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A Stanford Liberal Arts tradition
The Thinking Matters program builds on a nearly 90-year tradition of undergraduate liberal education at Stanford, which began in 1919 with the pioneering “Problems of Citizenship” course. Thinking Matters courses are meant to help freshman students develop a sense for what constitutes a genuine question or problem and how to address it in a creative and disciplined manner. Through an emphasis on critical analysis, close reading, analytic writing, and effective communication, a liberal education enables students to make connections across many fields of study that will inform their future intellectual work and life after Stanford.
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Course Catalog
View the Thinking Matters catalog to learn more about the program and available courses.
Why Thinking Matters?
Learn how Thinking Matters can expand and transform the ways you think.
Who Teaches Thinking Matters?
Thinking Matters faculty come from a range of humanities, art, science, and social science fields. Read more about them here.
Who Directs Seminars and Tutorials?
Learn more about the post-doctoral fellows who lead the discussion sections and individual tutorials.
Learning Activities
Learn more about some of the exciting in-class and out-of-class activities that students do in Thinking Matters.
Thinking Matters and the Ways Breadth Requirement
Find out how Thinking Matters courses can help fulfill Ways breadth requirement.
The Thinking Matters Requirements: ESF, ITALIC, SIMILE, SLE
Learn more about some of the other programs and courses that satisfy the Thinking Matters requirement.
The Boothe Prize
The Boothe Prize recognizes and rewards outstanding expository and argumentative writing by first-year students in the Writing and Rhetoric and Thinking Matters Programs.