In this seminar, you’ll read challenging literary texts and develop fundamental skills in analysis and writing that will prepare you for college coursework and beyond.

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Tackle challenging material, often across fields, as you develop your ability to read critically, speak clearly and effectively, and write logically and persuasively. Developed by faculty based on their research interests, First-Year Seminars give you a strong jumping-off point for your coming years at Barnard by allowing you to choose an interdisciplinary topic aligned with your interests.

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Barnard history professor Mark Carnes pioneered the game-based teaching and learning experience Reacting to the Past. Since its inception, hundreds of colleges have implemented the experience, leveraging role-playing games to absorb the nuances of classic texts and wrestle with thorny issues. Here, present-day Barnard and Columbia undergraduates play “Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945.”

You start exploring your Distributional Requirements in your first year. They’ll expose you to the disciplines, approaches, and skills that together form a Barnard education. Certain courses may even satisfy the requirements within your major. 

You will complete two courses in each category; courses for all GERs must bear a minimum of 3 credit points: 

I. Arts & Humanities

Requirement: Two courses that explore modes of cultural and artistic expression. 

Aim: This requirement engages students in the diversity of experience, crossing periods and geographies through analysis of the processes and products of cultures and through the creation of students’ own scholarship and creative work. Students will explore the wide array of ways that people respond to the historical and social contexts in which they live, create meaning, and express ideas and values. In turn, students learn to apply that knowledge and engage in the conversations of the present day. 

Courses for the Arts & Humanities requirement will engage students in activities that may include the following learning outcomes: 

• Recognize and analyze how meaning, ideas and values are generated and expressed through forms of cultural production such as architecture, art, dance, film, music, performance, theatre, and spoken and written texts.  
• Examine, compare, and question different perspectives in a variety of historical, social and linguistic contexts; 
• Produce texts and other forms that communicate and reflect on the human experience and the world in which we live; and 
• Engage in the creation, execution or performance, criticism, theorization, and historicization of forms of cultural production.

II. Social Sciences

Requirement: Two courses that prepare students to analyze societies and social structures critically and constructively through theoretical and empirical inquiry. 

Aim: The social sciences investigate and explain the form and function of human collectives and their related social and cultural structures and institutions, including their informal and formal operations and effects. The social sciences are especially concerned with how these collectives, structures, and institutions both vary across time and place and follow patterns, how they are shaped by individual and group behaviors, and how power is distributed across different groups. Students will study individuals, groups, institutions, and their relations. They will learn strategies to make sense of quantitative and qualitative data such as causal reasoning, hypothesis testing, and critical analyses of the meanings and measures of empirical categories. 

Courses for the Social Sciences requirement will engage students in activities that may include the following learning outcomes: 

• Apply methods of social science research such as ethnography, interviewing, analysis of material culture, and statistical and comparative historical analysis, to the study of human behavior and social institutions in a variety of settings and contexts; 
• Analyze the social forces that shape opportunity and power in various    social contexts and the interplay between individual action and collective social life;
• Evaluate and use evidence to reason critically and argue creatively about social science theories and phenomena of the social world; and 
• Interpret how scholarship in the disciplines has approached social problems or influenced organized efforts to ameliorate social problems.

III. Sciences

Requirements: 

1. One approved science lecture + lab combination. 
2. One additional approved science lecture or additional approved science lecture + lab combination.  

Aims: Courses in the sciences address natural phenomena and applied technologies, and the mechanisms that mediate them, across a vast range of scales and applications. Students will gain a working knowledge and appreciation for current theories and methods as well as active areas of research. Courses meeting the science lecture requirement may also explore the role that science and scientists play in shaping society. Students and instructors in science laboratory courses come together in person at a common location for a minimum of one 2 h 45 min. session per week. Student activities in laboratory courses will include: experimental design to test hypotheses; use of appropriate techniques to conduct experiments or make observations; data collection; analysis, interpretation and communication of performed work and results; evaluation of hypotheses based on conclusions. 

