The St. John’s Program
 

What Is Greek for Competition?

What is the St. John’s Program?

 

St. John’s students read and explore a common body of timeless works—including many of the most important books in history—in close partnership with their classmates and teachers. The college’s coeducational community, free of religious affiliation, takes an open-minded approach to ideas of all kinds. Rather than being told how and what to think about what they’re reading, St. John’s students are asked to reach their own conclusions through deep thinking, critical analysis, and intense discussion.

The program encourages students to explore fundamental questions while developing habits of mind that will prepare them for success in whatever they choose to pursue.

What will I study?
There are no majors at St. John’s. Rather, students pursue a course of study that spans all disciplines. From philosophy to the sciences to literature to music, St. John’s students encounter works that are timeless, and therefore timely—works that have stood the test of history and have something to say about the world today.

All students read the same texts, learn the same languages, and perform the same laboratory experiments. This exposure to a common set of intellectual experiences provides a shared vocabulary and a shared set of references, creating a rich, intimate, and highly interactive community.
What will my classes be like?
All classes at St. John’s are discussion-driven. Through active participation in class discussion, students learn to articulate their own thoughts, to listen carefully to those of others, and to engage in cooperative inquiry. The heart of the St. John’s experience is the seminar, in which a small group of students and two faculty members wrestle together with important and difficult texts, without agenda or lesson plan. Rather, students set the course of the discussion and tutors act as guides and fellow questioners.

In four years of mathematics and language tutorials, three years of laboratory, and two years of music, students practice the liberal arts of translation, demonstration, experimentation, musical analysis, and writing.

Common to all classroom experiences at St. John’s is a seriousness about ideas and an abiding respect for the opinions of others. The resulting environment is a safe place for taking intellectual risks—a necessary precondition for genuine learning.
Who will my teachers be?
Even though most St. John’s faculty members hold a doctorate in a particular field, they are called “tutors” rather than professors. They don’t lecture or “profess,” but instead guide students through an unscripted process of reflection and discovery. Rather than confine themselves to a specific subject or discipline, tutors teach courses across the St. John’s program. This approach has the effect of making students and tutors fellow learners. Rather than being “experts” who bestow knowledge, tutors labor alongside their students to comprehend and analyze a given text or problem.

St. John’s tutors focus on their students rather than on research or publishing. They are almost always available to expand on a class discussion, go over a paper, or discuss something completely unrelated to class. Tutors are deeply committed to the St. John’s approach to liberal education and want to help students engage in it fully.

 Esme Gaisford ’10

Hometown: Eugene, Oregon

Extracurriculars: Theater, newspaper, ceramics, photography, and literary magazine

Plans: Biomedical research
  

What is the St. John’s program? The St John’s program is the reason everyone who is here came here, whether right out of high school or after three years at another institution. It’s unique, and challenging on more than just an academic level.

I love it more then I have ever hated it, and on the right days I have hated it. You see, no one is a natural at everything we do here, no one gets it all right, but that is part of what makes it so brilliant and the people who flourish at St John’s so interesting.We have all faced challenges, whether they were at the board doing Ptolemy and Newton, or translating Baudelaire or Homer in language class.

 

And we have all had amazing successes. Moments of sudden revelation when that diagram you’ve been staring at for two hours suddenly comes together in a whole new way and means something, makes you think in a whole new way. As a senior I still remember with fondness one of the first times it happened to me while working on Euclid’s Elements book 2 proposition 9. I still get goose bumps thinking about it.