Ready to Launch Your Legacy?

Learn what a Liberal Arts degree can do for you.

The College of the Liberal Arts is the place to find your place.
Unlimited options and unwavering support to prepare you for life and any career you choose.
It all starts here.

Explore Undergraduate Degrees

Get
Funding

Find a
Resource

The place to find your place

Unlimited options and unwavering support to prepare you for life and any career you choose.

It all starts here.

Canvas outage Penn State and many other universities are currently experiencing a Canvas outage, related to an ongoing security incident affecting Instructure, the vendor that provides the Canvas platform. The University is actively working with Instructure to monitor the situation, assess potential impacts, and restore normal service as quickly as possible. Ongoing updates are available on Penn State News.

Explore Undergraduate Degrees

Get
Funding

Visit
Student Services

Meet our community

Get to know some of our talented Liberal Arts students, alumni, and faculty members. These stories highlight the diverse backgrounds and accomplishments of our community and the impact they are making.

Hamad Hussain named Liberal Arts college marshal for summer 2026 commencement

Hamad Hussain represented the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts and College of Earth and Mineral Sciences as college marshal at the 2026 summer commencement ceremony. The triple major in international politics, global and international studies, and energy business and finance said the recognition made all of his hard work worth it. “My Penn State education gave me the analytical, financial and geopolitical foundation I’ll rely on throughout my career,” he said.

Learn More About Summer 2026 Commencement

Penn State Liberal Arts students travel to Harrisburg for career exploration day

Over 60 Penn State students from the University Park and Harrisburg campuses traveled to Harrisburg for a day of networking, panel discussions, and lighting-round talks with local policymakers. Attendees were also able to explore opportunities and careers in government with policy professionals from across state government, municipal associations and consulting firms. “Having the opportunity to hear from those who had once been in my shoes provided me both a sense of comfort for the future as well as pride in the strength of Penn State learning and networking,” said Shahid Khan, a Master of Public Policy candidate. “I am glad to have shared in this experience with my peers.”

Jansen Hoffard explores transportation policy through Semester in Washington Program

Jansen Hoffard is one of eleven Penn State students that participated in the inaugural Liberal Arts Semester in Washington Program this past summer. Jansen worked as a policy intern with Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a nonprofit organization that helps advance research, employment and implementation of intelligent transportation systems, conducting legislative analyses, monitoring developments from the U.S. Department of Transportation, and attending events and hearings on Capitol Hill.

Learn More About the Semester in Washington Program

Students soak up Spanish culture on summer faculty-led program in Ronda

This past summer, a group of Penn State students traveled to Ronda, Spain and lived with local families, went on cultural excursions, and attended lectures about Spanish geography, culture, grammar and communication. Like others before them, the students traveled to the cities of Seville, Granada and Málaga, where they visited the Cathedral of Seville and La Giralda, the Real Alcazar, and the Alhambra, a palace and fortress complex in Granada.

Discover Faculty-Led Program Opportunities

Kleppinger Intern puts political science studies into practice in Harrisburg

Nikolas Papoutsis spent the summer interning with the Pennsylvania Chamber of Industry through the Kleppinger Internship Program. Nikolas was able to see how legislation works behind the scenes, from researching proposed legislation and drafting memos to attending events and supporting projects across Pennsylvania. “As a political science major, I gained a much better understanding of what happens in the real world beyond theory,” Nikolas said. “I also learned the importance of approaching situations with an open mind and considering different perspectives. That’s something I can bring back to my academic work and carry with me into future opportunities.”

Learn more about the Kleppinger Internship Program

Colleen McKenzie combines forensic science, Spanish through research abroad

Colleen spent the past summer in Barcelona with the IQAC-CSIC Nanomedicine for Therapeutic Applications group, where she was able to connect her two degrees, Spanish and forensic science, through scientific research in a Spanish-speaking professional environment. “It’s not common for me to be able to combine my professional scientific interests with my Spanish interests in State College,” Colleen said. “Being able to talk about things like DNA and genotyping in Spanish pushed me to learn how to express things I had only ever talked about in English.”

Learn more about Liberal Arts research

College of the Liberal Arts creates Department of Africana Studies

The reunification of the Department of African American Studies and the African Studies Program was approved and finalized in summer 2026. “This is a pivotal next step for Penn State and our college to take to strengthen the interdisciplinary study of Africa and people of African descent as a critical component of a liberal arts education,” said Clarence Lang, Susan Welch Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts. “The reunification heightens our ability to solidify the academic and scholarly interconnections between African and African American Studies and build on the complexities that a unified field can advance. It also aligns our approach with those taken being taken by our counterparts in the Big Ten and elsewhere and better positions us as leaders in the field in terms of student success and faculty productivity.”

Explore Their New Department Website

Chapel Intern gains global finance experience at World Bank Treasury

Daniel Garcia Calao spent the summer completing a rotational internship with World Bank Treasury through the Chapel Internship Program. There, he worked with three teams, gaining experience in pensions, asset and liability operations, and advisory services. “Sometimes interns can feel like the work they’re doing isn’t important,” Daniel said. “Seeing how something I worked on progressed showed me that the work I did provided value to the team.”

Learn more about the Chapel Internship Program

Pursue your passions

The College of the Liberal Arts is home to nearly 150 undergraduate majors, minors, integrated undergraduate-graduate degrees (IUGs), associate degrees, and certificates.
There is truly something for everyone.

Explore by Interest

Social Data Analytics

Anthropology
Anthropological Science
Communication Arts and Sciences
English
Psychology (Life Sciences Option or Neuroscience Option)
Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL)
Women’s Studies

A liberal arts major helped recent graduate John Miller develop a greater worldly perspective, improve his communication skills, and see how people experience life in different ways—traits that have benefitted the Paterno Fellow on his unique path to medical school. Read his story.

Explore by Discipline

Students in the humanities study how people process and document the human experience. Most majors in the humanities build widely transferable skills that employers appreciate and go on to be writers, counselors, event organizers, social media managers, fundraisers, travel bloggers, and more.

Explore humanities majors

The social sciences examine the relationships between individuals and societies, as well as the development and operation of societies. The critical thinking, research, and analytical skills gained in a social science major help prepare graduates for diverse job titles, including economist, psychologist, political scientist, historian, postsecondary teacher, museum curator, and social worker.

Explore social science majors

Intercultural communication, critical thinking and reasoning, cultural adaptability, information and trend analysis, and the other skills that drive the global economy, are in high demand today. Language graduates find jobs in tourism, international development, marketing, policy making, journalism, government, and more.

Explore language majors

Pursue your interests

Transforming Industry and Business

Leveraging AI and Other Technologies

Helping People

Creating Healthy Communities

Influencing
Culture and Media

Advancing
Justice and Democracy

Enacting
Social Change

Stewarding
our Planet

Building Global
Connections

Explore our Research

Discover how Liberal Arts research is making a difference across disciplines, and explore the impact we’re creating together.

Mark your calendar

The College of the Liberal Arts hosts more than 200 events
throughout the year for students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the community.
Visit our events calendar to see the full list of upcoming events.
Below are the annual student events.