A major or minor in Religious Studies provides an excellent liberal arts education. These courses of study will help you:
- develop skills in verbal and oral argumentation and critical thinking.
- gain a sophisticated knowledge of one or more world cultures—essential for getting along in today's interconnected world.
- understand a perennial dimension of human experience, and one that is more and more driving politics and international relations in the 21st century.
- appreciate the Catholic intellectual tradition and other religious traditions, and be able to contribute to the handing-on of these traditions as a critically informed member of your particular religion.
Bishop Walter Curtis, the founder of Sacred Heart University, once said that a student who is Catholic should leave Sacred Heart a better Catholic, a student who is Jewish should leave Sacred Heart a better Jew, and who is Protestant should leave Sacred Heart a better Protestant. Studying religion at Sacred Heart will help you better appreciate and appropriate your own tradition as you better understand other traditions.
Religious Studies majors and minors from Sacred Heart University have gone into every sort of professional field. Some have gone on to graduate programs in Religious Studies, Theology, Philosophy, English, and other fields. Many teach at high schools and prep schools. Some have gone into lay Campus Ministry or ordained ministry. Our graduate students have included teachers, ministers, and directors of religious education who are re-tooling in their careers.
“When [renowned philosopher] Jacques Derrida died, I was called by a reporter who wanted know what would succeed high theory and the triumvirate of race, gender, and class as the center of intellectual energy in the academy. I answered like a shot: religion…. Are we ready? We had better be, because that is now where the action is.” –Stanley Fish, postmodern literary critic, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 2005