Major Departments & Programs

Departments and Programs

African Studies • home page • about the major
The African Studies Program is devoted to the study of African cultures, both past and present, from a growing variety of perspectives and disciplines.

Africana Studies • home page • about the major
Through an interdisciplinary offering of African-, African-American, and diaspora-centered courses and related extracurricular activities at the University, the Africana Studies program provides students with opportunities to understand and critically evaluate the historical, cultural, social, political and economic factors that have helped define and shape the African-American experience and other African diaspora experiences throughout the world.

Ancient History • home page • about the major
The Ancient History major encourages a comparative approach to the study of premodern cultures.

Anthropology • home page • about the major
Anthropology is the study of the human species as a whole. The Department of Anthropology integrates cultural anthropology (living peoples), archaeology (prehistoric and historical peoples), biological/physical anthropology (the interaction between culture and human biological variation) and linguistic anthropology (language variation and its relation to culture).

Architecture • about the major
The Architecture major is a program for students interested in developing basic skills, knowledge, and methods of inquiry in the discipline of architecture in the context of a studio-based liberal arts education. Although the major resides in the College of Arts and Sciences, the studio and theory courses are taught by faculty in the Department of Architecture and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning in the School of Design.

Asian American Studies (Minor) • home page • about the minor
This program introduces students to the methods and concerns of a wide spectrum of disciplines: anthropology and ethnography, economics, folklore, history and art history, law, linguistics and communications, literature, sociology and demography, political science, and urban studies, as well as to creative and expository writing.

Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Please see East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Biochemistry • home page • about the major
The biochemistry major at Penn places a strong emphasis on a foundation in chemistry and physical sciences. This forms the basis for understanding the specific molecular interactions in the living organism.

Biological Basis of Behavior • home page • about the major
Biological Basis of Behavior is an interdisciplinary major in which students explore the relationship between behavior (both human and animal) and its organic bases.

Biology • department's home page • about the major
The Biology major introduces students to the many ways of studying and understanding the function and diversity of living organisms.

Biophysics • about the major
Biophysics is a major designed for students who are planning a career in biological or medical research and who desire depth in the physical and mathematical aspects of the biosciences.

Chemistry • home page • about the major
Chemistry is concerned with the study of matter and the changes matter can undergo.

Cinema Studies • home page • about the major
Cinema studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to acquaint students with the history and interpretation of cinema and to allow them to combine knowledge of the field with the traditional aims of an undergraduate liberal arts education.

Classical Studies • home page • about the major
Classical Studies encompasses the civilization of the ancient Greeks and Romans from prehistory to the Middle Ages, with emphasis on the literature, philosophy and history of the classical Greek and Roman periods.

Cognitive Science • undergraduate page • about the major
Cognitive Science is the empirical study of intelligent systems. Areas of specialization can include: Computational Neuroscience, Logic and Computation, Planning and Reasoning, Language Acquisition, Language Processing, and Learning and Development.

Communication • home page • about the major
The purpose of the Communication major is to offer students frameworks for understanding the interpersonal and media processes that lie at the center of contemporary society.

Comparative Literature • home page • about the major
Comparative Literature offers courses which introduce students to the vast wealth of different literatures.

Criminology • home page • about the major
The major in Criminology enables students to acquire a theoretical and methodological framework for generating and assessing knowledge about crime and social control. The program draws upon disciplines from statistics to neuroscience to develop a liberal arts approach to the subject of crime.

East Asian Area Studies • home page • about the major
The Center for East Asian Studies is an interdisciplinary unit composed of faculty members whose teaching and research focus primarily on China, Japan, Korea, and bordering areas.

East Asian Languages and Civilizations • home page • about the major
The Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations offers majors in Chinese and Japanese and minors in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. In accordance with the name of our department, our programs emphasize the humanistic study of the languages and civilizations of East Asia.

Earth and Environmental Science • (see Geology or Environmental Studies)

Economics • home page • about the major
Economics is the science of choice--the science that explains the choices made by individuals and organizations as they adapt to changing scarcity. Among the topics studied in economics are: the determination of the prices and quantities of goods; consumer and firm behavior; international trade; income distribution; taxes, subsidies and tariffs; the determination of the aggregate level of economic activity; unemployment; inflation; and economic growth. Economics is an important component of the liberal arts curriculum, and it provides a useful background for students planning to enter any of the professions.

