Covenant’s Core Curriculum

The Covenant College Core equips you to confidently explore the breadth of God’s world with intentionality, rigor, and wonder.

At Covenant College we invite you to have your world expanded rather than narrowed. We believe that exploring widely, engaging critically, and loving fully can transform both you and your community. Exposing you to new academic worlds filled with possibilities, Covenant promises to help you discover areas of interest you didn’t even know you had, from psychology to philosophy, from literature to the laboratory sciences. At the same time, you dive deep into a specialization, being mentored by faculty who are highly regarded in their fields.

At Covenant, every student participates in the Core and every student completes an integrative, guided capstone project in their major. We believe that our robust, shared Core actually enhances your ability to excel in your particular field. In our fast-changing world, a truly educated person needs both focused specialization and broad competencies to adapt to ever-changing workplaces.

You should come with high expectations. This isn’t Sunday School. This is a vibrant, intellectually stimulating environment where ideas are taken seriously and we allow ourselves to be challenged, recognizing that all good gifts are from God Himself.

Program Goals

Understand yourself, in all your dimensions, as created in the image of God
Gain a knowledge of the basics of scripture and the doctrines within it
Develop a framework for thinking about human behavior, the study of God’s world, and the nature of knowledge
Sharpen your skills for problem solving and academic inquiry
Communicate effectively
Practice faithful cultural empathy and engagement

Course Sequence

In your first year, you’ll develop the key skills of writing and critical analysis while thinking about the big picture of what it means to seriously engage faith and learning. You’ll learn how to study God’s Word closely and apply it to the entirety of your life.

COR100 The Christian Mind
BIB 111 Old Testament Introduction
BIB 142 New Testament Introduction
ENG 111 English Composition
HWC 154 Fitness for Life
Mathematics requirement
One year of elementary-level foreign language

Throughout your second year, you’ll not only investigate the contours of your chosen major, but you’ll also explore theological and philosophical questions from historic traditions. Along the way, we’ll ask you to stretch yourself by taking courses across disciplines, recognizing that the questions you thought only related to one area can actually be illuminated by others.

BIB 277 Christian Doctrine I
BIB 278 Christian Doctrine II
COR 225 Cultural Heritage of the West I
COR 226 Cultural Heritage of the West II
Fine arts requirement
Social science requirement

In your third year, you’ll dig deeper into the content and methods of your major as you settle on a direction for your capstone project. At the same time we’ll challenge you to confront the realities of our contemporary world and your responsibilities to it in unique, multidisciplinary courses.

COR 340 Christ and Cultural Seminar
HIS 325 Contemporary World History
COR 337 Intercultural Experience
Humanities requirement
Natural Science Lab requirement

All of this culminates in your fourth year with a guided capstone project that draws on both the particular skills you’ve honed in your discipline and the broader insights gleaned from other fields of study. Honoring the differences between disciplines, the capstone can take many different forms, but it is always a rigorous academic project shaped by gospel truth.