The University of Montana Western is the only public four-year higher education institution in the country offering a very innovative approach to learning called Experience One, or X1 for short. With X1 students take a single class at a time, three hours each day for about three weeks, then move on to the next. They focus. They concentrate. They learn to work with and depend on their fellow students and professor. The benefits are many. Foremost among them, X1 encourages real-world, hands-on learning. Students learn while actually doing and fully participate in their education. The bottom line is that UMW graduates have a leg up when entering the job market or continuing their education in graduate school. Small (our student faculty ratio is 16:1) yet academically mighty, Montana Western courses are taught by distinguished faculty (not teaching assistants) who are genuinely interested in their students' success now and in the future.