Core Curriculum

We take your education personally

A Butler education will transform you. It will also transform to fit you. Here, you’ll be able to tailor your studies, your research, and your service-learning to the subjects, ideas, and career fields that you’re really interested in. 

Butler’s Core Curriculum is no exception. 

The Core Curriculum is a set of courses designed to make you a sharper thinker, a more accomplished writer, and someone who has the ability to make connections between unrelated concepts. Core courses emphasize the development of key skills—like written and oral communication, intercultural awareness, and analytical reasoning—that will directly transfer to your dream career, post-graduation. And the classes here are so engaging, you’ll be on a want-to-know basis. 

Studying a wide range of topics will challenge you. And Butler is a place for students who will appreciate the challenge. 

The Core Curriculum includes: 

• First Year Seminar: A two-semester sequence in their first year (6 hrs)
• Global and Historical Studies: A sophomore-year sequence of courses (6 hrs)
• Analytic Reasoning (3 hrs)
• The Natural World (5 hrs)
• Perspectives in the Creative Arts (3 hrs)
• Physical Well-Being (1 hr)
• The Social World (3 hrs)
• Texts and Ideas (3 hrs)
• The Social Justice and Diversity Requirement (1 course)
• The Indianapolis Community Requirement (1 course)
• The Butler Cultural Requirement (8 events)

In order to ensure academic quality and integrity, some Core curriculum requirements may only be satisfied by taking courses at Butler University. Other Core curriculum requirements have provisions which allow for completion via transfer credit, AP, or other exemptions. View our Core Curriculum brochure.

For more information about Advanced Placement (AP) credit, International Baccalaureate (IB) credit or College Level Examination Program (CLEP) credit, please click here.

For more information about Butler's Core Curriculum, please contact core@butler.edu or call 317-940-9480.