We offer a single degree, the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, which gives you the best of both worlds: a basis for advanced studies if you want to go on to specialize, with the flexibility of a multidisciplinary background that equips you with broad knowledge and skills.

At Quest, you won’t declare a major. You will create your own Question, which will drive your final two years at Quest as you design a personalized academic program with guidance from your faculty mentor. On the Block Plan, you’ll delve into one course at a time for about a month, and learn in small, interactive classes that foster both independence and collaboration. You’ll also acquire transferable skills that work in the real world.

Below is our program in a nutshell. At the bottom you’ll find two examples of how Quest students designed their personalized degrees. Our Viewbook contains more info. You can also hear directly from parents, students and alumni in videos or read their stories. To stay connected, we invite you to subscribe to The 3200, Quest’s newsletter.

The first two years of your degree consist of 16 courses, a multidisciplinary curriculum that spans the liberal arts and sciences, tackling themes from the classic to the contemporary. Toward the end of your second year, you will write your personalized Question, developed with faculty guidance in a dedicated course called Question Block.

Your Question will drive your final two years at Quest, and can range from narrow to broad. Every student writes a unique Question. “How should we create General Artificial Intelligence?” “What is the relationship between symmetry and beauty?” “How can we effectively eradicate infectious diseases?” “How can art transform conflict?” “How does mathematics model the physical world?” “What is a sustainable food system?” “How can biotechnology affect the quality of human health?” “How do the colonized heal?” The possibilities are endless. In Quest’s history, no two students have written the same Question.

In the Concentration Program, you design your own academic path while working with a faculty mentor. Inspired by your Question, you’ll pursue what you’re most passionate about, taking 16 courses that include Electives and Experiential Learning along with your Focus courses.

The culmination of your Quest degree, your Keystone Project will reflect your passion, your research, skills, knowledge and experience. Keystones come in all forms. You might submit an original research paper, a documentary video, a play, or a collection of paintings or poems. Whatever you create, your Keystone will be unique to you, just like your Question. Each year, several Keystones are awarded Distinction, and some are chosen as Showcases that the authors present in front of an audience that includes the Quest community and beyond.

No matter what path you pursue at Quest, here are the transferable skills you’ll take with you.

At Quest, you don’t take four classes at once, and your courses don’t run for a whole semester or quarter.

Instead, you take one Block at a time, a single course that meets for three hours each weekday for about a month. The Block Plan is a major part of Quest’s teaching philosophy. Among its benefits are:

• full immersion in a single subject
 
• close interaction between faculty and students
 
• highly interactive classrooms
 
• seminar-style learning
 
• never more than 20 students in a class
 
• scheduling flexibility, where students can take a Block off without missing multiple courses

A Block usually begins on a Monday and ends on the Wednesday of the fourth week. You’ll delve deeply into a topic, which may be laser-focused or pull from many disciplines. Love the subject? You get to study nothing but that for almost a month, and you’ll find related courses to build on later. Don’t like it as much as you’d thought? It’s over in 3.5 weeks. Either way, the Block Plan allows for a deep and immersive experience where you’ll work both independently and collaboratively and come out learning much more than you did.

The Quest curriculum emphasizes transferable skills, preparing students for a rapidly changing economy and success in a wide range of endeavours. We review our program on an ongoing basis to ensure we’re delivering on our mission. Recently, a working group composed of students, staff and faculty engaged in research and community consultations to revise Quest’s learning outcomes.

ASPIRATION: Quest graduates will demonstrate intellectual engagement through complex thought.

OUTCOMES: Students who complete Quest’s program can:

• Analyze, synthesize and evaluate information in order to make decisions or devise solutions;
 
• Demonstrate creativity and flexibility in generating a work of the imagination or meeting a purpose;
 
• Acknowledge the limits of their individual knowledge in ways which embrace ambiguity and complexity;
 
• Critique the quality and credibility of information, including quantitative and qualitative evidence.

ASPIRATION: Quest graduates will make connections among concepts and experiences and apply what they have learned in new contexts.

OUTCOMES: Students who complete Quest’s program can:

• Apply knowledge and skills learned in their academic studies to other areas of their lives and vice versa;
 
• Connect information and ideas from diverse learning experiences;
 
• Operate with the tools and approaches of more than one discipline;
 
• Draw on prior knowledge to solve new intellectual and practical challenges.

ASPIRATION: Quest graduates are accomplished, flexible communicators.

OUTCOMES: Students who complete Quest’s program can:

• Design and implement creative ways of sharing meaning or a message;
 
• Recognize the linguistic, social and cultural variations in communication practices;
 
• Listen to understand and adjust their approach for a variety of audiences;
 
• Analyze rhetorical and quantitative information and use a range of evidence in response.

ASPIRATION: Quest graduates can respectfully engage with diverse perspectives.

OUTCOMES: Students who complete Quest’s degree program can:

• Employ multiple disciplines in engaging with topics or challenges outside of one’s cultural context or worldview;
 
• Discuss the influence of bias and power in the production of knowledge;
 
• Examine the factors that construct academic fields and worldviews;
 
• Practice humility and exhibit openness to the perspectives and lived experiences of others.

ASPIRATION: Quest graduates practice life-long learning and are exceptional members of their communities.

OUTCOMES: Students who complete Quest’s program can:

• Reflect on their own thinking, actions and beliefs and apply what they learn from that reflection;
 
• Connect human activities and ideas to their consequences for individuals, society and the environment;
 
• Make decisions in self-directed projects while considering that project’s wider implications for others;
 
• Apply principles of effective collaboration and conflict resolution.