Hamilton expects students to take responsibility for their educational choices. They will be counseled and supported by teachers and advisors, but the ultimate responsibility, just as the ultimate growth, will be the student's. For this reason, Hamilton does not have distribution requirements, which are found at nearly every other American college and university. We trust students with the freedom to select courses that make sense for their own intellectual development. As a result, Hamilton students attend classes because they are genuinely interested in the subject, not because they are fulfilling a requirement.
"Hamilton’s Educational Goals resonate for me because they help me recognize connections between the seemingly disparate subjects that I study. I can observe, for example, that a particular 20th century composer and a philosopher of science were similar in that both encouraged creative divergence from standard method. Or I can exercise intellectual flexibility and see how Einstein’s theory of relativity helps elucidate the role of time in certain literary narratives."
– Allison Eck ’12
