The Cultural Studies (CS) major is the interdisciplinary liberal arts option at Columbia College Chicago. The CS major offers a variety of concentrations–Urban Studies, Media and Popular Culture Studies or Literary Studies. At 36 credit hours, the CS major works well in conjunction with a minor, or with a double major. For students who seek the superior thinking and communications skills afforded by the liberal arts, the CS major prepares them for career opportunities in arts administration, non-profit management, teaching, community, and social service management, among others. The CS major also prepares students for law school or graduate school in a variety of fields, including American studies, sociology, anthropology, women’s studies, and linguistics. Cultural Studies majors have the opportunity to develop outstanding thinking, writing, reading, and speaking skills by analyzing the values, ideas, and belief systems that inform cultural products and everyday practices.
Cultural Studies majors should also develop excellent skills for civic engagement by becoming adept at examining how race, ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality inform the power structures that undergird culture. In short, the CS major provides the broad preparation that empowers students to improvise and adapt in a rapidly changing job market, and to make conscious creative choices in their practice of citizenship and life-building.
As a result of successfully completing program requirements, students should be able to:
- understand and use conceptual vocabularies and methods central to the analysis of the intersection of culture with other social and material practices;
- comprehend and apply a wide range of theories and terms to the analysis of culturally contested texts, contexts, discourses, practices and institutions; and
- produce vigorous written research that showcases an argument developed using appropriate methods and scholarly sources.
