Washington and Lee University
With a course catalog that more closely resembles the thickness of the Yellow Pages, Washington and Lee University is a small school with big academic opportunities. Our 1,000+ course catalog was called “the envy of many larger institutions” by The Washington Post.
W&L finds much of its strength in its foundation and distribution requirements (our core curriculum, the FDRs). While every student is required to take courses to satisfy the FDRs, the depth and breadth of our curriculum allow you to choose classes within these requirements that are of the greatest interest to you. For example, a science laboratory class heavy in writing. Or a politics class where you analyze the meaning of the latest Dave Matthews Band song.
We mean business here at Washington and Lee University.
W&L is the only top 25 liberal arts college with an accredited School of Business. That means you can graduate from W&L with a Business degree without sacrificing the value of a liberal arts education.
The Williams School of Commerce, Economics and Politics is home to four majors- Accounting, Business Administration, Economics and Politics. But you don’t have to apply separately to the Williams School. Students can take Politics classes to enrich their Chemistry major or take Japanese to round out their curriculum in Accounting. Anyone, major or not, is welcome. That’s a good way to do business.
News happens fast. But here at Washington and Lee, our journalism students rely on tradition to make news.
Started over 100 years ago, the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications (we call it the J-school for short) is the oldest and one of the smallest accredited journalism programs in the nation. Four majors call Reid Hall home- Broadcast Journalism, Business Journalism, Mass Communications and Print Journalism. In the spirit of a true liberal arts institution, W&L’s journalism faculty have created a converged curriculum. Each student is required to learn the basics of each major- print journalists need to learn how to operate a broadcast camera and broadcast majors must learn to write in A.P. style.
Sick and tired of what they’re serving in the D-Hall? Love the spring musical? Want to dis Paris Hilton’s latest album? Interested in starting a fundraiser to fight AIDS? Then you should get involved with one of W&L’s numerous media opportunities.
W&L publishes 2 student newspapers, 1 student magazine, a literary journal, a business journal, a science journal, not to mention staffing a cable TV station and a radio station. We need people to capture news as it happens on campus. I know what you’re thinking. I have to be a journalism major, right? Wrong. Anyone can write, edit, or produce.
I object!
Here at Washington and Lee there’s no objecting to the benefits of having our own law school. Imagine studying business law in the Williams School. Now imagine studying business law in the Williams School with help from Law School professors.
So you’re interested in law school. With help from your pre-law advisor and your academic advisor you can narrow down the curriculum and law schools that fit the bill. No wonder we have a 95% acceptance rate to law school.
You don’t have to have your juris doctor to attend lectures by leading legal figures including past American Bar Association president Robert J. Grey, Jr (‘76L) and author John Grisham.
You’re getting the best of both worlds- a top liberal arts education with all the resources bigger universities have to offer. How could you object?
While the some of the student body spends the summer interning off campus, slaving away in the Big Apple or rubbing elbows with politicians on The Hill, up to 80 W&L students stay in Lexington to research alongside their favorite professors. The prestigious R. E. Lee Undergraduate Research Program pays for students to investigate topics in biology and chemistry to psychology and sociology. But the deal gets even sweeter. It’s not uncommon for our students to publish their research in leading scholarly journals. Your resume will be full in no time! Live in the city but forget the traffic and the smog- Lexington is the place to be during the summer.
Ethics and the environment. Biology and religion. Art and the economy. Washington and Lee…
We’ve created nine interdisciplinary programs that combine the best classes we have to offer to create a unique academic program. Take Chinese literature, art and language to create a concoction known as East Asian Studies. Study biology, clean up nature trails and complete a course in meteorology to make a program in Environmental Studies. At W&L some things are meant to go together.
The Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability, started in 1997, is another groundbreaking program. The Shepherd Program aims to discover the causes, effects and solutions to poverty in the United States. After completing an introductory course students are encouraged to put the class to the ultimate test by working with low-income people in the United States or Latin America. What better way to learn how to fight poverty than to join the fight yourself?
If you have read the course catalog cover to cover and you still haven’t met your match, create it! Students commonly create a major in International Relations by combining classes in politics, comparative government and languages.
