Live, study and grow at the nexus of discovery and impact.
Our research activities and academic programs are remarkably broad, but they share one characteristic: all are curiosity-driven. Exploring the unknown is central to our mission to be the nexus of discovery and impact.
Courses offered in A&S of 4000 courses at Cornell.
Majors to choose in A&S. Design your education.
Students in A&S, each with an extraordinary journey to tell.
A&S alumni in our network. Go Big Red!
Twenty new faculty have joined the College of Arts & Sciences this year, strengthening departments and programs with their wide-ranging expertise and filling numerous leadership roles for the College and university. And this election year, the College’s new faculty bring a breadth and depth of expertise on topics important to our democracy.
The innovative undergraduate curriculum at A&S has distribution requirements that range from global citizenship to physical sciences to ethics and the mind. Classes build upon each other and cross the boundaries of traditional academic fields. Extensive work occurs outside of your major and minors, and there are no required core courses. Work closely with inspiring faculty to develop the hallmark skills of a liberal arts and sciences education – the ability to read critically, write persuasively and think broadly.
With a minor in lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender (LGBT) studies, you’ll study sexuality and its importance to the organization of social relations, political formations, expressive behavior and aesthetic categories. You’ll focus on the representations and lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender subjects, even as these subjects remain stubbornly and productively difficult to define once and for all. LGBT Studies is an interdisciplinary program, and it is likewise open to a variety of perspectives on the stability of the constituent identity categories at its center.
Details about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Studies
As an Environment & Sustainability major, you will receive interdisciplinary training in environmental science and studies, developing integrated approaches to address environmental and sustainability issues.
Choose a concentration from one of the following areas
The E&S major is offered in collaboration with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), where you can explore additional classes.
Take advantage of resources such as the Arnot Teaching and Research Forest, Cornell Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, Cornell Natural Areas and the Shoals Marine Lab.
Details about Environment and Sustainability
With a minor in film, you’ll gain a fundamental understanding of the formal, industrial, aesthetic and political aspects of cinema and media from the 19th century to the present. You can focus on national cinemas, genres or modes (narrative cinema, for example) or critical issues (such as digital platforms or global media); you may also pursue some work in film and digital media production, including animation and screenwriting. Students with a primary interest in film can incorporate that into the PMA major.
Details about Film
With the American Sign Language (ASL)/Deaf Studies minor, students can pursue an interdisciplinary course sequence focusing on American Sign Language and Deaf culture. Courses offered range across a variety of different disciplines, to provide a broad and compelling perspective on ASL and the Deaf community.
Details about American Sign Language/Deaf Studies
As a performing and media arts major, you’ll benefit from the synergies between the study and practice of theatre and live performance, cinema/media and/or dance. Whether you’re an actor/director, a filmmaker, a scholar-critic, a choreographer or a designer, you’ll be able to take many possible combinations of courses depending on your interest in history/theory/criticism, creative authorship, design or embodied performance and more. Students are also welcome to explore our four minors: Performing and Media Arts, Dance, Film and Theatre.
Details about Performing & Media Arts
With a Latina/o studies major you’ll be able to explore the rich histories and contemporary life of Latino communities in the United States. You will learn about Latina/o political and labor participation, creative expression and literature, and issues of immigration, education, language and health. Faculty members from history, sociology, anthropology, literature, language, government, performance studies and more, give you an opportunity to develop an interdisciplinary field of study of Latina/os in the U.S., with an emphasis on a transnational and comparative perspective.
Details about Latina/o Studies
As a computer science major, you’ll have a home in two colleges: Arts and Sciences (A&S) and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.
The Computer Science major is ideal for A&S students who wish to connect their liberal arts education with their computing interests. In Computer Science you can study algorithms and complexity, application development, artificial intelligence, computer graphics and animation, game design, machine learning, programming languages, robotics, security, software engineering, systems and networking, and more.
The major’s foundation is an engaging and rigorous set of core courses, and the department offers an unrivaled breadth of undergraduate elective offerings. Every CS major completes required coursework in artificial intelligence or machine learning, and the department offers over 60 courses at undergraduate and graduate levels related to artificial intelligence. Many students take a graduate-level course or two as part of completing their bachelor’s degree.
