How does Brown’s Open Curriculum compare with Rutgers’ general education requirements?

The central tradeoff is that Brown gives you far more control over how you build academic breadth, while Rutgers gives you a more structured foundation across disciplines. Brown’s Open Curriculum has no university-wide core or distribution requirements outside of completing a concentration and the College’s writing requirement. At Rutgers, general education requirements are built into most undergraduate programs, so students must complete designated courses in areas such as writing, quantitative reasoning, social or natural sciences, and diversity or global perspectives.

At Brown, you could take courses across several fields because they genuinely interest you, but you are not required to check off a prescribed humanities, science, or language category. That freedom can make it easier to explore an unusual combination, take more electives, or pursue advanced work outside your concentration. Your concentration still has required courses, and some students create an independent concentration, but the overall curriculum leaves the decisions about breadth largely to the student.

Rutgers’ requirements vary by campus and undergraduate school, so the exact list is not identical for every Rutgers student. For example, a student in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers–New Brunswick completes the SAS Core Curriculum alongside major requirements. Many core courses can also count toward a major, minor, or personal interest, so the system is not simply a set of unrelated classes, but it does reduce the number of completely open elective slots.

For maximum freedom outside your major, Brown is the clear choice.