There are several different paths to completing your Thinking Matters requirement.
| Thinking Matters (THINK) | ESF | SLE | ITALIC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commitment | 1 quarter, classes offered in Autumn, Winter, Spring | 1 quarter, only offered in Autumn | 3 quarters (Autumn, Winter, and Spring) | 3 quarters (Autumn, Winter, and Spring) |
| Student Experience | Provides an opportunity to delve into cutting edge topics (Viruses, Spirit of Democracy, Worlds of Sound) and encourages students to explore new subjects | Students will engage with longer texts and use writing as a means of understanding what they have read, of thinking for themselves and of developing a coherent set of aspirations and values | Fosters close relationships among students and instructors in an residential atmosphere that emphasizes critical thinking and interpretation while studying classic texts | Opportunity to join a tightly knit residential artist community while exploring art history and theory and experiencing world class art events through field trips |
| Residence | N/A | N/A | East Florence Moore, mixed class dorm | Burbank, all-frosh dorm |
| Requirements Satisfied | THINK, 1 Way | THINK, WR1, 1 Way | THINK, WR1, WR2, up to 4 Ways if all three quarters completed | THINK, WR1, up to 3 Ways if all three quarters completed |
| Number of Units | 4 | 7 | 24 (8 each quarter) | 11 (4 units in Autumn and winter + 3 units in Spring) |
| Size | 40-90 person in lectures and 15 person discussion sections | 15 persons per seminar/ writing section | 96 person lectures; 15 person discussion sections | 44 person lectures; 15 group discussion sections |
| Structure | Two 50-minute lectures, and two 50-minute discussion sections per week | One 80-minute seminar, two 110 minute writing sections, and one 50 minute Friday plenary per week | Three 60-minute lectures, and two 120-minute discussion sections per week | Autumn: Two 50 Two 80-minute Winter: Two 110-minute writing sections Spring: 110 minutes divided between lecture, section, and art workshop |
Thinking Matters Courses
Thinking Matters courses are meant to develop your ability to ask questions and articulate problems in ways that are as unique as each of you. You will complete a single 4-unit course from over 20 options, offered in autumn, winter, and spring.
Education as Self-Fashioning (ESF)
In Education as Self-Fashioning, we explore this idea from many different perspectives. We consider writings about education by intellectuals working in various fields, with the aim of articulating the ways that education can be used to structure one’s thinking, one’s self, and ultimately one’s life as a whole. Offered in autumn only, ESF offers several thematic 7-unit seminars that integrate the Thinking Matters Requirement and the first-year Writing and Rhetoric Requirement.
Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture (ITALIC)
ITALIC is propelled by a series of provocative questions about the place of the arts across the academic disciplines and in the world outside the university. The class is built around a series of questions about the purpose of art, the unique understandings it makes possible and the challenges it can present to categories of knowledge—history, politics, culture, science, medicine, law. The course makes the arts a frame for exploring existence through a series of close investigations and analyses of major works of the visual, performing and filmic arts, as well as less considered instances of the aesthetic in daily life. ITALIC will explore what the cultivation of aesthetic perception, analysis and experience in art can bring to creativity and perception in areas of human endeavor outside of art. ITALIC is a three-quarter residential program that fulfills multiple requirements in addition to the Thinking Matters Requirement.
Structured Liberal Education (SLE)
SLE is among Stanford’s longest-running programs designed especially for frosh. Since 1974 it has offered an integrated program in humanities classics (literature, philosophy, and the arts) and writing instruction in which the 90 students live together in the three houses of East Florence Moore Hall. Over the three quarters, SLE fulfills multiple requirements in addition to the Thinking Matters Requirement.
