Undergraduate Studies

Majors

Overview Find Your Major Scholarships Internal Transfers Student Life FAQs News

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Study in SCL

SCL educates a rising generation for freedom.

Liberty depends on—and the human desire to know calls for—an education that is worthy of, and sustains, a free people.

In the School of Civic Leadership, students study human affairs through two honors majors: Civics Honors and Great Books Honors.

Find Your SCL Major

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Major in Civics Honors

What is law? How can I prepare to act for the common good? How can citizens create opportunity through skills of economic analysis? In the Civics Honors major, students trace the intellectual roots of American institutions, practice data analysis, and gain skills for civic leadership.

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Major in Great Books Honors

What does it mean to be human? How can careful study inform my career in science and health, law, or business? In a distracted world, how can I learn to pay attention to what matters? The SCL Great Books Honors major connects students with a rich study of virtue from ancient to American sources—as a preparation for life and for thoughtful work.

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What Our
Students Say

“There are so many issues that matter to me, and I came here to figure out how to prioritize them. I believe strongly in justice, equality, and freedom, and how best to implement those ideas in society is what we figure out here. SCL is setting me up long-term with critical-thinking skills, intellectual fellowship, connections, and experience that I will take into the workplace.”

Lillian Weimer

Current SCL Student

“You have the pros of a big state school with a great football team, excellent academics, and a ton of people to meet—but SCL is a really tight-knit group of people. It’s like having a small-town Ivy League college within a big university.”

Jimmy Marrs

Current SCL Student

“I was drawn to Civic Leadership because it's challenging. I love being pushed to read, write, and think deeply. Learning how to read texts written hundreds of years ago and apply them to today's world isn't easy, but that's exactly what makes the program so rewarding."

Isabella Issa

Current SCL Student

“I always knew I wanted to go to law school, but I also wanted an undergraduate major that would keep challenging me and wasn’t ‘one-track.’ Then I found Civics. It brings together so many different topics, and the discussion-based classes encourage us to wrestle with big ideas. I fell in love with it.”

Ella Dillinger

Current SCL Student

“At SCL, there’s not just ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth.’ The professors shape conversations and arguments to get to a point where you’re not just putting your opinion out there—you’re learning. You’re coming to a new and different understanding of a topic.”

Maia Wantz

Current SCL Student

“My professors are some of the most intellectual minds you’ll ever meet. They provide an atmosphere of learning—cultivating education, cultivating conversation—and they teach you to become a better student academically, both in and out of the classroom. They are very personable, and just phenomenal to be around.”

Caleb Echols

Current SCL Student

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Scholarships

Scholarships to sustain your study in civic leadership

In the School of Civic Leadership, scholarships reflect the virtues SCL invites students to cultivate: civic responsibility, moral leadership, and practical wisdom.

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Internal Transfers

Explore Your Path:  Internal Transfer

The internal transfer process allows students to pursue an education for freedom centered on the texts, ideas, and institutions that inform American civic life. To prepare an Internal Transfer application to SCL, students should reflect carefully on their academic aims and work with an advisor to determine readiness.

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Student life

Where shared questions turn into friendship

Join a community of students who ask big questions because they want to make a difference. In SCL, friendships animate intellectual community.

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FAQs

Your Questions answered

What majors does SCL offer?

SCL offers two majors: Civics Honors and Great Books Honors.

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What does Honors mean in SCL?

The honors curriculum in SCL challenges students to cultivate, and then demonstrate, an exceptional level of academic maturity. All SCL academic majors challenge students to intensive reading, writing, and speaking.

The skills students need to lead well are difficult to acquire. SCL faculty, tutors, and mentors guide students in their quest to cultivate habits of careful reading, thoughtful writing, and compelling rhetoric.

SCL offers two honors majors, Civics Honors and Great Books Honors. In Civics Honors, all students complete a thesis and an internship. In Great Books Honors, all students participate in a focused small-group course sequence dedicated to reason, rhetoric, and virtue, then choose from a thesis, capstone, or internship.

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What is the starting point for civic education in SCL?

The School of Civic Leadership offers a pre-partisan education that prepares students for success across career paths. Before citizens can deal competently with the issues of the day, they need an education that enables them to wrestle with—and draw on the wisdom of—the traditions that inform American life. Spirited, thoughtful, and open to critical self-reflection, this pre-partisan education introduces students to moral and intellectual resources that can orient their own lives.

What kind of student thrives in SCL?

SCL might be your intellectual home if you want a serious intellectual challenge, you’re eager to do something good in the world, and you’re excited to make friends.

The SCL intellectual challenge centers on intensive reading, writing, speaking, and deliberation. SCL faculty, tutors, and mentors guide students in developing these key leadership skills.

The SCL academic program starts with the big questions: what does it mean to live well? What is justice? How do American constitutional principles enable citizens to think differently and yet live together? SCL majors explore these questions through essential texts of the western intellectual tradition and American constitutional experiment. You’ll thrive in SCL if you want to thoughtfully engage these questions and texts.

Texas Civic Leadership is a fit for students who want to ask big questions and cultivate deep skills to prepare for a life of service across a range of careers.

What kinds of careers would I train for in SCL?

SCL offers a classical and professional education to prepare students for business and entrepreneurship, science and technology, education and law, or public service and diplomacy. Civic leadership starts here.

Can I transfer in?

SCL accepts internal and external transfers.

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What kinds of courses can I take?

In the School of Civic Leadership, courses focus on big questions, essential texts, and skills for analysis.

Visit the SCL Course Catalog

What kinds of internships can I do?

SCL supports students in their effort to match with purposeful internships.

Learn more here

Can I study abroad?

Texas Civic Leadership students have access to study abroad opportunities available to all University of Texas students as well as programs designed specifically for SCL majors.

Explore study abroad