The Scholars' College curriculum has four distinct components: All students develop a common core of knowledge in mathematics, philosophy, literature, science, history, languages, and the fine and performing arts.

By completing the Common Curriculum, all students satisfy the requirements for the Certificate of Excellence in undergraduate education awarded by the State Board of Regents.

Students move chronologically from antiquity through the twentieth century, studying works by such figures as Homer, Plato, Sappho, Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Galileo, Swift, Austen, Marx, Darwin, Dostoevsky, Conrad, Freud, Woolf, Levi-Strauss, and others.

Offerings have included Music and World Cultures, Selfhood and Community, Writing About Film, Southern Fiction, and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Gender.

The College offers options in French, Spanish, Russian, Greek, and Latin, and requires that students study at least four semesters of the language of their choice.

Topics are chosen on the basis of their significance and contemporary urgency, the disciplinary range they embrace, and the mutual interests of students and faculty.