Undergraduate academics at Bard focus on giving students a strong scholarly foundation with our rigorous core curriculum, then encouraging them to explore individual academic interests. The College seeks to engender in every student a wide curiosity and a profound love of learning. Close contact with scholars who are teachers but also active in their disciplines is a constant, and the level of academic discourse in the classroom is high.
Bard students choose from programs and concentrations in the following academic divisions:
Division of the Arts
Division of Languages and Literature
Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing
Division of Social Studies
Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations
Duncan MacDonald ’23, who received a joint degree in Political Studies (International Relations) and French Studies, talks about his Senior Project. His Senior Project explored France's model of a feminist foreign policy from an ontological security perspective, leading to an investigation and critique of France's depiction of a feminist national Self.
Bard’s graduate programs give students the tools to shape the future of their professions. Expert faculty craft innovative curricula designed to challenge emerging leaders. More than 600 students are seeking Bard graduate degrees. Bard offers graduate studies in the following programs:
Bard is a pioneer in early college education, which offers challenging undergraduate programs for intellectually curious adolescents. Bard has several initiatives for young scholars that enable exceptional students to begin college immediately after the 10th or 11th grades, and where students earn a high school diploma and up to an associate's degree, tuition free, within four years.