Overview

USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

The largest of USC's academic schools, the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences plays an integral role in the intellectual life of the university. USC College forms the backbone of undergraduate education, providing general education courses for all students and offering a choice of more than 130 majors and minors. The college also administers the majority of USC’s non-professional graduate training programs, offering doctoral and master’s degrees in more than 20 fields of study.

In addition, the college serves as the university’s primary center for fundamental research in disciplines spanning the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Many of the college’s research groups are nationally recognized for excellence, including those focused on the history of California and the West, neuroscience, computational biology, creative writing, aging, the philosophy of language, geobiology, hydrocarbon chemistry and earthquake phenomena.

Dean

Howard Gillman

Contact Information

College of Letters, Arts & Sciences
Office of the Dean
304 Bovard Administration Building
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4012
(213) 740-2531

School's Web Site

www.usc.edu/college

Founded

1880

Faculty

Nearly 500 tenured and tenure-track

Undergraduate Students

6,409

Graduate Students

1,291 Ph.D. students
275 M.A./M.S. students

Academic Fields of Study

African-American Studies
American Studies and Ethnicity
Anthropology
Applied Mathematics
Art History
Asian-American Studies
Astronomy
Biological Sciences
Chemistry
Chicano/Latino Studies
Chinese
Classics
Clinical Psychology
Comparative Literature
Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Computational Linguistics
Creative Writing
Earth Sciences
East Asian Area Studies
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Economics
English
Environmental Studies
French
Gender Studies
Geographic Information Science
Geography
German
History
Integrative and Evolutionary Biology
Interdisciplinary Major Program
International Relations
Italian
Japanese
Judaic Studies
Kinesiology
Korean
Liberal Studies
Linguistics
Marine Environmental Biology
Mathematical Finance
Mathematics
Molecular Biology
Neuroscience
Philosophy
Physics
Political Science
Portuguese
Professional Writing
Psychology
Religion
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Sociology
Spanish
Sustainable Cities
Visual Studies

Other Programs and Student Resources

USC College Admission
USC College Advisement
Archaeology (ARC) Lab
Baccalaureate/MD Program
Freshman Seminars
Freshman Science Honors Program
USC College Graduate Programs Office
USC College Honors Society
Joint Educational Project (Service Learning)
Language Center
Learning Communities
Overseas Studies
Physical Education
Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program
Resident Honors Program
Sophomore Seminars
Supplemental Instruction
Thematic Option (Freshman Honors)
Undergraduate Team Research
Writing Program

last updated 11/08/06