Details about Computer Science
With a visual studies minor, you’ll pursue an interdisciplinary approach to visual art, media (including digital works), performance and perception. You’ll study with faculty from disciplines throughout the college, including history of art, film, literary studies, psychology, theatre and more.
Details about Visual Studies
Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary field that studies the fundamental workings of cognition and the mind. It investigates perception, action, language, knowledge, development, and thinking from multiple perspectives—theoretical, experimental, and computational—with the aim of gaining a better understanding of human cognition and the nature of intelligent systems. The nature of mental representations and their acquisition and use are important themes, as are the comparison between human and artificial intelligence, and the relation between human cognition and its biological foundations.
The major will make it possible for students to cultivate unique interests within cognitive science by allowing them to create novel course combinations that transcend the typical departmental boundaries.
Details about Cognitive Science
As a physics major, you’ll develop analytical and problem solving skills while being able to customize your studies. You’ll take a common core set of courses and can then choose a concentration that complements the core, such as physics, or an interdisciplinary concentration such as chemical physics, geophysics, astrophysics, biophysics, applied math, philosophy of science, computer science, etc. The combination of biology/chemistry as a concentration is appropriate if you’re pre-med; you can also create an individualized concentration with courses in physics-related economics, history, law or business.
Details about Physics
The pinnacle of the liberal arts experience
Students design their own interdisciplinary major, organized around a question or issue of interest, and pursue a course of study that cannot be found in an established major. Harrison College Scholars explore subjects with a broader integration of related disciplines than most students would attempt.
A deep dive into the humanities
This program offers a signature learning, research and collaboration opportunity for undergraduate students across the university who are interested in the humanities.
Shaping the future
Students in the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity combine Cornell’s renowned liberal arts and sciences classes in Ithaca with the 21st century tech curriculum at Cornell Tech in NYC.
Funding your summer experience
Summer opportunities are crucial to student career success, but these life-changing experiences frequently offer little to no funding. That’s a critical barrier for many of our students – and one that the College of Arts and Sciences feels is vital to overcome.
The Summer Experiences Grants (SEG) do just that. They support students with living expenses, transportation, and travel so that these essential experiences are available to all of our students, who may otherwise not be able to afford them.
Curiosity is the driver for research in A&S. From the dendrochronology lab where archaeologists analyze tree-ring growth to understand climate change to the linguistics department where students created a new language for a Captain Marvel movie, our students and faculty take full advantage of all that our world-class research university encompasses.
With opportunities spanning the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, research here takes place in laboratories, museums, field sites, libraries, hospitals, greenhouses, performance spaces and archives.
Premier postdocs
This premier postdoctoral fellowship program offers opportunities for early-career scholars of outstanding talent, initiative and promise to devote themselves to frontline, innovative research without being tied to specific outcomes.
Undergraduate research opportunities
The Nexus Scholars Program in the College of Arts & Sciences provides undergraduate students with summer opportunities to work side by side with faculty from all across the college (humanities, social sciences, and STEM) on their research projects.
Open your mind
The College of Arts & Sciences’ Arts Unplugged series brings research and creative works into the public sphere for discussion and inspiration. These outreach events invite a broad audience to explore the work of scholars and faculty from all disciplines, all backgrounds and all time periods and to celebrate the impact that work continues to have on our daily lives.
Engagement for an informed society
The College of Arts & Sciences' Distinguished Visiting Journalist Program brings accomplished journalists to Cornell for extended visits. The program aims to recognize excellence in journalism and to provide opportunities for select journalists and the university community to engage with each other.
Newsweek
Related people
Douglas L. Kriner
Related Departments
Government
USA Today
Related people
David Shoemaker
Related Departments
Philosophy
Bloomberg
Related people
Sarah Kreps
Related Departments
Government
US News & World Report
Related people
Kenneth Roberts
Related Departments
Government
Location: Kroch Library, (Olin B2) 2B48
Location: A. D. White House
Location: Barnes Hall
