At the heart of a Mount education is the Core Curriculum, designed as an interdisciplinary Liberal Arts and Sciences foundation. Graduates possess not only the professional skills necessary for success in the workplace, but also qualities associated with a liberally educated person able to thrive in a complicated and diverse world. Some of those skills are thinking critically and creatively, communicating effectively, appreciating the complexity of human behavior, knowing the relation among various ethical systems, and appreciating the relationship of Roman Catholicism to other belief systems.
As part of the required 52 credit hours in the Core Curriculum, freshmen begin with a three-credit Foundations Seminar (interdisciplinary studies) course. Later, students take another three credits with an advanced-level interdisciplinary course. A majority of the credits of the Core Curriculum are distributed among discipline-specific courses that expand concepts introduced in Foundations Seminar. Students choose from courses in humanities, social sciences, history, natural sciences, mathematics, religious studies, philosophy, and ethics.