Core will challenge how you think about yourself, the world, and everything in it. It’s designed to provoke (sometimes heated) discussion. Our graduates say that it actually changes the way their minds work – a function that they can never turn off.

Philip Weltner, Oglethorpe’s president from 1944-1953 and founder of the Core, once said “Oglethorpe University insists that the object is not to pass a subject; the object is to take and keep it.” The Core is designed to ensure that what you learn, you keep.

Job training… for every job you’ll ever have.

The Core is an intentionally designed sequence of courses, with each course building upon the body of knowledge in the previous course. It’s very likely that early in your academic career at Oglethorpe, you’ll find yourself wondering what the text you’re reading has to do with your major. But you’ll stick with it until that one day when you have that “aha!” moment. We call that the Core Moment.

Yours may come one day in class. It may come during your internship or while studying abroad. Or it may come to you while serving in the community. Whenever or wherever it happens, you will have your Core Moment, because it’s at this intersection of the Core and real-world experiences that the real “magic” of an Oglethorpe education happens.

That “magic” is simply learning – and we promise the type of learning that will send you into the world prepared for every job you’ll ever have.

  • You emerge as a much better writer.
  • You come to relate concepts and ideas, even when they are complex.
  • You learn to analyze, synthesize and think on your feet.
  • You are better prepared to lead initiatives and motivate people.
  • You are able to hold your own in every conversation you have.

The Core is staffed by faculty from a wide variety of disciplines who collaborate towards the common goal of fostering in students a love of learning and a desire to learn, to think, and to act as reflective, responsible beings throughout their lives.

Core Courses

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Hear how the Core program helped this Oglethorpe student to land a dream internship: