The College of Arts & Sciences, Cornell University

Josephine Wilson: Biological Sciences

'You are exactly where you need to be'

5/15/2026 A&S Communications

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

‘Heritage Forensics’ investigates cultural heritage caught up in war

8/26/2026 A&S Communications

Psychology

Distinct neurons drive mice’s social sounds and squeaks

8/17/2026 Cornell Chronicle

glowing blue blobs against a dark blue background, including one large blog with a yellow and green center — Takumi Matsuzawa/Provided Membraneless organelles known as “condensates” form and disappear every day to help organize the biochemistry in our cells. This image captures in vitro condensates dissolving after a specific chemical is injected from the right. The color represents the concentration of the protein that makes up the condensates.

Physics

Cell biochemistry beyond membranes: The physics of condensates

8/14/2026 A&S Communications

A&S Dean to new students: ‘Ithaca isn’t the end of your journey, only the beginning’

8/21/2026 A&S Communications

>2000

Courses offered in A&S of 4000 courses at Cornell.

colorful burst of light: purple, yellow, orange — NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/CXC/Univ. of Ariz. A superdense neutron star is spewing out a blizzard of extremely high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula.

Astronomy

Public invited to ‘Friends of Astronomy’ symposium Sept. 17

8/19/2026 A&S Communications

Majors to choose in A&S. Design your education.

person watching a film — Provided Jeffrey Palmer watches one of the films he created at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

Performing and media arts

Professor, students produce films for Obama Presidential Center

8/25/2026 A&S Communications

~4,600

Students in A&S, each with an extraordinary journey to tell.

woman with white crown — Courtesy: Marvel Studios/Swank Motion Pictures Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022, dir. Ryan Coogler).

Cornell Cinema

From high school hijinks to film noir: Cornell Cinema unveils Fall 2026 season

8/25/2026 A&S Communications

>90K

A&S alumni in our network. Go Big Red!

Popular Destinations

Majors and Minors Admissions requirements and process Degree Requirements Advising Career Development

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.

Explore profiles of the Class of 2026

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.

Moral Psychology

minor

Overview

Moral psychology is an interdisciplinary academic area that welcomes students with diverse majors and interests who share a strong curiosity and concern about humankind, and a motivation to apply both humanistic and scientific lenses to age-old questions about human behavior. The minor adds broad academic value across Cornell. It identifies and centralizes relevant coursework; assists students in curating an academic plan for their moral psychology studies that builds on their strengths and interests; and offers unique research and community engagement opportunities that bring moral psychology to life.

Details

Comparative Literature

major minor graduate

Overview

As a comparative literature major, you’ll gain a critical and historical perspective on world literature and cultures, with the choice of two tracks. If you want to emphasize literature in your course work, take the comparative literary studies track; if you’re interested in studying literature and theory by integrating rigorous work in film, video or other arts and media, take the literary, visual and media studies track. The major’s broad range of courses provides a critical and historical perspective on world literature and cultures.

Details

Chemistry

major graduate

Overview

As a chemistry major, you’ll learn logical thinking and creative problem solving and can either dive deep following a traditional curriculum or pursue a flexible program that may be ideal for those with alternative career goals. The department’s research areas include inorganic, materials, organic, analytical and physical chemistry, as well as chemical biology.

Details

Anthropology

major minor graduate

Overview

As an anthropology major, you’ll study the complex social and cultural relationships that define human communities and learn how to conduct engaged, collaborative, field-based research. You’ll be able to investigate topics ranging from identity politics and globalization to the origins of agriculture and the rise of empires. The settings you’ll explore can take you from the lowland rain forest of ancient Mesoamerica to the mountains of the Himalayas, from prisons in Latin America to a synagogue on New York City’s Lower East Side, from medical research centers in Tanzania to the colonial era Finger Lakes.

Details

Latin American Studies

minor

Overview

With a minor in Latin American studies, you’ll explore issues and topics pertaining to Latin America with courses from various fields of study including music, politics, economics, feminist studies, archeology, theatre, art history, language, literature, architecture, agriculture, science and history.

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

Astronomy Data Science

minor

Overview

Research in astronomy is making rapidly increasing use of analysis methods that draw from developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning with a strong basis in Bayesian statistics. The overarching questions raised in astronomical science are attractive to students from a wide range of disciplines and can provide the motivation for learning the fundamentals of data science as they are applied to the astronomical domain.

Researchers in the Astronomy Department are involved with specific projects involving large empirical and simulation data sets: spacecraft imaging data from solar system missions, spacecraft survey data for exoplanets, sky surveys at radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths, data sets from gravitational wave detectors, and cosmological simulations of large scale structure in the universe. These data sets will provide attractive contexts for learning and applying modern analysis methods.

Details

Theatre

minor

Overview

With a minor in theatre, you can focus on areas that interest you within the theory and practice of live performance: acting and directing for stage production; theatre history, theory and criticism; and theatre design and technologies. Students with a primary interest in theatre can incorporate that into the PMA major.

Details

Spanish

major minor graduate

Overview

As a Spanish major, you’ll have the opportunity to explore in-depth the languages, literatures and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. You’ll be invited to engage with topics as various as medieval sin and modern film, novels from early modern Spain (most famously, Don Quixote) and from modern Latin America. You’ll also be encouraged to study abroad and to reflect critically upon the diversity that characterizes the Hispanic tradition.

Details

Viking Studies

minor

Overview

In the early Middle Ages, Norse peoples (popularly called Vikings) surged out of Scandinavia and established themselves as settlers and rulers across Europe. Beyond their political and territorial gains, they raided and traded even more widely. These major achievements were commemorated and celebrated in an extensive corpus of historical and fictional texts, many available in English translation. With a Viking Studies minor, you will explore this history and literature, languages and archaeology from an interdisciplinary perspective, and will gain an appreciation for the period and its long-term consequences. The minor encourages combining coursework abroad and locally, allowing students to take advantage of Cornell’s unique resources.

Details

Explore all the majors and minors

Beyond Majors & Minors

Two people sit facing each other — Michael Goldstein/Provided College Scholars Program students from the College of Arts & Sciences visit the Johnson Museum.

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.

More details about the College Scholar Program

woman outside courthouse — Jesse Winter Louise Wang outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where she worked this summer, in New York City.

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.

Learn more about the program

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.

See the Milstein Program at work

student in front of building — Amina Kilpatrick

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.

Discover life-changing summer experiences

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.

Explore our research, scholarship and creative works

Person in blue lab coat, standing at a counter full of instruments and bottles — Chris Kitchen Alexa Easley is working to develop materials for low-energy carbon capture that are organic and easy to make on large scales and in realistic conditions.

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.

Learn more about the Klarman Fellowships.

two people working behind a computer — Chris Kitchen Students Sneah Singhi ’26, left, and David Behdad ’25 work in the observation room at the B.A.B.Y Lab, which studies infant language acquisition.

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.

Explore more details about Nexus Scholars

Engaging our community and our world

two women sitting on stage — Chris Kitchen Anderson, left, and Peraino, right traced the arc of Anderson's multi-decade career.

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.

Explore recent and upcoming Arts Unplugged events.

Person speaking at the front of a room — Noël Heaney/Cornell University Natalie Wolchover speaks March 15 in Lewis Auditorium.

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.

Learn more about the program.

Explore public engagement at A&S