How GCS is Different

What does it prepare me for?

Graduates have gone on to top graduate programs and professional schools and have pursued unique career trajectories in law, medicine, public policy, teaching, journalism, publishing, and the creative cultural industries.

What is Theory?

A theory is a framework or explanation that helps us see the big picture and form useful conclusions. In the sciences, theory identifies what is consistently similar from many different experiments, as in Newtonian mechanics or Einsteinian relativity. In the humanities, theory also proposes general frameworks, but because of the complexity of cultures, draws from a whole palette of theoretical approaches. Theoretical exploration in the humanities often involves looking at things from specific perspectives: for instance, what can gender theory reveal about male dominance in computer technology fields? And theory in the humanities typically seeks a deepened understanding of how observable cultural phenomena operate: how, for example, do ideas about personhood shape the history of the novel and how does the novel inform the actual experience of persons at different historical moments?