Your interests are unique. Your college courses should be too.

Let’s start with a quick quiz. How would you like to spend your first year at college?

A. Sitting in lecture halls and yawning through traditional general education requirements
B. Working with a team of students and professors to explore your interests from different perspectives

If you answered B, you’ve come to the right place.

Compass Curriculum

At Wheaton, our unique Compass Curriculum is rooted in the liberal arts and sciences with an innovative twist. Rather than taking a series of required courses across disciplines, you’ll choose areas of interest to you and analyze them through multiple perspectives. It’s a personalized experience that empowers you to explore your interests and pique new ones.

First Year Experience Courses

Your first semester at Wheaton will include a First Year Experience (FYE) course to set the foundation for interdisciplinary learning. FYE courses are led by two or more faculty members from different academic departments. You’ll work alongside a cohort of new students to explore complex issues from different viewpoints. This innovative approach to learning encourages critical thinking, teamwork and communication—key skills employers seek. You can choose from a variety of topics that interest you or explore something entirely new. Here are some of the FYE courses that are planned for fall 2025.

Navigating the Hidden Curriculum in the AI Era

This course equips you with essential computing skills and strategies for navigating the hidden curriculum, preparing you for success in the AI era. You’ll learn to: decode academic and professional norms (e.g., email etiquette, office hours); use AI tools ethically (ChatGPT, Copilot) for research, coding, and writing; apply foundational computing skills (data literacy, Excel, basic Python) to real-world tasks; navigate digital inequities (e.g., bias in AI) and study more efficiently with AI chatbot assistance.

Pillars of Health

This course will investigate the three main pillars of health: Mental, Social and Physical. We will discuss the importance of nutrition, environment, physical activity, stress management, sleep and how as social beings we need human connection. This class will revolve around discussing and implementing ways to be healthier as an individual and a society. We will incorporate active learning with students having new experiences and adventures. Students will be conducting research and giving presentations, all the while exploring a vast array of definitions of what it means to be healthy.

The Science of Food and Fuel

Have you ever wondered how biofuels are made or what’s going on in your bottle of Kombucha? Did you know that there is really no such thing as a zero-calorie energy drink? This FYE course investigates chemical and biological processes behind two crucial power sources: food and fuel. It explores energy flows in their production, seeking to identify inefficiencies and uncover possible alternatives. Class time will include lectures, discussions, writing and hands-on activities. You’ll synthesize fuels and delve into molecular gastronomy and research and report on foods that are culturally and/or personally significant to you.

Thriving in College Through Social Emotional Learning

At a liberal arts college, education is about more than acquiring knowledge—it’s about becoming a reflective, responsible, and engaged individual. This course invites you to develop the social and emotional skills essential for thriving in college and beyond. Grounded in the five core competencies of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making—you’ll explore what it means to understand yourself as a learner and individual, manage the emotional challenges of college life, build meaningful relationships, and develop lifelong skills that support your personal growth and academic success.

The Art of Writing About Art

“Looking is not as simple as it looks,” according to the artist Ad Reinhardt. How can writing help us to look, and eventually see, with more intention? In this course, you’ll explore writing as a tool to think critically and creatively about visual expression. For inspiration, you’ll read a variety of efforts by authors, from historians, journalists, to fiction writers, to analyze and interpret art. If works of art are primarily visual, then how do written texts have such a powerful effect on shaping their meanings?

How Things Work

Why don’t you fall off an upside-down roller coaster? What is the difference between a flashlight and laser? How do your laptops and smart phones turn binary digits into everything you see on the screen or what they can do? Our world is surrounded by science and filled with amazing technologies. This course will take you inside the things that you experience in your everyday life, and you will examine various things from roller coasters to lasers to computer circuits and will gain knowledge of the physics that explains how they work.

Course Curious?

You can spend your first year sitting in general education classes at another college—or creating a personalized experience at Wheaton. Explore all the opportunities we have to offer and discover how you can chart your own course.

Blog updated September 4, 2025