Major & Minors >> Majors >> Depts/Programs

Departments and Programs

A-B-C-E-F-G-H-I-J-L-M-N-P-R-S-T-U-V

African Studies • department's web
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 • department's web
Through an interdisciplinary offering of African-, African-American, and diaspora-centered courses and related extracurricular activities at the University, the 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 • description
The Ancient History major encourages a comparative approach to the study of premodern cultures.

Anthropology • department's web
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 • program's web
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) • program's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 web
The Biology major introduces students to the many ways of studying and understanding the function and diversity of living organisms.

Biophysics • department's web
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 • department's web
Chemistry is concerned with the study of matter and the changes matter can undergo.

Cinema Studies • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
Cognitive science is the empirical study of intelligent systems. It is, by its very nature, an interdisciplinary science which combines results from biology, computer science, linguistics, mathematics, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. The major in Cognitive Science in the School of Arts and Sciences is designed to introduce students to the core literature of this multifaceted discipline and then allow them to specialize in some sub-area of cognitive science. Areas of specialization can include: Computational Neuroscience, Logic and Computation, Planning and Reasoning, Language Acquisition, Language Processing, and Learning and Development. Depending on the student's interests, other tracks might be developed in collaboration with a faculty advisor.

Communication • department's web
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 • department's web
Comparative Literature offers courses which introduce students to the vast wealth of different literatures.

Criminology • department's web
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 approch to the subject of crime.

East Asian Languages and Civilizations • department's web
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.

East Asian Studies • department's web
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.

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

Economics • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
The Environmental Studies program (part of the Earth and Environmental Science Department) is designed to provide a broad awareness of environmental problems and possible solutions for students who hope to address environmental quality from the perspective of an established discipline.

Fine Arts • department's web
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 • department's web
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 web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
History and Sociology of Science uses the tools of the humanities and social sciences to study science, technology, and medicine. Its practitioners strive to grasp the relations between the technical practice of scientists, engineers, medical researchers, and clinicians, and the material, social, and cultural circumstances in which they work.

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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
Italian Studies presents an opportunity to study the Italian language and related topics in literature, film, linguistics, culture and civilization.

Jewish Studies • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language as an aspect of cognition, society and history.

Logic, Information and Computation • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
This new, integrative 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 • department's web
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 • department's web
The Political Science Department provides students with an opportunity to develop a systematic approach to the understanding of politics.

Psychology • department's web
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 • department's web
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 - French, Italian, and Hispanic Studies (Spanish) • department's web
The Department of Romance Languages offers a wide variety of courses in French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish language, literature, culture and film. The department offers a wealth of courses that address European classics from specific periods as well as texts produced in contemporary cultural circumstances.

Science, Technology and Society • department's web
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 • department's web
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures offers courses in Russian language, literature and culture, as well as courses in other Slavic languages.

Sociology • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
The Theatre Arts Program is an interdisciplinary major focusing on all intellectual and creative aspects of Theatre and Performance Studies.

Urban Studies • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
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 • department's web
See Gender, Culture and Society