Which has a more flexible open curriculum, Northwestern or Brown?

Brown has the more flexible open curriculum by a wide margin. Brown does not impose a university-wide core curriculum or distribution requirement, so students can use much more of their schedule for courses chosen out of curiosity, across departments, or in support of an individualized academic path. The principal structured requirements are those of the student’s concentration, plus related academic expectations such as writing.

At Northwestern, flexibility depends heavily on the undergraduate school. Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where many students enroll, requires breadth across several disciplinary areas and has a language proficiency requirement in addition to a major. Northwestern’s professional schools, such as engineering, communication, journalism, music, and education, typically have even more prescribed sequences because of foundational and professional coursework.

Northwestern still makes interdisciplinary exploration very possible: students can take classes across schools when prerequisites and enrollment policies allow, add minors, and pursue combinations such as economics with theater or computer science with philosophy. But those opportunities occur alongside a more defined set of school and major requirements.