The University released the course offerings for Spring 2025 on Thursday, introducing 179 new offerings making 1,455 courses total as of Oct. 31 when spring courses dropped. The Daily Princetonian examined trends in course offerings from Spring 2024 to Spring 2025, highlighting notable shifts across various departments.
Freshman Seminars continue to dominate the new course landscape, maintaining the highest number of new offerings for both Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. However, there has been a decline in the number of these seminars, dropping from 22 new courses in Spring 2024 to 16 for Spring 2025.
The School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) saw a reduction in new courses offered this upcoming semester, breaking from a significant increase the previous spring. Four out of the six new SPIA offerings focus on topics in environmental and health sciences, such as SPI 407: Conserving Global Forests, which will address “whether the world should use more or less wood, and carefully evaluate various public and private policies.”
Conversely, departments such as History, Visual Arts, and particularly English have experienced a surge in new courses since Spring 2024. The Visual Arts department has consistently had almost all of its course slots filled, and students have opined that classes are difficult to get into. Out of the 29 visual art classes students have to choose from for next semester, about 20 percent of them are new.
The English department, in particular, has seen a noteworthy rise in 300-level courses, aligning with a broader trend observed from Spring 2023 to Spring 2024, where upper-level courses emerged as the most common new offerings — aside from freshmen seminars.
The Literature and the Arts (LA) distribution requirement is satisfied by 237 out of 767 total courses for the spring semester. Conversely, the Science and Engineering with Lab (SEL) and Epistemology and Cognition (EC) distribution requirements are met by just 36 and 39 new courses, respectively.
In the past, student groups, such as Princeton Caribbean Connection (PCC) and Natives at Princeton, have asked for increased representation in course selection.
“A lot of the classes are centered on the historization of the Caribbean. You wouldn’t see frameworks of modern day society as you see in SPIA,” said Kimberly Cross ’25, marketing and publicity chair of the PCC, on the lack of parts of the Caribbean being represented in academia.
“You wouldn’t see attitudes of Caribbean men as an anthropology class,” Cross continued. “It kind of puts the Caribbean in this stagnant space where you’re only viewing it from this antique avenue,” she said.
According to Cross and Mya Ramhi ’26, co-president of PCC, a new Haitian Creole class is being created for the Fall 2025 semester.
“This is something that has made PCC pretty excited and encouraged to keep doing the work they’re doing on campus,” said Ramhi.
Another new offering for Spring 2025 is AMS 262: Race, Indigeneity, and Environment, a course that explores the environment as a catalyst for social action. This course delves into how ecological changes both influence and are influenced by the structures of race and indigeneity. Through a blend of historical and contemporary examples, students will examine the “intersections of race and indigeneity in the context of ecological transformation in the United States, particularly as experienced by Native peoples.”
Princeton is now offering a 200 level African American Studies Class titled “This is Critical Race Theory.” The course description highlights how its goal is to teach students the actual framework of the theory, especially in the context of the civil rights movement. The course explores how “antipathy toward ‘Critical Race Theory’ has led policymakers to restrict curriculum, ban books, and even fire teachers.”
None of the new courses offered are within the South Asian Studies department, and less than one percent of the new offerings center on South Asia. Students have expressed a desire for the South Asian Studies department to develop a more robust curriculum, comparable to other regional studies at Princeton.
A full list of course offerings can be found on the Office of the Registrar website.
Chima Oparaji is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Contributing Data writer Hassan Khan contributed reporting.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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