‘Heritage Forensics’ investigates cultural heritage caught up in war
A&S Communications
Let curiosity be your guide.
Live, study and grow at the nexus of discovery and impact.
A home for exploration and discovery
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.
Explore research and discoveries
Cultural heritage
New students
A&S Dean to new students: ‘Ithaca isn’t the end of your journey, only the beginning’
A&S Communications
>2000
Courses offered in A&S of 4000 courses at Cornell.
42
Majors to choose in A&S. Design your education.
Performing and media arts
Professor, students produce films for Obama Presidential Center
A&S Communications
~4,600
Students in A&S, each with an extraordinary journey to tell.
Cornell Cinema
From high school hijinks to film noir: Cornell Cinema unveils Fall 2026 season
A&S Communications
>90K
A&S alumni in our network. Go Big Red!
Popular Destinations
Extraordinary Journeys, the Class of 2026
Across disciplines—from physics to philosophy, economics to environmental science—our graduating seniors have learned to listen deeply, engage diverse perspectives and adapt their knowledge to a rapidly changing world. They embrace innovation and technology not just as tools, but as opportunities to build connection and progress.
Their stories reflect a hopeful truth: that thoughtful, flexible thinkers are ready to lead no matter what comes next.
Uncommon academic diversity abounds here
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.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Studies
minor
graduate
Overview
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
Science, Technology and Society
major
minor
graduate
Overview
As a science, technology and society major, you’ll explore the social and cultural aspects of science and technology and be encouraged to ask informed and penetrating questions about the social forces that shape science and technology, the limits of scientific authority and the role of technology in modern life.
Details
History of Capitalism
minor
Overview
With a minor in the History of Capitalism, you’ll be exposed to different perspectives on how capitalism has been defined and how it developed at different times and in different parts of the world, enabling you to critically reflect on economic institutions and ideas, as well as to understand how our global economy has come to be. You’ll gain the basic vocabulary of economics and business, deepened with a longer, critical perspective on the development of capitalism. This minor is offered collaboratively with courses from across the university, coordinated by the Department of History.
Details
Caribbean Studies
minor
Overview
The interdisciplinary Caribbean Studies Minor (CSM) prepares students to understand the region as a site foundational to modernity that remains essential to understanding the present. Courses offered by this minor are designed to provide students with the analytical framework necessary to understand the sociocultural, economic, and political forces that shape the region as well as how those forces—indigenous dispossession, slavery, capitalism—resonate well beyond the geographical space of the Caribbean. Interdisciplinary by nature, the CSM provides a structured yet flexible array of coursework that cuts across history, culture, and the social sciences. Courses in the arts and humanities draw attention to the historical import of the region; how the Caribbean is constructed across various sites and discourses; and how this construction shapes policy realms and everyday life. Social science perspectives illuminate tools for analyzing cultural heterogeneity; the roles of the state, civil society, and ethnic networks; and the way that Caribbean residents and migrants navigate their transnational realities. Students will be introduced to multiple methodologies and will have the opportunity to pursue research in the Caribbean or Caribbean diasporic communities.
The minor is offered collaboratively with courses from across the university through the Department of History, administered by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. For more information on the minor and a list of approved courses, please see the program site.
Details
Medieval Studies
minor
Overview
With a minor in medieval studies, you’ll enhance your enjoyment and understanding of the artistic and material relics of the Middle Ages. You can choose among a wide array of subjects spanning more than a thousand years of languages and cultures—from Old and Middle English literature to Byzantine monuments; from Icelandic sagas to Andalusian architecture; from Chinese intellectual history to Islamic legal history. You can explore how many of our current challenges in the fields of law, human rights, attitudes toward power, authority, gender relations and sexual mores derive from how such issues were formulated a millennium ago.
Details
Italian
major
minor
graduate
Overview
As an Italian major, you’ll have the opportunity to explore in-depth the language, literature and culture of that part of the world, only recently united into a single nation, where Dante wrote his Comedy, Saint Francis roamed the Umbrian hills and directors like Pasolini and Fellini redefined the relationship between cinema and realism. You’ll be encouraged to immerse yourself in Italian literary and cultural history and to question many of the stereotypes that continue to circulate, in America but also in Italy, about that very history.
Details
Physics
major
minor
graduate
Overview
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
Computer Science
major
minor
graduate
Overview
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
Inequality Studies
minor
Overview
Through its core requirements, the Minor in Inequality Studies exposes students to the breadth of the social scientific literature on inequalities in many different social and economic goods (e.g., income, wealth, education, health, political power, social status, job security) and across many sources of difference (e.g., class, race and ethnicity, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation and identity, age, geographic location, or political and economic systems). Electives, which are offered across 30 departments in the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, allow students to tailor their studies to their particular interests. The Minor in Inequality Studies is open to any student in any major.
The Minor’s Health Equity Track allows interested students to focus their studies further on the social causes and consequences of inequalities in life expectancy, health outcomes, health-promoting behaviors, and access to health care. The Health Equity Track offers excellent preparation for students who are interested in careers in medicine, public health, social science research, or public policy.
The institutional home for the minor is the Center for the Study of Inequality.
Details
Classical Civilization
minor
Overview
With a minor in classical civilization, you’ll uncover the mysteries of ancient Greece and Rome. You’ll have the choice of any six classics courses (above 1000-level), which chart a coherent path through our offerings in ancient literature (in translation), history, philosophy, art history and archaeology. This minor does not include a language requirement.
DetailsBeyond Majors & Minors
The pinnacle of the liberal arts experience
Robert S. Harrison College Scholar Program
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
Humanities Scholars Program
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
Milstein Program
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 Experience Grants
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.
Research, scholarship and creative works to understand humanity and the cosmos
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
Klarman Fellowships
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
Nexus Scholars Program
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.
Engaging our community and our world
Open your mind
Arts Unplugged series
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
Distinguished Visiting Journalist Program
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.
Faculty Commentary on Current Events
History
Foreign frigate competition highlights Navy's struggles with fleet expansion, modernization
A&S Communications
Sociology
California tax bill would likely be an ‘orphan’ with ‘surprising’ financial and political consequences
A&S Communications
International politics
Cornell military historian: South Korea drill cuts may have been ‘inevitable’
A&S Communications
Africana studies
Violence against African migrants tests South Africa’s ‘Ubuntu’ ideal
A&S Communications
Classics
Cornell classicist: White House UFC event mirrors Imperial Rome’s spectacles
A&S Communications
Artificial Intelligence
Cornell Holocaust scholar echoes Pope Leo’s concerns about AI and human dignity
A&S Communications
Faculty in the news
CNN
Related people
Sarah Kreps
Related Departments
Government
09/02/2026
Wall Street Journal
Related people
Allen R. Carlson
Related Departments
Government, China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program
09/02/2026
The Economist
Related people
Dmitry Savransky
Related Departments
Astronomy, Carl Sagan Institute
09/02/2026
Associated Press
Related people
Nicholas Mulder
Related Departments
History
08/31/2026
Upcoming A&S Events
-
Monday 07:30 PM
Cornell Jazz Faculty Social (CU Music)
Location: Klarman Hall, Klarman Auditorium
-
Thursday 07:30 PM
Matías de Roux DMA Recital (CU Music)
Location: Sage Chapel
-
Friday 05:00 PM
CCHK Salon: Commedia dell’arte, Pantomime, and Embodied Musical Meaning (CU Music)
Location: A. D. White House
-
Saturday 07:30 PM
Cuban Chamber Music Concert (CU Music)
Location: Lincoln Hall, B20