Catalyst Curriculum

Ripon College’s five-course Catalyst curriculum rigorously develops the 21st-century skills that employers seek while streamlining the path to graduation. Catalyst ensures students are able to complete multiple majors and minors, experiential study and hold internships in four years. Students enjoy extensive freedom to pursue their passions and craft their own academic program of study.

Catalyst consists of five seminars, two in the first year, two in the sophomore year, and the applied innovation seminar in the junior year. The first four seminars are designed to develop the essential skills students need to work collaboratively and independently in the junior seminar, in which they will work in teams mentored by faculty members as they develop and present proposed solutions to large, open-ended questions. The seminars also provide grounding in some basic college-level academic skills and expose students to a range of disciplinary approaches. Graduates who complete the Catalyst curriculum earn a Concentration in Applied Innovation, which documents on the transcript that a graduate has mastered the skills of oral communication, writing, critical thinking, collaboration, quantitative reasoning, information literacy, integration and intercultural competence.

Catalyst Courses and Skill Development