Why Choose BCLA

LMU’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts students study in the vibrant and exciting city of Los Angeles, a global hub of culture, innovation, and diversity. Here, a wide range of communities and industries enrich their educational journey, offering unique opportunities for experiential learning and intellectual and professional growth. Our dedicated faculty, committed to critical and free inquiry, social justice, and service, inspire curiosity and creativity through innovative teaching and research. Engage with profound questions in an environment that prepares you to make a meaningful impact in the world!

Valuable Support

Professor Marne Campbell smiling with students

BCLA believes in providing a personalized education where our faculty, advisors, and staff take the time to understand each student’s individual needs and goals. Our expert faculty are not only knowledgeable in their fields but also exceptional teachers and mentors, offering valuable guidance throughout your college journey. This supportive environment helps connect knowledge, skills, experiences, and passions, sparking curiosity and inspiration. With small class sizes and vibrant learning communities, students build close relationships with professors and peers, creating a collaborative atmosphere that promotes both personal and academic growth. Your experience in BCLA is meant to be transformative.

High-Impact Experiences

Circle of Students Outdoors

At BCLA, learning happens both in the inside and outside of the classroom. Take advantage of high-impact learning practices to enrich your college experience. Engaged Learning (EL) courses turn the world into your classroom—choose a course that aligns with and enhances your academic or professional goals. Studying abroad helps you cultivate the cross-cultural awareness necessary for becoming an ethical leader and global citizen. Learning communities offer a personalized experience by connecting you with faculty and peers who share your interests, with some even living together to foster deeper connections. Explore career possibilities by attending career fairs, networking with alumni, going on retreats, or learning about graduate programs. You can even receive help with your résumé! Stay engaged, meet new people, and make the most of your time on campus.

You Will Become A...

Critical Thinker

BCLA orients students to multiple ways of understanding and instills in them a reverence for questions of ultimate meaning and purpose; with a distinctive commitment to fostering virtues of intellect, character, and spirit, and to empowering the creative potentialities that emerge when contemplation and action mutually inform one another. BCLA prepares students to assess their reality and to propose and enact transformational solutions to pressing problems. 

Global Citizen

Commit to the practice of interculturalism and make meaningful contributions as citizens of the global community. Participate in discourse by embracing multiple worldviews and experiences. Engage in interdependent relationships with others of diverse mind and kind. Evaluate the local and global impact of individual and collective decisions. Take informed and responsible action to address ethical, social and environmental challenges.  

Ethical Leader

LMU's students are not like those of all other universities: rather, through their distinctive learning experiences here, they become part of a community of persons for and with others. LMU's graduates become discerning, courageous persons who pursue lives of meaning and purpose, who value diversity, inclusion, and right relationship, and who possess exceptional capacity and commitment to be agents of reconciliation and justice.

Bellarmine People

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Antonio De Loera-Brust '17

Ignatian Values Guide Political Career

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Simret Habte '24

Connecting Passion, Research, and Purpose

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Prof. Heangjin Park

Using Food to Understand the World

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Chris Gipson '13

From student to postdoctoral instructor 

Apply to BCLA

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Are you ready to pursue your passions and interests within a dynamic and collaborative community? In BCLA, you will gain knowledge and skills that will support you throughout life and in any career you choose. Embark on a journey that will leave a lasting impact on your life.

Apply Today