English • home page • about the major
Majors in English take a great variety of courses in English, American and other English-language literatures including courses that emphasize critical approaches, literary theory, cultural studies, anglophone postcolonial literature and culture, and film narrative.

Environmental Studies • home page • about the major
The Environmental Studies program (part of the Earth and Environmental Science Department) is designed to provide students with a broad awareness of environmental problems and the necessary skills to understand and formulate possible solutions. The major introduces students to the core concepts of this interdisciplinary field and then allows students to focus in one of the four concentrations: Environmental Policy and Application, Global Environmental Systems, Environmental History and Regional Studies, and Environmental Studies.

Fine Arts • undergraduate page • about the major
The major in Fine Arts is based upon the premise that an education in liberal studies should include the challenge of learning to see, and that the education of the artist is dramatically improved by liberal studies. Areas of study include drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, photography, animation, film/video, graphic design and multi-media.

French Studies • undergraduate page
This major is designed to give students both an excellent grounding in the French language and a thorough knowledge of the history, culture, civilization and literature of metropolitan France and other regions of the world where the French language is primary.

Gender, Culture and Society • department's home page • about the major
Gender, Culture and Society is an interdisciplinary major and minor within the Women's Studies program that offers opportunities to study the role of gender and sexuality in human societies. There are four concentrations within the major: Women’s Studies, Sexuality Studies, Global Gender Studies, and Gender and Health.

Geology • home page • about the major
In the Geology program (part of the Earth and Environmental Science Department), we study and try to understand the dynamic nature of the Earth. Like detectives, we seek clues to reconstruct events that explain the formation of the Earth's features and the evolution of life.

Germanic Languages and Literatures • home page • about the major
German art, literature, music, philosophy, religion, politics and scientific research have profoundly influenced the history of other countries. This will continue as a unified Germany plays an increasingly dominant role in international affairs and global economics. The study of German culture and literature enables students to trace Germany's roots in the past, to comprehend the cross-currents in its thinking, and to experience the contributions of German poets, novelists, authors and film-makers.

Health and Societies • home page • about the major
This major is designed to provide students with the skills necessary to work successfully in the interdisciplinary, global world of modern health care and decision-making.

Hispanic Studies • home page • about the major
The knowledge of Spanish and Hispanic culture gives students much more than the ability to communicate in the world's third-most spoken language. It prepares them to account for an entirely different national, continental and global reality with all its complexity.

History • home page • about the major
The Department of History offers a variety of courses dealing with political, social, economic and intellectual life in Europe, America and the rest of the world, from the medieval period to the present.

History of Art • undergraduate page • about the major
The Department of the History of Art invites all students to explore the connections between visual creativity and the history of human civilization. The History of Art is the study of form and meaning in the visual arts from their beginnings to the present.

History and Sociology of Science “ (see Health and Societies and Science, Technology and Society)

Individualized Major • read more
The individualized major offers an opportunity for exceptional, creative, self-motivated students to explore innovative and multi-disciplinary fields of knowledge.

International Relations • home page • about the major
International Relations is a multi-disciplinary course of study on the ways in which governments, private groups and individuals relate to each other in the global political and economic systems.

International Studies and Business • home page
The Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business is a joint degree program between the College and the Wharton School. Admission into the program is by a special procedure prior to matriculation into the University. For further information, please consult the Admissions Office.

Italian Studies • home page • about the major
Italian Studies presents an opportunity to study the Italian language and related topics in literature, film, linguistics, culture and civilization.

Jewish Studies • program's home page • about the major
Jewish Studies relates Jewish life and culture to the surrounding world, from the biblical period to modern Israel. The program also offers studies in Hebrew and Yiddish.

Latin American and Latino Studies • home page • about the major
Penn's combined program in Latin American and Latino Studies undertakes to introduce students to scholarly research on Latin American and Latino cultures in all their diversity of expression-not only "high culture" but also folk and other forms, from pre-Columbian times to the present, from Tierra del Fuego to New York and beyond.

Life Sciences and Management, Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in • home page
This is a joint degree program between the College and the Wharton School that combines coursework in both management and the life sciences. All students participate in a common core course, an upper-division science research project, and internships in both science and business, which help prepare students for careers in such rapidly expanding fields as pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

Linguistics • web • about the major
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language as an aspect of cognition, society and history.

