Major and Minor

WGS Major

The Women and Gender Studies Major requires 64 units; 20 of these units are lower-division (or preparatory subject matter) and the remaining 44 are upper division (or depth subject matter). 

Preparatory Subject Matter (20 units)
The Preparatory Subject Matter requirement is comprised of five (5) courses: two (2) core courses selected from WGS 20, 50, 60, and 70 and three (3) additional disciplinary and interdisciplinary courses selected from the major cross list. Students are strongly encouraged to take WGS 50: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies as one of their two core lower division courses.

Depth Subject Matter (44 units)
To meet the depth subject requirements, Women’s Studies majors are required to take four core courses (103, 104, 190, and one additional WGS course), four cross cultural courses, and three courses, which coordinate with a disciplinary, interdisciplinary, or thematic track.  Students are strongly encouraged to draw on the many upper division Women and Gender Studies classes that fulfill the cross cultural and disciplinary/thematic tracks.

Disciplinary or Thematic Track
Students majoring in WGS have the opportunity of devising their own course of study within the thematic track requirement.  Students, in consultation with the peer advisor and faculty advisors, develop a series of courses with a coherent thematic emphasis.  By the middle of their Junior Year, majors interested in completing a thematic track must consult with an adviser on a tentative plan and receive approval for their topic from the faculty adviser.  The three classes must form a cohesive course of study. Some of our Women and Gender Studies majors have completed tracks in Anthropology, Literature and Language, History, Cultural Representations of Gender, Gender and Global Issues, Theory and Representation, Psychology, Sociology, and Gender and Law.

Honors
The senior honors thesis option in Women's Studies provides students with an opportunity to spend three quarters working on a substantial original research project.  Generally, this project results in a written thesis of approximately 50 pages.  However, with the approval of the faculty advisor, students may also elect to incorporate creative or multimedia work such as poetry, artwork, videos, etc into their project. Women and Gender Studies major may choose to write a senior honors thesis for a variety of reasons. 

In order to benefit from and do well at writing a senior honors thesis, it is best if you enjoy the research process, think analytically about the material you encounter in all of your classes, care about the writing and the revision process, and, most importantly, have a significant amount of time to commit to the project during your senior year.
     
Students complete the thesis option in addition to the 64 units required for the major.  This means that students completing the thesis will complete the major with 72-76 units.

Applications for the Honor’s Program are available in the WMS office and from the advisers at the beginning of Spring Quarter.

We encourage students majoring in Women and Gender Studies to study abroad through the various programs offered by the Education Abroad Center. WGS students have participated in short term and year long programs in Spain, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Ireland, and India all while completing major and minor requirements. EAC and WGS advisers will work with students to find the programs and courses that best fulfill the students' needs.

Major Handbook | Major Checklist

WGS Minor

The WGS minor affords students the option of augmenting their study in another field by completing a minor in Women and Gender Studies. Students choosing to avail themselves of this option must successfully complete 24 units. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, will choose 5 upper-division courses that form a coherent thematic track.

Minor Checklist

Sponsored Minors and Concentrations

Sexuality Studies

The interdisciplinary minor in Sexuality Studies offers students the unique opportunity to study human-made aspects of sexual identities, desires, and practices, which differ across cultures and historical moments, and are not reducible to biology or anatomy.  The minor in Sexuality Studies core and elective courses have sexuality at their center. Additional courses invite students to integrate their study of sexuality with issues of gender; race and ethnicity; class; politics and activism; literature and popular culture; law; and other domains.

Sexuality Minor Checklist

Social and Ethnic Relations

The interdisciplinary minor in Social and Ethnic Relations explores the racial, ethnic, class and gender aspects of human relations in the modern world. Students study human societies and cultures from a multi-ethnic perspective and across established academic departmental lines.  The minor is jointly sponsored with African American and African Studies, Asian American Studies, and Native American Studies.

Social and Ethnic Relations Checklist

Undergraduate Research Program in Transnational Production and Consumption of Dress and Fashion

For Majors and Minors in Women and Gender Studies and Textiles and Clothing. If you are seeking more opportunities to do independent research or creative work under the guidance of a professor, this program is for you.

Fashion is situated at the center of burning issues that inextricably connect mass-mediated cultural representation, identity construction, design aesthetics, global trade and production, and professional and consumer ethics. While moralistic discourses dismiss it as trivial, fashion is both one of the major forms of aesthetic expression and identity construction in daily life, and a major object of disavowed obsession in our culture. In terms of production practices and treatment of garment producers, fashion is an urgent social and ethical issue.

Organized around the subject of the production and consumption of fashion, this program offers students instruction and guidance in doing research projects or video production on an array of topics: dress, textiles and body arts; constructions of race, gender, sexuality, class and nationality; subcultures and alternative identities; critiques of media and systems of representation; alternative media production and alternative modes of representing women’s bodies; the globalization of fashion production, working conditions and organizing struggles of garment workers’. You can approach the Fashion Research Program as a 1-, 2-, 3- or 4-year program. The program accepts applications throughout the academic year.