What You'll Learn

Explore Your Leadership in the Church

The Ministry Leadership cohort is a learning and discerning community, helping first- and second-year students to understand their leadership in the Church. Walk alongside peers asking the same questions, guided by student mentors through small groups and by faculty through classes.

Program Values

• Build community: as unique members of the one body of Jesus Christ. 
• Practice leadership: using the particular gifts and in the particular ways God has given to you. 
• Love the Church: as it is in Grand Rapids, this nation, and spread throughout the world. 

As a member of the Ministry Leadership Cohort you will:

• Form strong connections with your peers by taking classes together, engaging in weekly small groups, visiting churches, and going on pilgrimage.
• Learn with and from professors and students whose worship, experience, and witness of God will challenge and develop your own.
• Travel to a major American city and learn what God is doing in the radically diverse churches of a specific urban area, stretching your understanding of the work of Christ through the Church.
• Discern how God is and will continue to use you in his Church through engagement with peers, professors teaching classes on worship and the Church, and leaders in ministry.

Who Qualifies?

• Students who will start at Calvin in Fall of 2026
• Students from any major who are passionate about ministry and the life of the Church.
• Anyone eager to serve in faith-based leadership roles.

If you are interested in starting at Calvin after 2026, please send us your information (see form below) and we'll let you know once your Cohorts application is open. Email cohorts@calvin.edu with questions.

Important Dates

Application opens on August 1. The deadline to apply is January 15. Find all dates and deadlines below!

Apply to the Ministry Leadership Cohort

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin

Connect. Collaborate. Create.

Step into a community where art becomes a way of seeing, shaping, and serving the world.

The Arts Collective is a cohort for you to explore your creative calling—whether through visual art, music, writing, theater, or other forms of expression. You don’t need to major in the arts to join. You just need a desire to listen, create, and problem solve within Calvin's arts-invested community. You’ll take courses together, travel to places rich in the arts, and participate in events that stretch your imagination and deepen your understanding of the arts as a force for renewal.

Who Can Apply?

• Those entering Calvin as a first-year student in Fall 2026
• Students from any major who are eager to engage who want to engage in arts-based learning and community
• Creatives who are curious, collaborative, and eager to grow

If you are starting Calvin after 2026, please send us your information (see form below) and we'll invite you to apply when the application is open to you. Email cohorts@calvin.edu with questions.

Important Dates

Application opens on August 1. The deadline to apply is January 15. Find all dates and deadlines below!

Apply to the Arts Collective

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin

Ask big questions with humility, explore with wonder, and pursue advanced academic opportunities in community.

Do you get excited about connecting ideas across science, society, and the arts? Want to use your city as your classroom or conduct impactful research and projects alongside a faculty mentor? That’s what Honors Scholars is all about.

Who Can Apply?

• Students from any major and background, with a wide range of academic interests and passions

• You can also double major, play varsity sports, or study abroad as an Honors Scholar—it just takes some extra planning

   

Apply to Honors Scholars

Learn more about Cohorts at Calvin

Through a communication minor, you'll expand your employability and gain a better understanding of your major. Develop your ability to make an argument and express a narrative in a way that puts your audience in motion.

Calvin's optics minor offers career-oriented, hands-on training for students in physics and engineering, as well as pre-service teachers preparing to teach science in high school.

With a Gender Studies minor at Calvin, you'll ask questions like: How does gender shape language? How does the Bible frame gender? What does it mean to be a gendered person in today’s society?

In classroom learning and campus events, you'll see how gender relations influence policies, careers, and justice in the contemporary world.

Biotechnology is a field that is seeing tremendous job growth as healthcare, industrial, and agricultural sectors seek innovative solutions to meet consumer demands. As a biotechnologist, you will manipulate genes and cells to design products and methods that are useful and beneficial. Consider this interdisciplinary minor as a complement to other science-related majors to prepare for careers in this growing field. In this program, you will take courses in chemistry, biology, and computer science to gain the technical expertise and critical thinking skills needed to use biotechnology well. You will gain hands-on experience with DNA analyses, cell culture, bioinformatics, gene cloning, and making transgenic organisms.

At Calvin, your physics degree is tailored to your unique career goals. Choose between a bachelor of science (BS) or bachelor of arts (BA) degree. You'll have opportunities to do real-world research alongside your professors, or pursue research at prominent national labs and observatories. You'll be assisted every step of the way by professors with deep knowledge of the field who are invested in your future.

Our graduates have an outstanding placement rate into prestigious graduate programs and follow exceptional career paths. You'll graduate with practical, career-shaping experience, ready to thrive in graduate school and become a leader in your field. 

The Department of Physics and Astronomy Homepage

Enter an expanding field that allows you to practice medicine under the supervision of a licensed physician.