What will I learn?
Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary program that investigates how our lives are affected by gender race, class, age, sexuality, religion, (dis)ability, gender identity, and nationality. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies emphasizes the importance of understanding gender as a part of wider social and political structures of power, knowledge, experience, culture, embodiedness, intimacy, and labor. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies courses are organized around contemporary feminist research and theory, and focus intersectionally on women, gender, and sexuality as subjects of inquiry. Our coursework also focuses on how theory and practice come together. Students may choose from courses spanning departments, disciplines, divisions and ideologies. The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program provides a context in which women's work and women's issues are explored in-depth, celebrating women's creativity, women's lives, and women's work. In Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, students find an active and supportive community, close interaction with faculty, opportunities to take on leadership roles, and an academic program that allows them to cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries. Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies graduates gain knowledge, self-awareness, intercultural competency, and breadth of perspective, which are valuable in their own right and which public service organizations, private industry, government, and graduate schools need. And the employment picture is bright: comparisons of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies graduates with female college graduates nationwide show an edge for WGS students in both traditional and non-traditional career fields. Recent graduates have gone on to law school, graduate school in many fields, public service and private sector careers, political leadership positions, and teaching in both K–12 and higher education.
