Willits Fellows Lily Terwilliger ’24 and Bijou Barry ’23 work with hydroponic lettuce in the greenhouse.

Students learn in a lecture-style course.

Academics

Courses at Sweet Briar emphasize experiential learning and close faculty-student relationships.

Sita Moses ’23 works in the Art Barn.

Ruth Lechner ’21 works with a drone.

Hands-On Learning

Fingers on our keyboards, eyes on our datasets, hands in our soil, we learn by doing. We engineer hydroponic systems, learn from the artists and writers, conduct research on our environment, and market honey from our apiary. And we offer funding for students to design their own experiences based on their own goals.

Grants for Engaged Learning

Areas of Focus

Human and Environmental Sustainability
Creativity, Design, and the Arts
Engineering, Science, and Technology in Society

majors and minors

Academic Calendar: Tradition, Meet Innovation

Fall Semester: 3 weeks + 12 weeks

Spring Semester: 12 weeks + 3 weeks

3 weeks Apprentice, travel, make, explore, experiment. Take one three week course that’s experiential and hands-on.

12 weeks Delve deep in our small classes. Take several twelve-week courses.

Dive Deeper

Learn to Lead, Step by Step

In our nationally recognized Women’s Leadership Core Curriculum, we look squarely upon the problems our world faces and craft solutions. Here are two examples:

CORE 130 — Women and Gender in the World
This course prepares young women for entrance into the real world by looking at issues related to women’s leadership and women’s empowerment.

CORE 170 — Decisions in a Data-driven World
Students in this course evaluate, organize and interpret data to make good decisions. We focus on real world problems from disparate fields, from health to political science, to learn to reason and work with data, and to understand and present arguments supported by quantitative evidence.

Learn more about our Women’s Leadership Core