June 11, 2021

Dear Class of 2025,

This week’s message follows up directly on the introduction of the Undergraduate Education Office. Take some time and begin to explore the information provided. Yale has so much to offer, you are sure to find many opportunities that spark your curiosity! 

Warmly,
Dean Peck 
 

Dear Yale College Class of 2025, 

In our message last week, we asked you to focus on Yale’s approach to undergraduate education and explained the thinking that underlies our general academic requirements. 

In this week’s message, we invite you to begin to explore Yale’s more than 80 different programs of study. Although it would be premature to declare a major before you arrive, we nevertheless encourage you to take time now to explore different fields of study, especially those that may be new to you. If you do have some potential majors in mind, determine if they require foundational courses that should be taken in your first year.

Yale’s course catalog, Yale Course Search , and Yale’s undergraduate bulletin,  Yale College Programs of Study , lists subjects alphabetically, but on this section of the Yale College website, an Introduction to the Yale Curriculum, we have organized the subjects by the distributional areas that we explained in last week’s message (Humanities and Arts, Social Sciences, Sciences and Engineering) and added a fourth category to cover a group of interdisciplinary programs that fall into more than one area.

Think of your exploration as if you are in your favorite bookstore. You might head over to one section looking for a particular book, but your eyes catch the title of something else interesting on the same shelf. Peek inside the cover. And, on your way to your favorite section, pause to meander through an unfamiliar aisle. You might be surprised by what you discover.

In subsequent messages, we will provide more specific information about things you need to do over the summer related to completing different placement procedures, give practical advice about how to assemble a set of courses for the fall, describe the timeline for fall-term course registration, and explain Yale’s vast array of academic support resources. 

Until our next communication, we wish you the start of a happy summer,

Office of Undergraduate Education