This page will guide you through the key elements of the Individualized Learning Plan, the central requirement of application to the program, and the heart of the learning experience for Individualized Studies students.
What is a liberal education?
Students often come to Individualized Studies with misconceptions about the program and its goals. One common misconception concerns the distinction between professional training and a liberal education. Professional training teaches skills specific to a career or job (that is, a profession). Classic examples are business, engineering, or architecture at the undergraduate level, or law or medicine at the graduate level. By contrast, liberal education focuses on skills broadly applicable to any profession: critical thinking, analytical, and communication skills, as well the breadth necessary to be an engaged citizen of a democracy. The goal of a liberal education is not to teach job‐specific skills.
Individualized Studies offers a liberal education. Indeed, we see it as the prototypical liberal education. We do not offer professional degrees in whole or in part (for example, “the business of X”). If you are seeking a degree to provide the skills particular to a specific career, Individualized Studies is not the major for you.
A strong liberal education balances breadth and depth. Although Individualized Studies students’ interests are interdisciplinary, the courses across these disciplines must be held together by a strong intellectual focus. It is not enough to know a collection of facts. This program is, quite the opposite, about deeply understanding something, because that deep engagement develops the critical thinking skills intrinsic to a liberal education.
The Learning Plan is much more than a course list; it articulates a vision for the rest of your academic career. It makes the case that what you propose to learn is worth learning, and that you can learn it. A good idea is not good enough if we cannot know that you can actually learn what you
want to learn. This is more than an “application” to the program; it is your proof that you can complete the program.
General details
The notes below offer some detail on each of the elements of the learning plan. You may include whatever supplemental materials you wish beyond those below. But be sure you include everything listed here. Simply put, if you cannot complete this plan, we will not believe you can complete the major. Recall that you cannot reapply; if you are denied, Individualized Studies is no longer an option. Be sure you understand the stakes.
1. Statement of purpose.
This is the rationale for your program. In broad terms, what do you want to learn, and why? Why can’t you learn this in an existing UW program?
This is your first impression; make it count. Demonstrate that you understand the goals of a liberal education, that you are committed to those goals, and that you can meet them. You should convey, above all, a passion for the topic and for learning in general. If it is clear that you merely want “to graduate,” you will be denied – not because we don’t want you to graduate, but because that motivation cannot sustain you through this program. If you want to take on this program, you must be passionate about your learning. Make sure that message comes through.
We believe deeply that it is the faculty that makes this university what it is. If you want to learn chemistry, you should learn it from the world class faculty we have hired to teach it, in the program designed for that purpose. The same is true for any area of study. If we have a program that can teach what you want to learn, that is the place to learn it. So you must demonstrate that you cannot meet your learning goals in any existing department. Be sure you address this issue explicitly.
2. Learning goals
This is the heart of the learning plan. Here you must translate your broad interests into specific learning goals. This is likely to be the hardest part of the plan, but no other part is more important. Everything in Individualized Studies depends on these goals. Your success in this program will not be determined by whether you complete the courses, but by whether you have learned what you set out to learn.
Consider that in most majors, the faculty have built the courses to fit that major. The courses presumably fit together in a such a way that if you follow the path designated by the faculty (the “requirements” of the major), you should meet the larger learning goals. You don’t have to think about these goals (though it is much better for your own learning if you do); you simply follow the path.
In Individualized Studies you do not have that luxury. None of your courses will have been designed to meet your goals, because you are inventing those goals. In order for those courses to build toward something, therefore, you will have to connect them. Your plan is not a list of courses; it is a plan connecting and integrating those courses. You must be able to articulate the principles and concepts and questions that connect them. You must provide the frame within which these otherwise disconnected courses come together into a unified whole. Each course (or other element, such as an internship) has to build toward the larger end of your specific learning goals and those of a liberal education. If these courses are bricks, they must build toward a coherent, intentional structure – not just a pile of bricks.
Compare, again, to a typical major. A major is not a collection of courses about something – say, for example, “politics.” There are courses on politics in every social science department. The same is true of “culture” or “economy” or any other number of popular topics. The topic is not what differentiates disciplines; disciplines are ways of understanding and studying topics. Anthropologists and sociologists and historians and philosophers all study “politics,” as do (of course) political scientists. What holds a political science program together is not the word “politics”; what holds it together is the unique disciplinary perspective of political science, the lens through which political scientists see and understand the world. Different disciplines have different lenses, and these lenses manifest in the learning goals each department has for its students. In short, what holds the political science “major” together is the fact that the courses (which may in fact include other disciplines) cohere around a set of learning goals all political science majors should (in the view of the political science faculty) meet. The learning goals hold the courses together, not the other way around. Your job is to articulate the goals that hold your own program together.
This section should also include an assessment plan. You have articulated what you want to learn;now you must explain how you will know when you have met those goals, and how you will demonstrate that fact. Passing courses will not be sufficient, for all the reasons above; you must have a plan to connect your courses and demonstrate those connections. How will you know when you have learned what you set out to learn? Will you complete a project? Write reflective essays at the end of each quarter? How will you revise your plan if a course does not meet the goals you thought it would? This is hard. We will judge you less on your assessment plan per se (because we can help you with that) than on whether we can tell that you have actually thought about this, and whether you understand how important it is to your learning.
3. Annotated course plan.
This is where you detail how you will meet your learning goals, including a brief discussion how each proposed class connects to your learning goals. These are not the course descriptions (which you should also include as an appendix; see below); this is where you explain how each course will help you meet specific learning goals.
Most students make the mistake of starting with the courses. Your courses are far less important than your goals. It is easy to approve a plan with good goals and few courses; it is easy to reject a plan with lots of courses and weak goals. The goals are the key; if they are worthy, and we believe
you can meet them, we can help you find ways to meet them.
This section, then, is actually not about the courses. It is actually about showing us that you understand your own goals. We want to see that you have thought deeply and intentionally about them, and about what it means to be educated about something. If you have simply chosen a course
because it has a particular word in the title, we will know that you do not understand the topic (or the discipline or the course) or your own goals. There is no surer way to prove to the committee that Individualized Studies is the wrong major for you.
This section will also include a tentative quarterly plan (listing your courses by quarter). This is simply to demonstrate that the courses can be done in a reasonable time and order. Since you will not know for sure that you can get into these courses (or that they will be offered), this is only tentative.
4. Additional appendices.
Attach these at the end of the plan as separate sections.
The committee will include faculty and advisers. We will review applications once per quarter. The decision will be based on criteria including but not limited to the following:
More general criteria: