Saint Michael’s, a small Catholic college just outside of Burlington, Vermont, offers its 1,200 undergrads 40 majors built around a liberal studies curriculum. Students must complete an experiential learning component through their coursework or extracurricular activities to graduate. Internships and study abroad programs qualify, but so do less traditional experiences, like serving on Saint Michael’s Fire and Rescue Squad or training to become an instructor in the college’s Wilderness Program, which offers local hiking, climbing, kayaking and skiing excursions. Skiing, in fact, is a part of life at St. Mike’s — for a fee (about $115), students can buy a season pass to nearby Sugarbush Ski Resort.
There’s a close-knit community on campus: 90% of classes have fewer than 30 students, and all undergrads live on campus all four years. In addition to the 40-plus student clubs, Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts, or MOVE, organizes local community projects and service trips, and MakerSpace provides students with an area to experiment with “maker-centric software and hardware.” Think: laser-cutting, sewing, 3D printing and more.
That’s all packaged into a picturesque campus tucked between Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains.