Courses for the Science requirement will engage students in activities that may include the following learning outcomes:

• Describe and apply scientific paradigms and approaches;
• Evaluate experimental evidence and analyze the interplay of observations and data; 
• Apply knowledge and problem-solving skills to develop hypotheses, test predictions, and model natural phenomena; and 
• Analyze evidence to refine and develop hypotheses. 

IV. Languages

Requirement: Two courses in the same language other than English to allow students to explore a new language or deepen their skills in a language they have already studied or used. 

Aim: The world is inherently multilingual and multicultural. The study and use of multiple languages during their college experience exposes students to a greater diversity of perspectives. Gaining competence in another language broadens and deepens understandings of historical, cultural, and political topics while enabling participation in personal, public, educational and professional settings. For many students language instruction is also an essential component of preparation for a meaningful study abroad experience, and for every student it informs life at the College and the surrounding communities. Few of the languages taught at Barnard and Columbia could truly be considered foreign in New York City (where, in addition to English, more than two hundred different languages are spoken), and the city’s diversity itself becomes part of the language curriculum. Language study also leads students to become better researchers and more informed members of the global community. 

Courses for the Language requirement will engage students in activities that may include the following learning outcomes: 

• Understand the structural components (grammar, syntax, lexicon) that comprise a language; 
• Engage in acts of communication taking into account a variety of contextual factors that shape how a language is used and understood; 
• Analyze historical, cultural, and political production; and 
• Create texts or other artistic works. 

  » Courses currently satisfying these requirements

The six Modes of Thinking are at the heart of the Foundations curriculum. They emphasize the dynamic process of thinking over the certainty of knowing. As with the Distributional Requirements, you will find that some courses for your major will fulfills Modes. 

You will complete one course in each mode; courses for all GERs must bear a minimum of 3 credit points. *Please note that first-year students entering in fall 2025 and after, must take their Modes of Thinking courses at Barnard. 

Fulfillment criteria for each Mode: 

Courses fulfilling these requirements will incorporate at least one of the following as indicated on the syllabus: 

1. A dominant and unifying theme in the course that corresponds to the aim of the Mode of Thinking and at least one of the learning outcomes. That theme should be addressed in at least 30% of the course sessions through the readings, topics and/or activities within class sessions. 
2. A significant portion of assignments, projects, or exams demonstrating achievement of one of the learning outcomes for the Mode of Thinking. That portion should be required for all students and should account for at least 30% of the overall grade. 

I. Thinking Locally- New York City

Requirement: One course that asks students to examine the community and environment in which they find themselves as residents of New York City. 

Aim: This requirement encourages students to situate themselves in a local context. In this respect, New York is not just the backdrop of their undergraduate experience but is equally a rich and diverse object of study in its own right. New York is both a wholly distinctive metropolis and a microcosm of contemporary world experience. The requirement can be met through the study of many topics, from the literature of the Harlem Renaissance to the ecosystems of the Hudson River, from the architecture of the Gilded Age to contemporary urban planning. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Examine specific cultural, social, political, or economic institutions that have shaped the city over time 

• Analyze distinctive geological or environmental factors that characterize the region 

• Describe the contexts and distinctive features of at least one author, genre, or tradition characteristic of New York City

• Situate art, architecture, literature, urban planning, or performance within the social or historical context of the city 

• Explore theories of urban structure or form focusing on New York City as an exemplar

II. Thinking through Global Inquiry

Requirement: One course that asks students to consider communities, places, and experiences within a global perspective. 