Logic, Information and Computation • home page
This program draws on faculty and courses in Computer and Information Science, Linguistics, Mathematics, and Philosophy to offer students a systematic and integrative approach to the study of pure and applied logic, including the applied mathematics of information and computation. The Program will provide students with a strong background to pursue computational aspects of the natural, biological, and social sciences, as well as prepare them for careers in information technology.

Mathematics • home page • about the major
Mathematics at Penn is a lively, wide-ranging discipline taught in a highly-ranked department by nationally and internationally known mathematicians. The traditional core areas of mathematics are well-represented, as well as newly developing areas. Penn is one of the world's leading centers in the application of logic to theoretical computer science.

Modern Middle East Studies • home page • about the major
This new interdisciplinary major is designed to allow students to specialize in the Middle East as a region of the world and human experience by combining course work using both social scientific and humanistic approaches, underpinned by relevant language skills.

Music • home page • about the major
While recognizing the importance of musical performance, the Department views music as a humanistic endeavor which can serve as the focus of a liberal arts education.

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations • home page • about the major
The department offers broad-based, culturally integrated general education courses on the civilizations of Mesopotamia/Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Arabia, Persia/Iran and Anatolia/Turkey. NELC also teaches Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Persian and Turkish.

Philosophy • home page • about the major
Philosophy seeks to illuminate fundamental aspects of the world, of our relation to, and knowledge of, the world, and of our own nature as rational, purposive and social beings.

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics • home page • about the major
The PPE major involves faculty and courses from the Departments of Philosophy, Political Science and Economics and from the Law School. The program allows undergraduates to study the variety of analytical frameworks that have been developed to interpret and justify political and economic structures.

Physics and Astronomy • home page • about the major
Physics deals with the most fundamental aspects of nature. Its practitioners aim to discover the basic principles that govern the workings of the world, using mathematics and experimental investigation as their tools.

Political Science • home page • about the major
The Political Science Department provides students with an opportunity to develop a systematic approach to the understanding of politics.

Psychology • web • about the major
Psychology is a multi-faceted discipline that weaves together both social science and natural science approaches to the mind and behavior of organisms in general and of human beings in particular.

Religious Studies • home page • about the major
The Department of Religious Studies offers a broad variety of introductory courses in the major religious traditions and in theories of the study of religion.

Romance Languages (see French Studies, Hispanic Studies and Italian Studies)

Science, Technology and Society • home page • about the major
Science, Technology and Society courses focus on the social and humanistic aspects of science and the professions: the growth of scientific institutions, the role of science in technology and clinical medicine, the influence of economic and political factors on research and the application of knowledge, and problems of science and technology management and public policy.

Slavic Languages and Literature • home page • about the major
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures offers courses in Russian language, literature and culture, as well as courses in other Slavic languages.

Sociology • home page • about the major
The study of sociology provides an understanding of how societies, communities and smaller groups are organized and maintained, and how individual behavior is related to group experiences.

South Asia Studies • home page • about the major
South Asia Studies offers an interdisciplinary approach to the life and institutions of people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and other Himalayan border countries, and the South Asian diaspora.

Spanish (See Hispanic Studies)

Theatre Arts • home page • about the major
The Theatre Arts Program is an interdisciplinary major focusing on all intellectual and creative aspects of theatre and performance studies.

Urban Studies • home page
The Urban Studies Program is an interdisciplinary major. Courses introduce students to a variety of perspectives on the origins, development and nature of cities.

Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences • home page
The scientific leaders in the next generation will be those who understand the fundamental principles of the basic technologies as well as the integration of the biological phenomena. This rigorous program consists of an essential core in chemistry, mathematics and physics plus a second science major or a simultaneous M.S. (submatriculation) with a B.A. in either Biochemistry or Chemistry. (Only incoming freshmen may be admitted into this program.)

Visual Studies • home page • about the major
We live in an increasingly visual culture. New technologies and philosophies of vision influence how we see ourselves and our world, and how we think about seeing itself. Students can engage these developments through a multidisciplinary course of study, connecting the theory, practice and culture of seeing. The major combines work in Art History, Fine Arts, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology and Film Studies, among others.

Women's Studies
See Gender, Culture and Society