The Bachelor of Arts Completion program draws liberally from the humanities and social sciences, bringing diverse perspectives into dialogue. The curriculum is organized around three ever-widening but interconnected themes: the self, culture, and the cosmos.

Students focus on these themes, exploring them through a variety of journal articles, books, and projects. The theme-based curriculum serves as a launching pad for self-discovery, assists students in the pursuit of their personal interests, and helps them meet their individual learning goals.

The Self

Students focus on developing an understanding of the dimensions of the self. This includes discovering and reflecting upon multiple ways of knowing as a learner, such as somatic, affective, cognitive, intuitive, and spiritual.

• Modern Perspectives
Students gain multiple perspectives on life in the modern world. The course draws liberally from the humanities -- literature, art, spiritual texts, cultural theory -- allowing students to examine critically and reflectively the ways in which we live in contemporary society.
• Integral Learning
Students read texts on the learning process and explore what an " integral" education can be. They reflect on life-changing learning experiences, and explore new ways to learn -- and unlearn.
• Self and Society
Through writing, drawing projects, and experiential exercises, students learn to understand themselves with more awareness and to reflect deeply on the relationship of the self to others.

Culture

Students move out from the self to encompass the self in relation to culture and community. They reflect on their responsibility within personal, community, and societal relationships.

• Culture and Community
Students explore what it means to engage, define, and describe a culture. They use their
skills to reflect, experientially and in writing, on the culture of their cohort, CIIS, and of
academia itself.
• Knowledge and Inquiry
Students analyze multiple perspectives on acquiring knowledge and conducting inquiry. This course, a companion to the research writing course, provides students with a variety of conceptual frameworks, such as systems theory, that they can use as tools in interdisciplinary learning.
• Research Writing and Development
Students learn how to develop and prepare a research proposal. They develop basic library research skills and address a range of research-related issues, such as bias, data collection, and the legitimacy of sources and methods.

The Cosmos

Students explore issues of social change, ecological systems, and environmental justice, and directly engage these questions through a series of field exercises.

• Global Studies
Students have the opportunity to engage and explore issues that affect them on a personal and global level, with an emphasis on looking at these issues from multiple perspectives, including environmental, political, psychological, and spiritual. A student might explore an environmental topic, for example, from both the environmental justice and the ecopsychological perspectives. Class activities include: fieldwork and research, the writing of reflections and reports, presentations or performances, and experiential or arts-based exercises.
• Social Change/Personal Responsibility
Students reflect on issues of ethics, spiritual belief, and the relationship between individuals and community. They study the possible relationships between personal perspectives and choices and action in the world, as well as the role of the individual in social change.
• Integrative Project
Students design and complete a project that integrates their work and learning in the Bachelor of Arts Completion program. The project includes a written document and bibliography, as well as an experiential presentation with the student's cohort.

Students in the Bachelor of Arts Completion program may also take graduate-level classes offered at CIIS. These courses cannot, however, be applied to a graduate course of study.