Aim: This requirement asks students to engage with topics that consider the dynamic global relationships among people, ideas, artifacts, or physical phenomena. The subjects or objects of inquiry may span multiple regions, nations, cultures, ethnicities, races, religions, histories, or art forms. This requirement will encourage students to expand their perspectives on the world and their place in it. It complements the Thinking Locally—New York City mode in highlighting the ways in which global engagement involves a consideration of the local as well as the global. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Examine the ways in which cultural, social, political, or economic phenomena may have impacts that transcend national and regional boundaries
• Articulate the distinctions among “local,” “international,” and “global” in the context of one or more systems—e.g., economic, judicial, literary, philosophical, political, and scientific 
• Interpret cultural assumptions and value systems displayed in materials from various cultures 
• Analyze instances of global, transnational, multicultural, or multilingual exchanges or dynamics 
• Apply multilingual skills to analyze how cultures are constructed and interact with one another

III. Thinking Technologically & Digitally

Requirement: One course that engages students with contemporary and emerging fields such as computational sciences and coding, digital arts and humanities, geographic information systems, or digital design.

Aim: This requirement emphasizes courses in which students use, produce and/or critically analyze advanced technologies through creative productions, scholarly projects, scientific analysis or experimentation. The requirement will instill in students the confidence to make decisions about the adoption and use of current and future technologies in an ethical, critical, and creative manner. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Demonstrate proficiency in writing computer code or in using technology to construct knowledge or produce creative or scholarly works 
• Analyze the development, efficiency, or use of digital and technological resources 
• Use digital tools critically and creatively to gather, access, evaluate, and synthesize relevant materials 
• Complete a project that demonstrates an understanding of technology concepts, systems, or operations

IV. Thinking about Social Difference

Requirement: One course through which students examine how difference is constituted, defined, lived, and challenged in cultural, social, historical, and/or regional contexts. 

Aim: This requirement encourages students to engage with disparities of power and resources in all of their manifestations, including but not limited to access to economic or natural resources, political rights, social status, and cultural expression. Areas of study may include race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality, or religion and their intersections within contemporary and historical experiences. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Articulate or illustrate the various ways that groups understand themselves to be different and how they mobilize difference in the pursuit of a range of ends
• Analyze the intersectional nature of differences in cultural, social, national, and/or international contexts 
• Critique the modes through which such differences are expressed
• Explain the relations between categories of difference and the general principles of hierarchy and inequality

V. Thinking with Historical Perspective

Requirement: One course that enables students to study events and societies of the past, to learn theories and methods of historical analysis, and to discover how different understandings of history shape our conceptions of both past and present. 

Aim: This requirement asks students to examine the ways in which historical context shapes and conditions the world in which we live; it also challenges them to see the past on its own terms. By fulfilling this requirement, students will have a better understanding of the ways in which human experience is shaped by both time and place. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Describe historically specific cultural, social, political, or economic structures, and the dominant actors and ideas relevant to the period, region, or theme of the course 
• Explain significant commonalities and differences between structures and ideas specific to the period, region, or theme under study and those in the present
• Evaluate the methodology and evidence used by scholars to study the period, region, or theme of the course 
• Analyze literature, art, or other cultural forms in a historical context 

VI. Thinking Quantitatively & Empirically

Requirement: One course that exposes students to empirical and mathematical analysis and tools for problem solving. 

Aim: This requirement asks students to develop basic competence in the use of one or more mathematical, statistical, or deductive methods. These may involve applications to particular problems, as in the case of models or data analysis, but may also simply involve abstract reasoning, as in pure mathematics or logic. 

Learning Outcomes: 

• Use at least one method of quantitative or deductive reasoning for problem-solving 
• Evaluate and/or apply quantitative or empirical conceptual tools and procedures for a purpose or function 
• Create a project involving organizing, analyzing, and visualizing data

After completing a course, you may submit an appeal for a GER designation via the Student GER Appeal Form. If approved by the COI Sub-Committee of Student Appeals, the form is submitted to the Registrar’s Office and your degree audit is updated. Please note that only courses with at least 3 credits are eligible for GERs. Reference the catalogue if you'd like to get a better understanding of the Modes of Thinking. If you are appealing for Nine Ways of Knowing, please reference the aims on this page in the online course catalogue.

The Office of the Registrar handles any GER appeals for summer or transfer courses.