Seminar: Investigating the Hidden Curriculum

Catalog description

What really shapes who thrives in college, and why? This capstone seminar pulls back the curtain on the hidden curriculum : the unspoken norms, assumptions, and expectations that quietly structure academic life. Through hands-on research, students collaboratively design and conduct a shared survey and interview study to explore how peers learn, navigate, and sometimes resist these unwritten rules. Working as a research collective, the class blends qualitative methods with reflective analysis to reveal fresh insights into equity, belonging, and everyday campus culture. Within this shared study, each student (or small team) may pursue an analytic thread that offers a focused contribution to the collective findings.