Choose Your Path

Explore the dozens of fields you could major or minor in, ranging from the arts and the humanities to the natural and social sciences. Pair two or more areas of study together to fulfill your interests.

Explore our majors and minors

As a central part of our Jesuit and Catholic University, the College of Arts and Sciences advances fundamental knowledge and addresses the fundamental challenges of society by promoting discovery, deepening knowledge, and fostering artistic expression. Our community of faculty, staff, and students are continuously exploring their fields and engaging in research and scholarship towards this end.

Five students on different parts of campus looking at the camera

Curiosity Explored

In today’s world full of complex challenges, it is imperative to develop leaders that are adaptable and flexible enough to face these challenges. Students must examine how their own passions can help create solutions to the problems society faces. By fostering their curiosity, we can help achieve positive transformations, both for our students and our society. What are you curious about?

A screenshot of Brett Solomon in the Social Justice Explored video

Social Justice Explored: Why Social Justice Should be Taught in the Classroom

Part of educating the whole person is opening up one's world view—to understand others, their needs and experiences—by placing students in community. In today's world, it's critical that students have the space to embody the experiences of others, time to discern, to unpack, and the will to act in order to be a positive force in the world.

Virginia Matzek with a student in the greenhouse overlaid with animation

Sustainability Explored: Optimism in the Face of the Climate Crisis

The severity of the threat climate change presents makes harnessing our instinct to connect with nature as a force imperative to creating leaders who want to protect our common home. Whether through wetland restoration, carbon sequestration, climate adaptation, environmental justice, climate neutrality, and more, our community is working towards a world that guarantees resource availability and well-being for everyone.

Academics

Degree programs in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences are offered to undergraduate students, as well as a Master's degree in Pastoral Ministries for graduate students.

Undergraduate

2200

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Minors

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Pastoral Ministries

The Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries offers three emphases—Youth and Young Adult Ministries, Latina/o Ministries, and Restorative Justice and Chaplaincy—along with the general Masters in Arts degree with no emphasis and the Diaconate Education program. A Graduate Certificate in Restorative Justice and Chaplaincy as part of the Catholic Restorative Justice Network is also offered.

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Our Stories

College of Arts and Sciences Students Advance as Fulbright Semifinalists

This year, eleven College of Arts and Sciences students have been selected as semifinalists for the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student program.

Ximena De La Parra-Tostado in the dance studio.

Dance student explores cultural duality in Spring Festival performance

As she prepares to take the stage for her senior showcase, Ximena De La Parra-Tostado ’26 shares the inspiration behind her original choreography.

Group standing below statue of soldiers in battle

Walking Through History: Bronco Battalion Cadets Take Staff Ride to South Korea

Standing on the battlefields of South Korea, Six Bronco Battalion seniors transformed classroom strategy into lived understanding through an immersive Korean War staff ride.

What if the meaning of life could be found in emptiness?

Associate professor of philosophy, Meilin Chinn, on how the stillness within music and nature can create a richer and more interconnected life.

Leon Panetta lecturing students in a classroom.

Leon Panetta ’60, J.D. ’63 tells Santa Clara students ‘Leadership is about taking risks’

In public service, doing the right thing takes courage, says the former Secretary of Defense during a recent visit to his alma mater.

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